“Accounts of the Hunley’s sinking had assumed horrific scenes of the men trying to claw their way through the thick iron hatches, or huddled in the fetal position beneath the crew bench in their agony. Sinkings of modern submarines always resulted in the discovery of the dead clustered near the exits in their desperate efforts to escape their cold metal coffins, because to sit silently and await one’s own demise simply defies human nature. The crew of the Hunley, however, looked quite different. Each man was still seated peacefully at his station.””
The First Combat Submarine to Sink a Warship
On the night of February 17, 1864, an immense explosion took down the USS Housatonic, a massive warship that was part of the Federal forces’ twenty vessel blockade of the Charleston harbor. Yet the destruction came seemingly out of nowhere, as eyewitnesses in the crew claimed their only warning was the sight of a dark cigar shaped vessel headed straight towards them. What they soon found out was that this sloop-of-war was the victim of the first successful submarine attack in modern warfare.
Unfortunately for the crew of the H.L. Hunley, who carried out this historic mission, the Confederate submarine did not make it back to shore, giving way to a century old mystery– what happened to the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley and why did it go down in the fight?
Additional Links From This Episode:
Visit the H.L. Hunley on weekends in Charleston, South Carolina.
Watch Drain the Oceans: Season 2, Episode 5 - Secrets of the Civil War on the Disney Plus.
Sources:
Brimelow, Benjamin. “The first submarine to sink a warship was more deadly for its own crew than for the enemy.” Business Insider, February 17, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-civil-war-submarine-hunley-first-sub-to-sink-warship-2021-2.
Curry, Andrew. “A Civil War Time Capsule from the Sea.” June 24, 2007. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2007/06/24/a-civil-war-time-capsule-from-the-sea
Duncan, Ruth H. The Captain and the Submarine CSS H.L. Hunley. Memphis, TN: S.C. Toof & Company, 1965.
The Friends of the Hunley. “The Friends of the Hunley.” 2021. https://www.hunley.org/
“H. L. Hunley (submarine).” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. Washington DC: US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1978. Accessed at https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/
Hicks, Brian. “One-Way Mission of the H. L. Hunley.” January 2014. U. S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2014/january/one-way-mission-h-l-hunley
Hicks, Brian. “Rewriting history: Discovery alters legend of doomed sub Hunley.” Updated December 8, 2016. The Post and Courier. https://www.postandcourier.com/archives. https://www.postandcourier.com/archives/rewriting-history-discovery-alters-legend-of-doomed-subhunley-submarine-lifted/article_ebecd2a4-9288-51c7-b6e2-5f26ade4090b.html
Hicks, Brian and Schuyler Kropf. Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine. New York: Ballantine Publishing, 2002.
Lance, Rachel. In the Waves: My Quest to Solve the Mystery of a Civil War Submarine. New York: Penguin Randomhouse LLC, 2020.
Lance, Rachel M., Lucas Stalcup, Brad Wojtylak, and Cameron R. Bass. “Air blast injuries killed the crew of the H.L. Hunley.” PLoS One, 12 no. 8 (2017). Accessed December 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182244
Roberts, Nancy. Ghosts from the Coasts. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Spence, Edward Lee. Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The "Real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations. Miami, FL: Narwhal Press, 1991.
Stewart, Charles W. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion: Series 1 - Vol. 15. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902. Google Books. https://books.google.com https://www.google.com/books/edition/Official_Records_of_the_Union_and_Confed/Bl1AAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1#spf=1584657754154
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Walker, Sally. Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, 2015.
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