Propulsion was accomplished by seven men hand-cranking a shaft that turned a single screw propeller. The crew sat on a narrow 18-foot plank running along the port side and the men sat with their backs against the inside hull. The crew turned a crank attached to the starboard side in a circular motion mimicking, to some degree, a short-stroke rowing motion. The crank, or drive shaft, was connected to a differential gear-type box that increased the turns of the screw propeller thusly increasing speed. The men, all sitting on one side of the boat, would have created a weight dispersal issue, however, the cramped conditions required the men to hunch over the boat's center line towards starboard. The physics of this weight shift righted the boat perhaps by design or luck. Once the men were seated, the space would not allow anyone to move inside the craft.
To dive the boat, the first and last crewman simultaneously were ordered to open their sea cocks, allowing water to fill the forward and aft ballast tanks. Once submerged, the boat was a few feet below the surface but the craft had held enough oxygen to stay submerged for about thirty minutes. When the commander decided it was time to ascend, the boats same two crewmen would close the sea cocks and crank the pumps, forcing water from the ballast tanks. Once on the surface, the hatches could be opened to replenish the fresh air into the boat. This allowed the commander to check the boats location and make any course corrections.
Hunley had left the partners while traveling on unknown business while the boat sat and did little but drill. General Beauregard had felt the boat shown great promise but the inactivity of the submarine against Union ships in Charleston Harbor changed his mind. He ordered the boat be seized by the Confederate Navy and manned by a volunteer crew. The partners felt it was pointless to complain and they would at least be compensated for monies spent on the craft, this now totaling $27,500. The Confederate navy sent Lt John Payne, having ironclad experience, and Lt. Charles Hasker, who served on the CSA Virginia when she battled the USS Monitor. Lt. Payne and the crew became accustomed to the craft over time and received cheers from onlookers when the boat would submerge on one side of the harbor and reappear on the other.
On August 29th, 1863 Lt Payne ordered the boat tied up to the CSS Etowah - or perhaps the boat became entangled to her anchor chain - as the submarine began to sink with both hatches open. She sank by the head to the bottom of the harbor some 40 feet deep. The entire crew was onboard at the time and five of the men drowned while Lt's Hasker and Payne, along with one seaman, had managed to escape. The fate of the craft hit the navy hard with many ships providing members for the crew. General Beauregard, hearing of the event, ordered the fish torpedo craft raised. The navy paid a salvage company $7,000 to raise the boat and $400 to remove the five bloated bodies, these needing their arms and legs amputated so they could be removed through the small hatches. She was pumped out, cleaned and returned to Lt. Payne on September 11th, 1863.
The H.L. Hunley
Within days of her raising, Horace Lawson Hunley had returned to Charleston, South Carolina and upon, hearing of the sinking, sent a letter to General Beauregard that he was part owner of the submarine. He proposed to the General that the boat be placed in his hands and furnished with a capable crew so he could sink Federal ships in the harbor. Beauregard had Lt. Payne dismissed and turned the boat and crew over to Horace Hunley at the expense of the Confederate Navy. Horace painted the craft's name "H.L.Hunley" on the side of the hull.
Lt Dixon of the Confederate Army had been involved with the project for some time and maintained some interest in the craft. He was the logical choice to command the boat and, with the new crew, they practiced for weeks until Dixon was satisfied that all was ready for action. Dixon had been called away for the day on October 15th, 1863. Horace Hunley then took command and decided on a mock attack against the sloop CSS Indian Chief. Several hundred feet away, Hunley submerged with the craft heading for the ship. Many watched from the shore as the submarine never surfaced on the other side - she sank in 42 feet of water, killing Horace Hunley and his seven-man crew.
General Beauregard felt the craft was dangerous unto itself but still might be used to break the Federal blockade so he had the Hunley raised once again. Once raised, the cause was found to be the bow sea cock had been opened and the ballast weight drove the boat into the mud on the bottom. The men were removed from the ship by five slaves that were also ordered to clean the boat with soap and lime. The crew's effects and monies found were sent to relatives. Horace Hunley had left a letter that the bulk of his property, worth about $48,000, would be left to his sister Volumnia Barrow. On November 12th, Lt Dixon asked General Beauregard for one more chance to sink a ship using the Hunley. Due to the continuing blockade, Dixon would get his way.
A new crew was needed now that the Hunley had been raised and was given a new mission. Over the coming weeks she was repaired and the inside painted white to reflect any light that would come through the small port windows. General Beauregard made it clear that when volunteers were found they would be told of the deaths of the last two crews. The CSS Indian Chief was in the harbor acting as a receiver ship for new navy recruits. Dixon was allowed to board the ship and, telling all of the submarines past and current mission, plead his case. Only four stepped forward - Frank Collins, Joseph F. Ridgaway, James A. Wicks, and Arnold Becker. Three other volunteers were found and these were Corporal C. F. Carlsen, C. Lumpkin, and a Mr. Miller. Shakedown training with the new crew continued for weeks and, since the navy had not furnished a towing ship, they powered the vessel themselves, only managing 4 knots or less based on Dixon's best calculations.
