CIVIL WAR SUBMARINE HUNLEY

H. L. HUNLEY

CIVIL WAR SUBMARINE

CONFEDERATE

This is the story behind the development and the struggles her inventors and crew faced.

Horace Lawson Hunley, the Collector of Customs at New Orleans. Louisiana, wealthy lawyer and planter, very early in the Civil War realized a necessity of keeping the Confederate supply lines from Europe open. Union ships were now in blockade of Southern ports. It was Hunley who had ideas of new innovative technology which could break the stronghold of the Union blockade.

The fall of 1861, Hunley collaborated with James McClintock and Baxter Watson, inventors, and built a underwater vessel and by February 1862 the small, three man crew submersible vessel was ready for testing. Christened the “Pioneer” she proved to be seaworthy but needed minor changes to prevent leakage. Because of Union forces which were quickly advancing , before further experiments could be made in Lake Pontchartrain, Confederates had to scuttle the submarine in a burning pile of cotton bales.

Undaunted, McClintock, Watson and Hunley, continued with design updates and experiments. They had made attempts to power the vessel with steam or electric, but it was decided to keep the man power operated propeller shaft first designed. As this prototype was being towed toward Fort Morgan, high winds and heavy seas cause her to sink but with no loss of life.

Construction of the third submarine was made possible by financial help of a Mobile, Alabama group of engineers. This underwater craft would become the Hunley, and was designed under direction of James McClintock and Lieutenant W, A. Alexander. She weighed 7-1/2 tons. 39 feet, 5 inches long, 3 feet, 10 inches in width, powered by a hand cranked propeller shaft to a speed of 4 knots. The crew required was nine men.

Hunley was built using the steam boiler of a locomotive with a cylindrical structure added for navigation. The Hunly submerged by filling ballast tanks with water and came to the surface by pumping the water out. That it had no source of fresh air was a drawback as she needed to come up to surface when air was needed. The major weapon was the torpedo spur, filled with 90 pounds of black powder, which was used to ram the target ships hull and released. Only after the submarine was a safe distance back, were the explosives detonated.

July 31, 1863, the Hunley was tested again on the Mobile River before a crowd of high ranking military officers. Her target was an old flat boat and the Hunley disappeared below the surface of the water , then there was a loud concussion. The flat boat was gone, the submarine surfaced, completing her first successful test.

Charleston harbor was the chosen target, hoping to break the Union blockade. The Hunley went into action for a night time attack on a Union war ship. As fate would have it, the crew never had the chance to prove themselves as the officer in charge, accidentally, triggered the 'dive' and the submarine went below with its hatch open. Many of the crew were drowned.

Just days after this fatal accident the Hunley was salvaged from the harbor bottom and refitted. This time Horace Hunley decided to be at the helm . Again, fate went against her, on a routine test dive, the vessel sank, October 13 1863. All aboard were lost, including Horace Hunley who was at the helm.

Once again, retrieved, repaired and modified and a volunteer only crew was ordered by General P.G.T.

Beauregard. . A crew of volunteer stepped forward immediately, Lieutenant George E. Dixon , a combat veteran, wounded at Shilo, took the command. With commanding officer Dixon at the helm and her new crew, the Hunley began patrols off Sullivans Island and record show Dixon and his men went on twenty off shore missions, several miles out at sea.

Hunley entered combat 17 February 1864, the crew had targeted a sloop of war, USS Housatonic, on the blockade line at Breach Inlet, South Carolina , Early evening, a sailor thought he saw a dolphin, another said it was a log, however, it was to late to give alarm, The Housatonic being alarmed tried to get away from the submarine but Dixon had mounted the charge into the rear quarters of the ship , reversed only 80 feet, detonated and tore a hole in the Housatonic hull, which sank within five minutes with a loss of five drew members.

Confederate lookouts stationed on shore sighted a blue light , the signal that the mission was accomplished , built a fire on the beach to guide the submersible home. Hunley never returned.

Theories abound as to what actually happened to the Hunley. Was a glass porthole shot out by the Union sailors, did the explosion pop rivets of the hull or did a crew member open the hatch too soon to send the blue signal.?

August 8 2000, the Confederate submarine, H. L. Hunley, was pulled from the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean off the cost of Sullivans Island, South Carolina , in some 27 feet deep water , 136 years after it sunk during the Civil War.

Abstract of an newspaper article the Tyrone Pennsylvania, Tyrone Daily Herald, October 5, 2000, by

Dee E. Blazier , from information received from descendents of Civil War Veterans.

Harrison Howeth, 2017