Raising the Hunley

One of the the first stops on this summers history road trip was a visit to the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley in Charleston, South Carolina.  After being led every way known to man, my sad little Garmin finally found the conservation lab where the Hunley has been since it was raised in 2000.

The Hunley has gone down in history as the first submarine to successfully carry out an attack.  Now we are not talking of the high tech subs of today or anything even resembling what we have today.  The Hunley was basically like being scrunched up into a ball and shoved inside a cigar and being told to go attack something.  After seeing the thing first hand, it almost seems impossible that anyone could have ever fit inside much less a crew of 8.  The Hunley was definitely not for those that have claustrophobia.

On February 17, 1864, the Hunley was patrolling the waters off of Charleston when a Union ship, the Housatonic made the mistake of getting in their way.  The Hunley gained momentum and rammed the side of the ship and implanted their bomb and then pulled away.  The resulting explosion sunk the Housatonic in a matter of just a few minutes.  What happened to the Hunley remains a mystery to this day.  Yes, it sunk as well, but we do not know why.  All that is known is that it never returned home.

What I love about history is not so much about trivial facts and figures, but about the personal stories that can be related.  There had always been a particular legend about Lt. George Dixon.  Dixon had survived the battle of Shiloh and credited a lucky gold coin with saving his life.  The coin had been given to him by Queenie Bennett, woman that he had fallen madly in love with.  During the battle, Dixon was shot close to his hip at a very close range.  The bullet deflected off of the gold coin and prevented him from suffering a mortal injury.  It was said that Dixon never went anywhere without that gold coin from then on. 

We all know that history has its fair amount of legends and cute little stories that we like to tell over and over again, but many time they are very hard to confirm.  The archaeologists had hoped that they would perhaps find the gold coin, but knew that the chances would be very slim.  Shortly after raising the wreck in 2000, they began to excavate the interior and catalog the remains.  Dixon's remains were found and as they were carefully picking away the clothing(it was described like being wet toilet paper) one of the archaeologists touched something circular.  The gold coin was indeed in Dixon's pocket and was in perfect condition.  Not only that, it also had an inscription on it that helped to verify the story.  One the heads side you can clearly see the indention from the bullet and on the tails side it reads:

Shiloh
April 6, 1862
My life Preserver
G. E. D.

In talking to one of the tour guides, he said that eventually they will be building a museum once the conservation is over.  Due to the intricate process it will still be a few years before that happens though.  You may still visit the Hunley at its conservation lab in Charleston on the weekends.  Just make sure your GPS is not screwy.