A brass plaque proclaims it to be "The H.L.HUNLEY
Traveling Exhibit purchased in 2012 from the fabricator John
Dangerfield. This exhibit is to be used for educational purposes. Its
first event took place in Franklin, Tennessee at the Battle of Tennessee
in September 2004."
I'm going to extend the
educational outreach by sharing the information with you all. Marvin and
I already knew something of the story--- the tragedies, the
determination, and the eventual success as the first combat submarine in
naval history.
The
story of the HUNLEY began in New Orleans when Horace L. Hunley eagerly
joined Baxter Watson and James McClintock in their venture to build a
stealth weapon that traveled underneath the water's surface.
Construction
of their prototype the PIONEER, was completed in early 1862. The small
submarine proved to be seaworthy, but was scuttled by the Confederates
to avoid capture by the Union forces that were quickly closing in on New
Orleans.
The
builders of the PIONEER fled to Mobile, Alabama, where they quickly
began work on an improved version of their submarine concept: the
AMERICAN DIVER. The AMERICAN DIVER made an unsuccessful attempt to
attack the Union blockade in Mobile Bay, and later sunk while in tow
during a storm in February, 1863. The submarine remains lost at sea.
Taking
the lessons learned during test missions of the PIONEER and AMERICAN
DIVER, work immediately began to build a new submarine. The third vessel
was constructed at Park & Lyon machine shop in downtown Mobile. The
new submarine was named H.L. HUNLEY in honor of her benefactor, and was
ready for testing by the summer of 1863. After performing a successful
test attack demonstration on Mobile Bay the HUNLEY was ready to be put
into action.
Now
the question became where is this new weapon most needed to help the
Confederacy? Within days after the demonstration had taken place, the
HUNLEY was loaded aboard two flat cars and sent to
defend Charleston, S.C., home to a critical Southern port city that the Union Navy was blockading.
Shortly
after the HUNLEY's arrival in Charleston on the morning of August 12,
1863, the Confederate military took control of the vessel. A Navy
officer who was not involved with the development of the sub led the
first HUNLEY crew on an attack mission. Tragedy struck when on August
29th, 1863 the HUNLEY sank, causing five of the eight crew members to
lose their lives.
Within
72 hours, plans were in place to raise the HUNLEY. For the sub's second
attempt to attack the Union blockade, Horace Hunley convinced the
Confederate Navy to recruit a crew from Mobile who
were familiar with the sub's operations. Even their experience proved futile.
Tragedy
struck again on October 15, 1863, when the sub sank during a routine
diving exercise. All eight men on board, including Hunley, lost their
lives.
Though
the HUNLEY had now sunk twice, the desperation of the times kept hope
alive that she could save Charleston from the strangling Union blockade.
At the urging of Lt. George Dixon, the Confederacy approved the
submarine to be recovered so that she could again attempt a strike.
On
February 17th, 1864, Dixon commanded a courageous volunteer crew on
their final mission. That night, the HUNLEY attacked and successfully
sank the USS HOUSATONIC--- a first in maritime history.
We were intrigued by the simple mechanical systems employed: for
propulsion, the crew turned a crankshaft which turned a wheel which
turned the propeller. Steering was another simple mechanical operation
for moving the rudder back and forth in the propeller slip stream. The
conning tower had a watertight seal and external snorkels for air
intake. Navigation was primitive line-of-sight when on the surface, and
using a compass when submerged. Opening a water valve provided ballast
for submerging. A simple lever adjusted the dive planes. Bilge pumps
were hand operated for removing water leaked into the vessel, and
another bellows pump was adapted to remove carbon dioxide from the floor
level to the outside.
The armament was
simplicity itself. An explosive charge, equipped with a pair of barbs to
pierce and hook the vessel under attack, extended well ahead of the
sub. The technique was to ram the target below the waterline, release
the torpedo, and back away.
The
HUNLEY made her first and only attack against an enemy target on the
night of Feb. 17, 1864. The target, the USS HOUSATONIC, a 1,240-long
tons, steam powered sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, was stationed at
the entrance to Charleston harbor, about 5 miles offshore.
Desperate
to break the naval blockade of the city, Lieutenant George E. Dixon and
a crew of seven volunteers successfully attacked the HOUSATONIC,
embedding the barbed spar torpedo into her hull. The torpedo was
detonated, sending the HOUSATONIC to the bottom in five minutes, along
with five of her crewmen.
After
the attack, the H.L.HUNLEY failed to return to her base. There is
evidence that HUNLEY survived as long as one hour after the attack about
8:45 p.m. The day after the attack, the commander of "Battery Marshall"
reported that he had received "the signal" indicating that she was
returning to her base. After signaling, Dixon would have taken his
submarine underwater to make a return to Sullivan's island. What
happened next was unknown.
One
possibility is that the torpedo was not detonated on command, but
instead malfunctioned because of damage suffered during the underwater
attack. The intention was for the torpedo to be detonated when the
HUNLEY had retreated to about 150 feet away. However, witnesses aboard
the HOUSATONIC stated that the submarine was no more than 100 feet away
when her torpedo exploded.
In
2008, scientists reported they had found that the crew of HUNLEY had
not set the pump to remove water from the crew compartment, and this
might indicate she was not being flooded. "It now really starts to point
to a lack of oxygen making the crew unconscious," the chairman of the
South Carolina HUNLEY Commission said. "They may have been cranking and
moving, and it was a miscalculation as to how much oxygen they had."
Or, the HUNLEY crew may have been knocked unconscious by the concussion and died without awakening.
Her
last crew perished in the attack, but the H.L. HUNLEY earned her place
in history by being the first submarine to sink an enemy ship.
(information from talking with the Exhibit curators, browsing their books, and from Wikipedia.)
The biographical story of Lt. Dixon's talisman, a coin given him by
a female friend saving his life, was given a strong dose of reality
when I was given the opportunity to hold the objects in my own hand.
History come to life...!
More later,
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