Bob's Observations

By Bob Engler

Saturday morning broke sunny and warm, a beautiful Southern day in April. We had planned a leisurely get away with a 1020 reservation to see the H.L. Hunley, another of the first that the American Civil war spawned. For those who do not know the story, the Hunley was a desperate attempt by the South to break the blockade imposed by the North on their ports and economy. At Charleston, there were 25 war ships at anchor off the mouth of the port effectively sealing the port with guns that were effective at 3 miles giving a 75-mile blockade of all commerce. The South could not attack this force in a frontal assault so they turned to the Hunley as a way to sneaking undetected to the ships and breaking the blockade one ship at a time. Thus the Hunley was the first submersible ship to successfully attack another vessel in the history of the world. Unfortunately the Hunley itself did not survive the attack and has only recently been found and returned to the shore.

The Hunley is now located in a navy shipyard in a non-descript industrial building. We embarrassed ourselves by walking up to the wrong door only to be directed to the door with the 4X5 sign “ Hunley Tours Start Here” just around the corner. The Hunley is in the process of restoration so this temporary home is a working laboratory intent on learning as much about the technology of the boat and the lives of the crew who sailed her but once on a mission. What brave men they must have been. You have to remember that this boat was cobbled together from spare part found in a railroad boiler shop where they literally took two train engine boilers and riveted them together, then, attached a bow and a stern to it . That is not to say that this boat was not a marvel in engineering. It had a foot operated ballast pump to pump water in and out of the fore and aft ballast tanks to allow it to dive and surface. It used a human powered hand crank to turn a 3’ 3 bladed screw to reach a top speed of 4 MPH. It even used blow planes to help dive and surface the boat. All never used before and invented on the spot. Dangerous and untried technology. The day that the crew went on its mission they all knew that this boat had already sunk twice killing part of former crews. General Beauregard who ordered the attack was so worried about the craft that he forbade it from actually diving below the surface!

I sat in the replica of the boat and pretended that I was a crewmember. I can attest that none of the crew could have been claustrophobic since I at six feet tall could not sit straight up in the 64 “ diameter tube that was the crews work station. The only way to sit in the boat was to be hunched over the crank. I can only imagine the pain after an hour or two of providing the horsepower for this machine. The investigators know quit a lot about the crew. When the Hunley was raised, they found the access hatches latched from the inside and all the crew still at their posts, skeletons stilled hunched over the cranks. In the visitor center forensic artist have created likenesses of the crew who gaze out on us today. The crew was a cross section of the South in those times, immigrants, farmers, and aristocrats. The tallest was about my size the smallest about 5’ 7”. I was touched by the artifacts that were found with some of them. One of the crew was found with a Union soldier’s ID tag suspended from his neck bones and positioned on his back as you might expect form a man who was hunched over working and did not want a swinging medallion getting in his way. Why he was wearing a Union soldier’s medallion is a mystery. Lt Dixon, the commander, was the most touching. He was found with three items of note. One was a $20 dollar gold piece, which had saved his life by stopping a bullet in a prior battle. It still bore the imprint of the slug and when they examined it closely found traces of lead imbedded in the gold. He also carried two pieces of gold women’s jewelry. There are several theories as to why he had them. One says that he carried them as insurance that if he were capture he whould have a bargaining chip to attempt to bribe his way to freedom. Another says that he carried the items simple because there was no safe palce to leave them. I prefer the more sentimental explanation. The jewelry pieces were diamond and gold women’s adornments popular in the 1830’s. They could have easily been his mother’s and he carried them as a memory of her as he went into battle. What ever the reason they were found in what would have been in his thigh pocket, together for the hundred plus years on the bottom.

Why did the Hunley sink? No one knows for certain. The original theory was that it sank in its own explosion since by luck it had attacked the Housitania directly on it powder magazine causing a huge explosion that sank the war ship in 3 minutes. However, witnesses from the shore said that they had seen signal lights from the sub after the attack. Another theory says that the sub was damaged in the attacked. Remember it was ordered to attack on the surface. Union survivors of the attack stated that they fire on the Hunley with pistol and rifle prior to the explosion. The theory says that one of the forward viewing windows was shot out allowing seawater in and sinking the boat. The most recent evidence explains that the sub survived the attack but did not plan on the aftermath of the attack. There were twenty-five union boats in the area. Many of them came running to help rescue the survivors and Dixon was forced to dive to avoid being run over. As he waited for the ships to clear, the tide turned. The tide in this area runs at 7 MPH, twice as fast as the crew could power the sub. They could not surface, they could not fight the tide, and simply ran out of air waiting on the bottom. The men all seemed to have died at their posts as if they had gone to sleep. Brave men that they were.