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. At this stage, Hunley was variously referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise". Construction and testing Ĭonstruction of Hunley began soon after the loss of American Diver. The crew escaped, but the boat was not recovered. However, the submarine foundered in the heavy chop caused by foul weather and the currents at the mouth of Mobile Bay and sank. Nonetheless, it was decided to tow the submarine down the bay to Fort Morgan and attempt an attack on the Union blockade. American Diver was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but she proved too slow to be practical. The builders experimented with electric and steam propulsion for the new submarine, before falling back on a simple hand-cranked propulsion system. Lieutenant William Alexander of the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment was assigned to oversee the project. Their efforts were supported by the Confederate States Army. Hunley and McClintock moved to Mobile, to begin development of a second submarine, American Diver with the collaboration of two others. John Confederate submarine may have been constructed about this time. But the Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to abandon development and scuttle Pioneer the following month. Hunley, McClintock, and Baxter Watson first built Pioneer, which was tested in February 1862, in the Mississippi River, and was later towed to Lake Pontchartrain, for additional trials. While the United States Navy was constructing its first submarine USS Alligator, in late 1861, the Confederacy were doing so as well. Horace Lawson Hunley provided financing for James McClintock to design three submarines: Pioneer in New Orleans, Louisiana, American Diver built in Mobile, and Hunley. Examination in 2012 of recovered Hunley artifacts suggests that the submarine was as close as 20 ft (6.1 m) to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's own loss. Hunley did not survive the attack and also sank, taking with her all eight members of her third crew, and was lost.įinally 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. 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. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863, during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863, to Charleston. Hunley, nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. 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. The Confederacy lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship ( USS Housatonic), although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her successful attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. Hunley, or as CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley, CSS H. …until 1995, when she was discovered on the sea bed. As a result she secured her place in history as the first combat submarine to sink a warship. On 17 February 1864, the Hunley attacked and sank a screw-driven sloop-of-war, the USS Housatonic, which was one of the Union ships blockading the port of Charleston. Forty-seven days later she sank again, this time killing all onboard including her inventor, Horace Hunley. She sank during a training exercise on 29 August 1863. Her performance, was, to say the least, chequered. She had a crew of 8 and was armed with a spar-mounted torpedo essentially a long pole with a charge on the end of it. The HL Hunley (named after her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley) was a Confederate State submarine, built in Mobile, Alabama in 1863 and launched in July 1863. Civil War submarine HL Hunley sits outside the Charleston Museum.
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