THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 15, 1995 TAG: 9505150043
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
On a February night in 1864, nine Confederate sailors climbed into the submarine CSS Hunley and steered it toward a picket line of Union ships blockading Charleston Harbor.
The sub, powered by a propeller turned by a hand crank, rammed 100 pounds of black powder on the end of a wooden spar into the Union frigate USS Housatonic.
The modern age of submarine warfare dawned with a thunderous explosion. The Housatonic went down, the first warship in history to be sunk by a submarine.
But the Hunley and its crew never returned, and for more than 130 years, researchers and relic hunters scoured the silty depths off Charleston for the wreck.
The quest ended last week when researchers announced they found the encrusted iron shell of the Hunley in about 20 feet of water a couple miles offshore.
``This is without a doubt the greatest underwater find since the Monitor was located,'' said Clive Cussler, the best-selling author who devoted 15 years and about $130,000 to the search. The Monitor, found in 1973 off the North Carolina coast, was the Union ironclad whose battle with the CSS Virginia - previously the Merrimack - ushered in the era of iron ships.
Divers from Cussler's nonprofit National Underwater and Marine Agency located what they believed was the Hunley in January and confirmed it May 3 when they uncovered one of the sub's observation towers.
The submarine, about 40 feet long and 6 feet in diameter, is intact, lying on its side and covered in silt. On trial runs, it sank three times, killing three crew members and investor Horace L. Hunley.
``This is the single most important artifact in the history of submarine warfare,'' said Mark Newell of the Institute of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina. ``This little vessel proved submarine warfare is possible.''
While the discovery has significance historically, it also tugs at the heart.
There is talk of lost love and a romantic talisman and of a watery grave narrowly avoided.
Caldwell Delaney, director emeritus of the Museum of the City of Mobile, Ala., where the Hunley was built, and Mark Ragan of Edgewater, Md., whose book ``The CSS Hunley'' is to go to press in less than two weeks, discovered the story of Lt. George Dixon, one of the crewmen whose body still remains inside the sub.
Dixon commanded the submarine. He'd been a river-boater, and in March 1862 he'd gone off to war in Mississippi, carrying with him a $20 gold piece given him by his Mobile sweetheart.
At Shiloh, Dixon was badly wounded - but the double eagle coin kept him alive. As the bullet went through his pocket, the golden coin wrapped itself around the bullet, shaping itself into a bell. Ever thereafter, Dixon carried the coin as a lucky piece - presumably with him into the Hunley on the unlucky night of Feb. 17, 1864, as well.
The two historians were able to find a descendant of the sweetheart, who confirmed the story of the coin, as well as supporting contemporary letters to bolster the story.
And what of fate?
The second in command of the Charleston mission, William Alexander, missed the deadly excursion. Originally an Englishman, he'd been called back from Charleston to his Mobile home, where he'd settled two years before the war.
Cussler said the exact location of the sub was made known to the city of Charleston and the state but will not be made public for fear of souvenir hunters.
``This is a federal war grave,'' Newell said. ``This thing is an icon for the South. We have nine gallant men in that vessel.''
Cussler said he has no plans to raise the Hunley. But he hopes the state and city will raise and preserve the vessel, an undertaking he said could cost about $200,000. Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said the city will work with the state to find the money.
Federal law makes the wrecks of all Confederate ships the property of the General Services Administration.
The Hunley apparently was not blown up in the explosion that sank the Housatonic 4 1/2 miles offshore, as some have theorized. Cussler and Newell said that when the sub sank, it was some distance from the Housatonic.
Cussler said the explosion might have popped some rivets and the Hunley began leaking, eventually becoming a water-filled coffin. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
ASSOCIATED PRESS/
Courtesy Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond
The CSS Hunley, the first submarine to sink a warship, is depicted -
perhaps not to scale - in this painting. Historical records show
that the 40-foot-long, 6-foot-tall sub held nine men.
KRT: AP Graphic
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
SOURCES: The Charleston Museum, The (Columbia) State; University of
South Carolina.
by CNB