In Discovering Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 6, 1999....that turned the little sub’s screw, pushing it at perhaps 4 knots toward the kiss of immor-tality. Young Lt. George Dixon, standing

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK OFFUTT

In Discovering Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 6, 1999.

Underwater WarriorsExploring the Wreck of the Confederacy’s ‘Submarine Boat’

by Christopher Amer & Mark K. Ragan


sailor on the deck of the USS Housatonic sawin the moonlight a sight that would chill the

hearts of mariners for generations to come.A dark, metallic cylinder rose above the black water. It left a faint, sparkling wake as itclosed on the Housatonic. The hapless sailor was the first ever to see the silent, dead-ly approach of an enemy submarine. ❦ Inside the H.L. Hunley that cold, Februarynight in 1864, eight seated men rocked back and forth monotonously, working a crankthat turned the little sub’s screw, pushing it at perhaps 4 knots toward the kiss of immor-tality. Young Lt. George Dixon, standing at the forward hatch, watched the Housatonicgrow larger and larger, until its wooden side filled the tiny porthole.

Rudder

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Aft Ballast Tank

The HunleyLength: 39 feet, 6 inchesWidth: 3 feet, 10 inchesHull height: 4 feet, 3 inchesWeight: 7.5 tonsSurface speed: 4 knotsCrew: 9

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Bullets pinged off the conning towerand the sub’s iron hull. The ship’s crewslipped the anchor and tried desperatelyto escape the sinister craft. Then theHunley struck. Her 22-foot (6.7-meter)

spar hit the Housatonic with a thud,embedding the harpoonlike tip below thewaterline. Most of the 155 officers andmen of the Housatonic must have felt it —and knew what it meant. The boom held135 pounds (61 kilograms) of explosives.

The Hunley’s crew reversed directionand backed frantically away from theirspeared prey. A rope line played out fromthe bomb. When the rope went taut, the“torpedo” exploded.

The Housatonic went to the bottom.So did the Hunley.

Thus ended the world’s first successfulcombat attack by a submarine onFebruary 17, 1864, about four miles (6.4

kilometers) off the South Carolina coast,just north of Charleston. Despite theConfederacy’s high hopes, the attack hadno effect on the outcome of the CivilWar. The naval blockade of Charlestonand the rest of the Southern coast con-tinued unabated.

The Union’s Housatonic burned for sev-eral minutes before earning the dubiousdistinction of being the first ship eversunk by a submarine in wartime. All but

five of its crew escaped.As for the Hunley — well, no one real-

ly knows. Confederate lookouts on shorereported sighting the sub’s blue lamp —the “mission accomplished” signal. They

lit a signal fire to guide the boat in. Butthe Hunley never came home, and themystery of its fate has lingered ever since.

The most abiding puzzle is just what

The Housatonic went to the bottom. So did the Hunley.

Aft Hatch

Hand-crankedPropeller Shaft

Captain

ForwardBallast Tank

Detonation Rope

Wooden Spar

Torpedo

5’6”

Forward Hatch

CharlestonHarbor

Approximate location of the

Hunley’s attackon the Housatonic

CharlestonCharleston

SullivansIslandSullivansIsland

FortSumterFortSumter

The Hunley, as seen inthis artist’s rendering,was a tight squeeze forits crew. Even with thesmaller average maleheight of the Civil Warera, the cross-secionalview shows how uncom-fortable the vessel musthave been.

MOVED BALLASTTANK BOX


killed the Hunley. A Confederate board ofinquiry concluded that the submarinesurvived its attack on Housatonic, thensank later for unknown reasons.

Among the possibilities: One of itsglass ports was shot out by small-arms

fire during the attack; the force of theexplosion popped rivets in the hull andthe sub slowly filled with water; the ves-sel was swamped when the hatch wasopened to signal its success.

Accurate answers may be on their

way. The Hunley has been found — intactand apparently well-preserved —underabout 3 feet (one meter) of mud in 27feet (8.2 meters) of murky water outsideCharleston Harbor. Efforts to plan andfinance raising the Hunley are under way.

The Hunley earned, at great price, its place in the his-tory of submarine warfare. But the story of under-

water boats begins more than two centuries earlier. Theidea of invisible attackers that ambush mighty warshipsfrom beneath the waves has an undeniable allure.

In 1578, British mathematician William Bourne pro-posed an under-water boat thatcould submergeand surface byflexing and con-tracting the hull.Nothing like itwas ever built.