Armament
The original partners felt the best torpedo option was in towing a torpedo or floating mine with a contact fuse behind the submarine, diving underneath and coming up on the other side to have the contact fuse on the explosive detonate. The negative with this method was that the rope connecting the torpedo could come afoul with the submarine's own screw or drift into the submarine itself instead of the targeted ship. The new decision was to replace the towed torpedo with a spar torpedo, this connected to the bow with a water-tight cask containing gunpowder.
The submarine would ram the 22-foot iron pipe spar into the vessel 6-feet under the waterline and then pull back. The spar with the cask of explosive would detach from the submarine. It would sit harpooned into the enemy ship. Some entertained designs used a cord that deployed as the submarine reversed course and, using a mechanical trigger at a safe distance, detonated the gunpowder. Another advanced detonation method was to electrically detonate the charge using a spool of copper wire instead of the cord and this would be connected to a battery inside the craft itself. The commander would then decide when to detonate the charge. The second method was selected for the Hunley.
Sinking the USS Housatonic
Lt Dixon and his crew looked for their target carefully when trying to disrupt the Federal blockade of Charleston Harbor. The ironclads and monitors in the harbor were the closest for the submarine to attack but held chain booms around them for protection. Lt Dixon, therefore, had to look at ships outside of the harbor. Planning was necessary and Lt Dixon would lie on the beach with a sexton and compass, locating ships while planning the next sortie out into the Atlantic. Once the decision was made on which ship would be the target that night, the torpedo was hoisted onto the spar. The submarine would shove off towards the vessel until the tides, sea, moon and approaching daylight forced them to return to Marshall Battery.
This process went on for many days without attacking a single ship until the evening of February 17th, 1864. The Hunley left the beach inlet dock at about 7:00pm. The waters were calm and the wind was fair when the crew entered the bay at about 2.5 miles per hour towards the target picked that day. The USS Housatonic was a three-masted sail-and-steam, 11-gun Sloop-of-War. She was 205 feet long, weighing some 1,260 tons and crewed by 160 men assigned to the US Navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The fleet assigned eighty vessels from Cape Henry, South Carolina to Key West, Florida. The USS Housatonic lay at anchor at the entrance of Charleston Harbor.
After two hours of constant cranking of the screw propeller, the Hunley approached the USS Housatonic. On Board the USS Housatonic, the officer of the deck sighted an object about 300 feet away coming towards the ship. The ship was called to general quarters but it was too late - for within two minutes of the initial sighting the Confederate submarine rammed the spar torpedo into the side of the ship. Soon after, an explosion underwater ripped a large hole in the USS Housatonic and she began to sink. Two boats were lowered allowing some men to abandon ship but most of the crew climbed onto the mast rigging that remained above water after she had settled to the bottom. Five members of the crew died who were near the explosion.
Lt Dixon had a prearranged signal to the commander of Battery Marshall indicating he was returning to base. The signal was received around 9pm at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. Within two days, General Ripley wrote to General Beauregard indicating the USS Housatonic had been sunk and the Hunley was still overdue. Ripley indicated that no one felt the crew had gone over to the Federals but, due to the history of the boat, she probably had sunk with all hands aboard.
Soon the questions were not about the sinking of the USS Housatonic but the circumstances surrounding the loss of the Hunley and these questions continued for decades. Did the explosion damage the craft? Did they hit a sand bar on the return trip? Did the sea cocks malfunction again? No one knew the reason why she did not return.
The H.L. Hunley Wreck
In 1980, author Clive Cussler created the National Underwater Marine Agency and spent $200,000 of his own money looking for the Hunley. On May 3rd, 1995, a driver working with the agency found the wreck less than 4 miles from Charleston Harbor in 27 feet of water buried half way in the sand, though still wholly intact. Also, E. Lee Spence, President of the Sea Research Society, had indicated he found the wreck in 1970. On September 14, 1995 the Hunley was donated to the state of South Carolina.
The next phase was the raising of the Hunley in one piece. Divers would excavate the sediment from around the submarine. Next, two platforms would be placed on the ocean floor one at each end to which a steel cage would be constructed that was 55 feet long and 10 feet wide to rest on the two platforms. Thirty-three slings were attached to one side of the platform and then placed under the boat and attached to the platform on the other side. This would allow equal lift that was expected to disperse the load allowing the craft to be raised without it breaking in two.
The next step was a lifting crane affixed to a barge. This would be required to lift the 40-foot, 8-ton submarine to the surface. With this accomplished, the wreck was placed on a barge for transport to shore on August 8th, 2000, this after sinking some 136 years earlier. The craft was moved to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center to be set in a designed tank filled with 55,000 gallons of fresh water. This process would reduce bacteria growth and corrosion. The excavation of the interior began and skeleton remains were cataloged and removed to be buried on April 17, 2004 at Magnolia Cemetery. A procession for the deceased was held through Charleston and the dead were laid to rest next to the other crew members (from the second crew).
The Hunley is currently on display and can be toured at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center.
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