H. L. Hunley, also known as Hunley, CSS H. L. Hunley, or CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that fought in the American Civil War. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (), although Hunley was not completely submerged, and following her attack was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina.
Hunley, nearly long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863 to Charleston. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863 during a test, killing five members of her crew. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Hunley himself. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service.
On 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-ton United States Navy screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Hunley did not survive the attack and sank, taking all eight members of her third crew with her, and was lost. Twenty-one crewmen died in the three sinkings of Hunley during her short career.
Finally located in 1995, Hunley was raised in 2000 and is on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River. Examination in 2012 of recovered Hunley artifacts suggested that the submarine was as close as to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's sinking.
Historical context The Civil War, April 12, 1861 – April 9, 1865, was a domestic American war where the Union (also called the North) was locked in combat with the Confederates (also called the South).
In the beginning of the war, combat was fought with bayonets, horses, wooden ships, and imprecise artillery. During the course of the conflict the weaponry changed and mines, accurate guns, more deadly bullets, torpedoes, and "ironclad" ships became a new standard. Though most of the fighting occurred on land, a critical element of the war was at sea. Whichever side controlled the coastline also controlled shipping imports from Europe and Coastal America, which contained critical resources such as clothes, food, artillery, medicine, and, at times, reinforcements. The Hunley was created to destroy the Union blockade and help gain this all-important coastline advantage.
Predecessors Horace Lawson Hunley provided financing for James McClintock to design three submarines: in New Orleans, Louisiana, built in Mobile, and Hunley.
While the United States Navy was constructing its first submarine , in late 1861, the Confederacy was developing their own. Likely having within them an incessant loyalty to the Confederate states as well as understanding the financial gains that would come from sinking enemy ships, Hunley, McClintock, and Baxter Watson first built Pioneer. She was tested in February 1862 in the Mississippi River and was later towed to Lake Pontchartrain for additional trials. The Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to abandon development, however, and Pioneer was scuttled the following month. McClintock noted the significance that a boat capable of moving in any direction at any depth could be made, but ultimately decided that such a vessel could be improved. Hunley, Watson, and McClintock moved to Mobile to develop a second submarine, American Diver. They collaborated with Park & Lyons machine shops owners, Thomas Park and Thomas Lyons, in the construction of the vessel. Their efforts were supported by the Confederate States Army. Lieutenant William Alexander of the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment was assigned to oversee the project. The builders experimented with several methods of providing the new submarine with self-propulsion, including McClintock's electromagnetic drive, followed by a custom steam engine, but eventually settled on a simple hand-cranked propulsion system as they felt that the time and money lost in implementing such an engine would not be worth the trouble. American Diver was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but she proved too slow to be practical. Nonetheless, it was decided to tow the submarine down the bay to Fort Morgan and attempt an attack on the Union blockade. However, the submarine foundered in the rough waters caused by foul weather and the currents at the mouth of Mobile Bay and sank. The crew escaped, but the boat was not recovered.
Construction and testing
Construction of Hunley began soon after the loss of American Diver. At this stage, Hunley was variously referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise". Legend held that Hunley was made from a cast-off steam boiler—perhaps because a cutaway drawing by William Alexander, who had seen her, showed a short and stubby machine. In fact, Hunley was designed and built for her role, and the sleek, modern-looking craft shown in R.G. Skerrett's 1902 drawing is an accurate representation. Each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added using iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. If the submarine needed additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.
The hull of the ship is estimated to originally have been 4 feet 3 inches (1.30) in diameter. The two hatches, accessible by means of conning tower, located in the forward and aft of the vessel, are estimated to have originally measured at 16.5 inches (42 cm) in width and 21 inches (53 cm) in length. The small sizing of the hatches and the cramped quarters made entering, exiting, and maneuvering about the ship remarkably difficult. Hunley was designed for a crew of eight, seven to turn the hand-cranked ducted propeller at about 3.5 horsepower (2.6 kW), and one to steer and direct the boat. At the height of her speed, Hunley could reach 4 knots [Wills, 2017].