But by 1624,the Dutch inventorCornelius vanDrebel actuallybuilt an underwa-ter rowboat Ñ a submarine cov-ered with waterproof leather andpropelled by oars mounted inwatertight seals. It moved about suc-cessfully some 16 feet (five meters) beneath the surfaceof BritainÕs Thames River. Several other submarine boatswere tried in the seventeenth century, but they met withmixed success.

The first submarine to see combat was built inConnecticut during the American Revolution. YaleUniversity graduate David Bushnell built the Turtle, anoak vessel reinforced with iron bands. The one-personTurtle was about 7 feet, 6 inches (2.3 meters) high andshaped like an upended walnut. Its propeller wascranked by hand.

The plan was for Turtle to secretly move alongside theHMS Eagle, one of the British warships besieging New

York, then use a screw device to attach a gunpowdercharge to the shipÕs hull. The sub would retreat before atiming device set off the mine.

Turtle actually attacked the ship in historyÕs first sub-marine assault. But it had to withdraw in frustrationwhen the screw could not bore through the hull to place

the charge. Thepotential of sub-marine warfarewas, nonetheless,clear.

The UnitedStates tried againin the War of1812, sending asub described asÒ t u r t l e - l i k e Óagainst HMSRamillies off New

London, Connecticut. This time thescrew pierced the copper plate onthe hull, only to break off before themine was attached.

Meanwhile, Robert Fulton, who would invent thesteamboat in 1807, built a submarine in 1801 inFrance for Napoleon. The copper-skinned Nautilus,which was hand-cranked, pioneered several still-usedfeatures: It put a conning tower with a glass porthole onthe hull, submerged by filling its ballast tanks withwater, and maneuvered with a horizontal rudder, or div-ing plane.

The Nautilus, planned as an attack submarine, didnÕtgenerate much interest in France, so Fulton took his ideato England and was just as frustrated. The steamboatworked out much better, but the history of the submarinemostly went on hold until the American Civil War. M RL

The Trail of the SubmarineFrom Underwater Rowboats to Invisible AttackersThe Trail of the SubmarineFrom Underwater Rowboats to Invisible Attackers

This picture of the Revolutionary War’ssubmarine, described by the artist as“tolerably accurate,” was drawn a cen-tury after the Turtle went to war.

1875

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Attempts to locate the Hunley begansoon after the Civil War. Chains weredragged over the seafloor around theHousatonic wreckage to no effect.Showman P.T. Barnum offered $100,000for recovery of the sub; but the moneywas not claimed, and the Hunley wasnever found — until May 3, 1995.

Searching for Iron

In 1980-81, the National UnderwaterMarine Agency (NUMA), sponsored

by author Clive Cussler, received a statelicense to search for the Hunley. ANUMA vessel crisscrossed the suspected

patch of Atlantic Ocean with a magne-tometer — a device, widely used byseagoing archaeologists, that spots mag-netic spikes (anomalies) that indicateconcentrations of metal.

The team turned up a number ofunsought shipwrecks over the years, butthe Hunley eluded them. Then, in May1995, during a joint venture with theSouth Carolina Institute of Archaeologyand Anthropology, NUMA divers —investigating previously dismissed anom-alies — found the 39-foot, 6-inch (12-meter) hull of the Hunley.

The following year, the SouthCarolina Hunley Commission and theNavy/Naval Historical Center launcheda jointly funded, six-week survey of theHunley to document the site and the con-dition of the hull and to evaluate the fea-sibility of raising the submarine.

The expedition uncovered about athird of the hull. Archaeologists found

the hatches shut, the interior filled withsand and silt, and the hull encased withina sand- and shell-concretion. The subappears to be completely intact, althoughwith some damage to the forward hatch.

Examination on the inner workings ofthe submarine will have to wait until it isbrought to the surface — a daunting taskin itself — in 2001. And even then,removing the encrustation that covers allbut the glass view ports and “deadlights”and sifting through the silt, artifacts, andhuman remains inside will be a lengthyand meticulous process. A score of yearsmay pass before this maritime treasuregives up its secrets.

A Deadly Experiment

The Hunley was a remarkably sophis-ticated and well-designed craft, yet

it proved it to be a death trap for every

The Confederate submarine Hunleyintroduced design innovations stillused in underwater craft. The horizon-tal fins (upper left corner) are precur-sors of modern diving planes. Thisreplica is at the Charleston Museum.

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crew that manned it. Twenty-two mendied as the sub sank three times.Southern General P.G.T. Beauregardconcluded: “It is more dangerous to thosewho use it than to the enemy.”

The Third Try

The Hunley was the third in a series ofsubmersibles built by Louisiana

merchants Horace Hunley, JamesMcClintock, and Baxter Wilson. Thefirst, a clumsy-looking boat calledPioneer, was built in New Orleans in1861. It convinced her inventors andmilitary authorities that a surface vesselcould be attacked by a craft thatremained hidden beneath the waves.

