Bayou St. John Submarine

A Submarine of Unknown Origins

In 1878, a dredge crew working near the mouth of Bayou St. John in New Orleans uncovered a twenty-foot-long iron submarine.  For years people thought the sub was the CSS Pioneer, the first of three submarines built by Horace Hunley, but in reality, the ship’s origin is still unknown to this day. Join us as we explore some of the theories and facts behind this Civil War mystery.

This minisode is a companion to The Mystery of the Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley.

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ADDITIONAL LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• View images of the Bayou St. John Submarine on the Louisiana State Museum’s Online Exhibit: Civil War Era Submarine.

• Check out the history behind the Old Spanish Fort in New Orleans in the video Lost Amusement Parks.

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Sources:

Haines, Matt. “Today a picturesque waterway, Bayou St. John once harbored a Civil War Submarine.” The Advocate (New Orleans, La), May 14, 2019. https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/article_3f3c6e2b-e7d1-588c-bf35-237196179342.html. 

Lambousy, Greg. Monster of the Deep: The Louisiana State Museum’s Civil War Era Submarine. Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, 2006.

“Civil War Era Submarine.” Copyright 2018. Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-museum/online-exhibits/civil-war-era-submarine/.

Mystery of the Confederate Submarine

“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.””

— Rachel Vance, In the Waves

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.

• Check out the 1999 Made for TV movie, The Hunley on IMDB.

• 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

Still, William N., Jr. “A Naval Sieve: The Union Blockade in the Civil War.” Naval War College Review 36, no. 3 (May-June 1983): 38-45. JSTOR.

Walker, Sally. Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley.  Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books,  2015.

Whipple, John. “The Birth of Undersea Warfare - HL Hunley.” Undersea Warfare, 2006. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20121016165452/http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_32/hunley.html