BACK THEN
The H.L. Hunley
Photo: Naval Historical Center
This Civil War era submarine may be most known for the number of times it sank. It sank five times taking most of the seven-man crews and lieutenants for a total of 45 casualties. The Hunley was not the first submarine. There had been experimental subs, including the Yale College-designed Turtle, the one-man craft used during the American Revolution. These early subs, including the Hunley, were powered with manual labor. In the H.L. Hunley, the crew stood shoulder to shoulder along the drive shaft. Shaped like the drive shaft in an automobile engiine, each crewman gripped it like a human connecting rod and piston, turning the shaft that turned the propeller.
The Hunley was the first sub to sink an active warship. But the first considered to be a true submarine is the Holland, built in 1897. It was powered bay a steam engine and electric battery for practical underwater movement.
The Hunley was built by New Orleans lawyer, and member of the Louisiana legislature, Horace L. Hunley with his own money. In 1861 he had built a two-man, iron-plated sub, but it was scuttled. A second sub, the Hunley, was built in Mobile; it dove and didn't surface with its seven-man crew. In 1863 he took his latest sub to Charleston by rail and offered it to Confederate general Beauregard. Hunley thought the many Union warships blockading the harbor would make good targets. While at her wharf the 20-foot Hunley, with side control fins and water ballast tanks, was swamped by a passing freighter and sank. Six crewmen were drowned.
Horace Hunley then went to Charleston to work on the sub and do preliminary test cruising. The Hunley dove, buried her bow in the mud and didn't come up – for the fourth time. Mr. Hunley and the crew were lost. She was raised again and while making a practice run against a dummy ship became entangled in the ship's anchor chain, effectively sunk, the whole crew was lost.
Somehow another crew was assembled. In February, 1864 with a new spar torpedo (a bomb attached to the end of a bowsprit) the Hunley went into the harbor intent on sinking the large cruiser Housatonic. Attacking on the surface, she made a direct hit. The Housatonic went down in five minutes, its crew climbed into the rigging which remained above the water. But the first submarine in history to sink a warship was flooded by the back wash from its sinking victim. Once again it sank, taking its lieutenant and the whole crew.
The fate of the Hunley remained a mystery for 131 years. In May 1995, author Clive Cussler located her wreck. On August 8, 2000, after considerable planning, the H.L. Hunley was raised and taken to a conservation center at the former Charleston Naval Base.
More about Raising The Hunley . . .