The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley blast the Union blockade ship USS Housatonic out of the waters off Charleston in February 1864, but it never returned to shore because the impact of its charge on the enemy ship probably sank it too. Now 150 years after the war, scientists have recovered the hull of the sunken Hunley and cleaned it up with a view to determining what led to its destruction.
The Hunley was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in 1864, and it was discovered off the coast of South Carolina in 1995 and raised out of the waters in 2000 before being brought to a conservation lab in North Charleston – covered with a hardened gunk of encrusted sand, sediment and rust that scientists call concretion.
“It’s like unwrapping a Christmas gift after 15 years. We have been wanting to do this for many years now,” said Paul Mardikian, senior conservator on the Hunley project.
The ship’s hull was finally bathed with a sodium hydroxide solution to loosen the encrustation last year May, and by Augusts scientists started the laborious task of using air-powered chisels and dental tools to remove the thick coatings. Now about 70 percent of the outside hull has been revealed. However, the remains of the eight-man crew in the interior of the sub had also been removed.
And since scientists are desirous of knowing what led to the sinking of the Hunley after successfully destroying the USS Housatonic, Mardikian has stated the exposed hull indeed has revealed some things that may help solve the mystery of the sinking.
“I would have to lie to you if I said we had not, but it’s too early to talk about it yet,” he said. “We have a submarine that is encrypted. It’s like an Enigma machine.”
The 40-foot submarine had a 16-foot spar that was tipped with a charge of black powder – and this charge was what was fired to sink the Housatonic. Researchers are now thinking the explosion from the charge must have knocked the crew unconscious.
In April 2004, thousands of men in Confederate gray and Union blue walked in a procession with the crew’s coffins four miles from Charleston’s waterfront Battery to Magnolia Cemetery in what has been called the last Confederate funeral.