My husband, a US Navy (retired) submariner, visited the Hunley in Charleston recently.
The Hunley is famous for being the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in wartime.
It happened February 17, 1864, just outside Charleston, South Carolina.
After damaging the USS Housatonic, which immediately sank, the boat vanished for 131 years.
You can see it now on weekends in Charleston.
So we paid our respects.
What happened to the Hunley?
No one knew, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
People onboard that wild dark night thought they saw “something” slinking away.
In the chaos of people in the water, ships coming from shore to help, the Hunley needed to escape as quickly as possible.
Theories abounded as to where it went and Confederate sailors anticipated rendezvousing with it later that night or the next day.
But it never showed up.
(This is a submarine family’s horror. See my post on the USS Scorpion).
Searchers began hunting the next day and it went on until 1995 when someone looked towards the ocean, rather than land.
They found her buried 30 feet deep in mud.
An historic treasure trove!
Well-preserved by the mud, the Hunley was intact and, according to one naval historian, “probably the most important find of the century.”
Five years after discovery, and following extensive research as to how, researchers raised the boat and have been examining and restoring her ever since.
It lives in a bath of sodium hydroxide
Visitors can see her on weekends at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center near the now-closed Charleston Naval Shipyard.
Researchers are busy restoring and working on the Hunley during the week. Volunteers run the center and provide tours of the boat on Saturday and Sunday.
A fine exhibit explains how they raised the boat, theories on why she never surfaced, and stories about her crew.
Numerous interactive exhibits, great for kids and adults alike, fill the warehouse leading to the boat itself.
Not knowing anything about this sub prior to our visit, I learned a great deal and enjoyed it!
But it was even more fun touring with my naval engineer husband–who could explain everything.
The boat itself
The Hunley spends the weekend in a specially-built 70,000-gallon tank filled with sodium hydroxide liquid.
When first pulled up, the Hunley was coated in a mixture of sand, mud, shells and dead sea life as hard as cement.
The sodium hydroxide loosens the accumulation so researchers can get it off.
They’re pretty much done, now, but the submarine is never allowed to completely dry; she’s always soaking in solution or damp.
We were surprised at how small she is: 17 feet between front and back hatches.
My 6′ 1″ husband stood beside an example of the boat’s circumference: 48 inches high by 42 wide.
Imagine a six-foot tall man cramped in the interior turning a crank!
The eight-member crew was all volunteers.
Inside the Hunley
The boat contained the skeletal remains of the crew.
Researchers pierced together their identities and found a few surprises, including a former sailor from the northern Navy and at least one foreigner.
They recognized the skipper, Lt. George Dixon, by a gold coin found among his bones–which confirmed both who he was and a story told about the coin saving his life at the Battle of Shiloh!
An oil can still held oil.
The exhibit invites visitors to imagine what happened to the crew after they successfully sank the Housatonic.
The remains show no sign of panic, all lying where they would have sat. There’s no indication they tried to escape from either hatch.
My professional submariner believes that with a candle burning as they sank into the depths following the Housatonic’s sinking, they ran out of oxygen and didn’t realize it.
There’s far more to this story than I can write in a short blog post, but we both found the visit intriguing.
If you’re in Charleston, stop in. No matter which side of the War Between the States you favor, the Hunley made naval history.
More than anything, however, I’m glad my favorite submariner wasn’t on it!
Tweetables
A visit to the Hunley: the first sub to sink an enemy vessel. Click to Tweet
Naval history made off the coast of Charleston: the Hunley. Click to Tweet
A nuclear submariner visits a Civil War submarine. Click to Tweet
Very interesting!
Thanks Michelle for sharing this. My wife and I have been thinking about visiting Charleston. If we go I’ll definitely visit this exhibit.
Have a good time, Alan! Make sure you check in advance, however, and possibly reserve a time. They’re staffed by volunteers and only open on weekends. We got lucky they were relatively free when we turned up and we had no problem getting in on an early May Saturday.