February 17, 1864, was a spot in naval warfare history when the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley struck and sank the USS Housatonic, the first successful attack by a military submarine against an enemy warship in history. Aside from history, however, the Hunley mission concluded in mystery with the disappearance of the ship after attacking and unknown fate for more than a century until it was recovered in 1995 and raised in 2000.
The Hunley is more than a single critical event but a string of tragedies and trials. The submarine, a mere 40 feet long, manned by nine men who hand-cranked a single screw to propel it, was already ridden with risks as it began its existence. Prior to its iconic mission, the Hunley had previously sunk twice in Charleston Harbor, on August 29, 1863.
Faithful to its mission, the Hunley didn’t live up to its potential but was a remarkable technological feat in the spirit of the Civil War. Constructed and engineered in Mobile, Alabama, after its inventor, Horace L. Hunley, the submarine was a remarkable testament to the innovation mind of the era, a last-ditch effort by the Confederacy to break the Union naval blockade.
The Hunley’s disappearance and crew of eight just weeks after it attacked the Housatonic was a lasting enigma. When preservationists discovered the submarine lying in just 30 feet of water 4 miles off shore, the ability to understand its final days became a reality. Hoisting the vessel entire turned into a huge undertaking that allowed scientists at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston to study and preserve this piece of history.
The recovery left us with an image that was questions over answers. The sailors remained at their posts with no visible effort to escape, ruling out the hypothesis that they suffocated or drowned, and the submarine bore no visible sign of damage. This led to fresh speculation, for example an explanation by Duke University scientists in 2017 that the Hunley’s own torpedo shock wave may have killed or made the crew incapacitated on the spot through “blast lung.”
