Leaps in Submarine Technology - Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley

On the cold and dark night of February 17, 1864, seven men lead by George Dixon drove Hunley five miles to attack the Union steam sloop, Housatonic.

The Confederacy was faced with a serious in the third year of the Civil War. The Union blockade was literally starving the South.   Horace L. Hunley, an enterprising inventor, saw a chance to use technology to break the iron grip of the Northern blockade!

Using an old, riveted boiler (about four feet in diameter and about 25 feet long) he split the boiler in two to add a bench for eight men to sit ion and pull a hand crank to drive a propeller.  With some additional tanks for water ballast and the ends pinched together, he had a rough submarine about 44 feet long.  Two small hatches enabled the men to enter and exit the submarine and some flat plates on the side awkwardly controlled depth.  A spar jutting from the bow of the submarine with a bomb on it provided the weapon. When completed, the submarine H. L Hunley was hauled to Charleston, South Carolina for testing and to try and convince the Confederate Army he was serious.

But he was deadly serious!  Horace Hunley would lose his life along with 23 volunteers while testing his own submarine.  The whole idea was to place a pointy barb with a bomb attached into the side of a Union ship off the mouth of Charleston harbor.  The method was to ram the spar on the bow of Hunley into the side of the ship and then back off and detonate the bomb with a long pull cord.

On the cold and dark night of February 17, 1864, seven men lead by George Dixon drove Hunley five miles to attack the Union steam sloop, Housatonic. In the ensuing explosion, the Housatonic sank in a matter of minutes with the Hunley damaged and subsequently lost after the explosion. Changes in technology had permitted increases in range, endurance, speed, size, crew, and weapons delivery systems.      

Hunley and her crew were lost for over a hundred years when she was discovered lying in the sand and mud on her side. She was re-covered from the sea in August of 2000 and is now being conserved in Charleston.