By July 1863, Hunley was ready for a demonstration. Supervised by Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan, Hunley successfully attacked a coal flatboat in Mobile Bay. Following this, the submarine was shipped by rail to Charleston, South Carolina, on 12 August 1863. However, the Confederate military seized the submarine from her private builders and owners shortly after arriving, turning her over to the Confederate Army. Hunley would operate as a Confederate Army vessel from then on, although Horace Hunley and his partners would remain involved in her further testing and operation. While sometimes called CSS Hunley, she was never officially commissioned into service.
Confederate Navy Lieutenant John A. Payne of CSS Chicora volunteered to be Hunleys captain, and seven men from Chicora and CSS Palmetto State volunteered to operate her. On 29 August 1863, Hunleys new crew was preparing to make a test dive when Lieutenant Payne accidentally stepped on the lever controlling the sub's diving planes as she was running on the surface. This caused Hunley to dive with one of her hatches still open. Payne and two others escaped, but the other five crewmen drowned.
H. L. Hunley crew lost 29 August 1863:
Michael Cane Nicholas Davis Frank Doyle John Kelly Absolum Williams
The Confederate Army took control of Hunley, with all orders coming directly from General P. G. T. Beauregard, with Lt. George E. Dixon placed in charge. On 15 October 1863, Hunley failed to surface after a mock attack, killing all eight crewmen. Among these was Hunley himself, who had joined the crew for the exercise and possibly had taken over command from Dixon for the attack maneuver. The Confederate Navy once more salvaged the submarine and returned her to service.
H. L. Hunley crew lost 15 October 1863:
Horace Hunley Thomas S. Parks Henry Beard R. Brookbanks John Marshall Charles McHugh Joseph Patterson Charles L. Sprague
Armament
Hunley was initially intended to attack by using a floating explosive charge with a contact fuze (a torpedo in 19th-century terminology). The Hunley's methodology of deploying the explosive charge consisted of them diving beneath the ship and catching the charge on the side/hull of the vessel and re-emerging outside of the blast range of the explosive. This plan was discredited and not used as the possibility of Hunley becoming entangled in the rope, the rope drifting away from the ship, or the charge exploding on the submarine was too great.
Instead, a spar torpedo—a copper cylinder containing of black powder—was attached to a -long wooden spar, as seen in illustrations made at this time. Mounted on Hunleys bow, the spar was to be used when the submarine was or more below the surface. Previous spar torpedoes had been designed with a barbed point: the spar torpedo would be jammed in the target's side by ramming and then detonated by a mechanical trigger attached to the submarine by a line so that as she backed away from her target, the torpedo would set off. However, archaeologists working on Hunley discovered evidence, including a spool of copper wire and components of a battery, that it may have been electrically detonated. In the configuration used in the attack on Housatonic, it appears Hunleys torpedo had no barbs and was designed to explode on contact as it was pushed against an enemy vessel at close range. After Horace Hunley's death, General Beauregard ordered that the submarine should no longer be used to attack underwater. An iron pipe was then attached to her bow, angled downwards so the explosive charge would be delivered sufficiently underwater to make it effective. This was the same method developed for the earlier David surface attack craft used successfully against the USS New Ironsides. The Confederate Veteran of 1902 printed a reminiscence authored by an engineer stationed at Battery Marshall who, with another engineer, made adjustments to the iron pipe mechanism before Hunley left on her last fatal mission on 17 February 1864. A drawing of the iron pipe spar, confirming her David-type configuration, was published in early histories of submarine warfare.
Attack on Housatonic
Hunley made her only attack against an enemy target on the night of 17 February 1864. The target was United States Navy ship USS Housatonic, a wooden-hulled steam-powered screw sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, which was stationed at the entrance to Charleston, about offshore. Hunley happened to be on patrol around that area at the time. Helmed by Lieutenant George E. Dixon with a crew of seven and desperate to break the naval blockade of the city, successfully attacked Housatonic, ramming Hunley only spar torpedo against the enemy's hull. The torpedo was detonated, sending Housatonic to the bottom in three minutes, along with five of her crewmen.The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion Series I – Vol. 15, p. 328 Hunley and her crew went missing after the attack. They were not found for over 100 years.
Disappearance