The inventors scuttled that first sub asUnion forces prepared to enter the city,and they fled to Mobile, Alabama. Therethey began work on a more-formidablesubmarine boat. After several failedattempts to propel their new submersiblewith an electric motor and a small steamengine, they installed a hand crankdesigned to be turned by four men.

But this American Diver sank inFebruary 1863, while being towed instormy seas near the mouth of MobileBay. Then the inventors teamed with agroup of Southern engineers with closeties to the Confederacy’s Secret Service.

A third submarine boat, designed for acrew of nine and christened the H.L.Hunley, was completed in July 1863, andsent to Charleston, which was underbombardment by blockading Unionships. The Hunley sank twice on test-and-training dives, killing 13 crewmen(including Hunley). Both mishaps were

The years have not been kind to the USS Housatonic.The Union sloop of war ended the Civil War on the

bottom of the Atlantic, with five of her crew, off the coastof South Carolina Ñ the first ship ever sunk in combatby a submarine.

A decade later, its battered hull was deemed a haz-ard to navigation and was blown apart. The U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers blasted the shattered remnantsagain in 1909 to clear a path for shipping. WhatÕs leftis a challenge for undersea archaeologists, who beganexcavating the martyred ship this past summer.

All that remains of the 1,240-pound (563-kilogram)steam sloop is buried under more than 5 feet (1.5meters) of sand, shell, and mud; but uncovering thedebris could shed new light on the brief, historicengagement of February 17, 1864, and could lead toa richer appreciation of life on the Union blockade dur-ing the War Between the States.

After being torpedoed by the Confederate submarineH.L. Hunley, Housatonic sank in less than five minutes,its stern virtually blown away by the 135-pound (61-kilogram) charge. Moments later the Hunley itself sank,presumably with all hands.

USS Housatonic, a 207-foot-long (63-meter-long)warship built in a record 90 days, was launched atBoston, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1861. It washeavily armed with 12 big guns, including a 100-pounder, Parrot rifled cannon. After a brief and variedcareer, Housatonic joined Admiral DalgrenÕs blockadeof Charleston, South Carolina.

Few details are known about the Housatonic, but plansexist of its sister ship, USS Ossippee. Archaeologists usedthese plans to locate the three test excavations on theburied wreckage Ñ one near the bow of the ship and theother two slightly forward of the stern, where blast dam-age from Hunley’s torpedo was concentrated.

Remembering the VictimExcavations Uncover Remains of a Sunken Union WarshipRemembering the VictimExcavations Uncover Remains of a Sunken Union Warship

Divers discovered the Hunley buriedunder the murky waters off Charles-ton Harbor. This is the sub’s forwardconning tower, cleared of sediment.

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The excavation was conducted by archaeologistsfrom the Naval Historical CenterÕs UnderwaterArchaeology Branch and the South Carolina Institute ofArchaeology and AnthropologyÕs UnderwaterArchaeology Division, with assistance from theNational Park ServiceÕs Submerged Cultural ResourceUnit and the South Carolina Department of NaturalResourcesÕ Marine Resources Division.

In the bow, we located two of the shipÕs water tanks,which helped determine that the ship was pointed north-west at the time of sinking. From this area, we recov-ered personal effects of the crew, including six bootsand a wood-and-lead pencil. The crewÕs quarters werelocated directly above the water tanks, and their per-sonal effects probably settled in the hull as, over time,the upper decks collapsed.

Among the scattered wreckage, we found a host ofartifacts that attest to the events on that cold, February

night 135 years ago. Leather shoes remind us of the ter-ror and confusion of those last moments as the ship set-tled to the seafloor, and the crew, some of them halfnaked, took to the rigging or were washed overboard.

We found ordnance fuses and a pistol from the shipÕsarmaments; copper drift pins, once used to hold thewooden hull together and now twisted into pretzel-likeshapes by the blasts; and large quantities of coal for thesteam boilers in all three test trenches we excavated.Also recovered was a wrecking bar that may have beenused by divers to pry apart the blasted metal during the1870 or 1909 demolitions.

The 1999 survey of the stricken vessel gave archae-ologists an opportunity to confirm that an extensiveamount of this historically significant warship still exists.Excavating and interpreting the remains will help uscomplete the story of that February night, 1864, whensubmarine warfare began. M CA

The HousatonicWeight: 1,240 tonsLength: 207 feetWidth: 38 feetCrew: 155

The Hunley to scale


blamed on human error, however; andthe sub was salvaged, repaired, and sentback to sea with a new volunteer crew.

The boat was built of a steam boilercut lengthwise and widened, then fittedwith rounded sections fore and aft. Twoconning towers were added near eachend. The propeller was cranked by eightmen and controlled by a horizontal rud-der, a device now called a dive plane.The Hunley submerged by filling ballasttanks fore and aft with water; it surfacedby pumping out the water.

Running Out of Air

The sub had no source of fresh airwhen submerged. Its crew simply

breathed the air trapped in the watertighthull and surfaced when they used it up.The boat could run submerged for morethan two hours.

Despite written records describing thisunique secret weapon, surprisingly little is

actually known about theboat itself, which, after all,may have been under thecontrol of the Secret Service.Historical descriptions andillustrations differ in reportingthe shape and dimensions ofthe submarine, and even thepreliminary archaeologicalresearch contradicts contem-porary accounts. Accuratedetails must await examina-tion of the hull and interior.

So far, we know the sub-marine is longer than previ-ously thought: 39 feet, 6 inch-es (12 meters) from bow tostern, excluding the rudderand propeller, which mightadd another 4 feet (1.2meters). And the boat is only3 feet, 10 inches (1.17 meters)wide and 4 feet, 3 inches (1.3meters) from the top of thehull to the bottom of the keel,not the 5 feet (1.5 meters)seen in historical records.

Today, plans are in full swing to bringup this historic boat by the year 2001 forscholars to study and the public to appre-ciate. The South Carolina HunleyCommission has set up a not-for-profitorganization called “Friends of the Hunley”to raise some $17 million to retrieve theboat, conserve it, and display the com-pleted hull in an appropriate exhibition.All this will take place in Charleston,where the Hunley operated and was lost.

The U.S. Navy and South Carolinaagreed in 1996 that the Hunley will remainthe property of the federal government,but will be kept in South Carolina, whichwill have custody in perpetuity.

And what of the Hunley’s crew?Researchers expect to find the remains ofthe last crew still entombed within thehull. The remains of four members of thefirst lost crew were recently found in acommon grave beneath the Citadel mili-tary college in Charleston, while thebodies of the second crew lie buried inMagnolia Cemetery, just north of

Charleston. Eventually, all three crewswill be interred at Magnolia with full mil-itary honors, reunited in death.

The War Between the States was aproving ground for improvement in awide variety of weaponry — rifled guns,naval armor, and mine technology, toname a few. Many of the achievementsof the industrial and scientific revolu-tion were applied on a large scale to thefields of conflict.

The submarine, particularly H.L.Hunley, was arguably the most dramaticnaval weapon introduced during theconflict. Scholars are only now begin-ning to understand the depth of subma-rine research being conducted by boththe North and South throughout thistumultuous period. And the Hunley’splace in that history is secure as the firstsubmarine to succeed at its grim task:sinking an enemy ship in combat. M

CHRISTOPHER AMER is Deputy StateArchaeologist for Underwater at the SouthCarolina Institute for Archaeology andAnthropology.

MARK K. RAGAN is an archaeologist and com-puter programmer in Maryland. He has written sev-eral books on the H.L. Hunley and continues toresearch early underwater technology. He also runsa submarine piloting school.

The CSS Hunley: The Greatest Undersea Adventure of theCivil War, Richard Bak. Dallas: Taylor Publishing,1999.Danger Beneath the Waves: A History of the ConfederateSubmarine H. L. Hunley, James E. Kloeppel.Orangeburg: Sandlapper Publishing Inc., 1987.The Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, & Success in the CivilWar, Mark K. Ragan. Charleston: Narwhal Press,1996.The Navy Times Book of Submarines: A Political, Social,and Military History, Brayton Harris. New York:Berkley, 1977.Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the CivilWar, Mark K. Ragan. Campbell, CA: SavasPublishing Co., 1999.

Fur ther reading

CSS Hunley Recovery Information at Civil War @Charleston:www.awod.com/gallery/probono/cwchas/hun-ley.html

South Carolina Institute for Archaeology andAnthropology’s Hunley Updates:www.cla.sc.edu/sciaa/hunley1.html

On the web

The Hunley, ramming theHousatonic, attached the torpedo at theend of the spar to the warship’s hull.

The torpedo now lodged in the hull,the Hunley backs away, playing outa 150-foot rope connected tothe torpedo.

When the rope tight-ened, it activated thetorpedo, blowing ahole in theHousatonic’s hull.

The AttackThe Attack


Documents

In Discovering Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 6, 1999....that turned the little sub’s screw, pushing it at perhaps 4 knots toward the kiss of immor-tality. Young Lt. George Dixon, standing