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V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 22, May 27, 2001, Article 5 HUNLEY SUB LUCKY GOLD COIN FOUND Civil War history buffs have been following for some time the story of the Hunley, the Confederate submarine which sank in Charleston harbor on February 17, 1864 after first sinking the Union ship Housatonic. The Hunley made history by becoming the first submarine to sink a ship in battle. Unfortunately for her crew of eight men, they would share the same fate as the five men aboard the Union ship. "Since the Civil War, treasure seekers scoured the depths around the Housatonic, hoping to discover the Hunley and her crew. $100,000 was even offered to the discoverer by the great showman, P.T. Barnum. But the Hunley remained a mystery until new technologies were developed." "Best selling author Clive Cussler established the National Underwater Marine Agency and spent fifteen years searching for Hunley. The world’s first sub to sink a ship in battle was finally discovered on May 4th, 1995" There is a numismatic connection: Lt. George Dixon, the sub's commander, carried with him a special $20 gold piece. "Early in the war, in Mobile, Ala., Queenie Bennett (Dixon’s fiancée) gave him a $20 gold piece. While at Shiloh, a Union bullet penetrated his trouser pocket and struck the coin. The impact left the gold piece shaped like a bell, with the bullet embedded in it. If it wasn’t for that coin, he probably would have died on the battlefield–and the Hunley might never have made history. He would carry that coin the rest of his life..." The above quotes are taken from http://www.hunley.org/. Other web pages of interest are listed below. The final one is an interview with a descendant of Queenie Bennett who was present for the raising of the Hunley. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990628/hunley.htm http://dsc.discovery.com/news/reu/20010416/hunley.html http://www.charleston.net/pub/news/hunley/hunswee0807.htm A May 25, 2001 article in The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reports that "Archaeologists digging mud and human remains from the Confederate submarine Hunley have found the commander's lucky gold coin, still sparkling from a century-old love that will not tarnish. Historians thought that Lt. George Dixon might have carried the coin, a gift from his fiancee, on the night the Hunley became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship. But not until 9:30 Wednesday night, four months into the excavation of the sub, did they confirm that the coin was on board. The coin that senior archaeologist Maria Jacobsen pulled out of the muck of the Hunley Wednesday bears the cursive engraving: "Shiloh / April 6, 1862 / My life Preserver / G.E.D." "Artifacts are very important, but as archaeologists we want to know the story behind the artifacts," Jacobsen said Thursday in Charleston, where she and other archaeologists are painstakingly excavating the sub's interior. "As soon as I touched it through the mud I knew it was the coin.... That was a rare, teary moment for me. It was that message from the past we're always looking for." The message reached Queenie Bennett's great-granddaughter, Sally Necessary of Midlothian, Va., on Thursday. "I'm just so very happy they found it," said Necessary, who made the trip to Charleston when scientists pulled the cigar-shaped sub from the Atlantic last August. "In my heart, I knew it was there," she said. "I knew that if my great-grandmother had given him the coin, and he hadn't lost it, then it would be there. People back then took these things seriously. If someone gave you a token of love for safe passage, you held on to it." State Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said finding the coin was a milestone in the five-year recovery effort because it helps turn "fable into fact" about the legendary ship. "The discovery of the coin and its inscription is like discovering Cinderella's glass slipper," he said." [The Observer published photos of the coin, but these are not available online (http://www.newslibrary.com/). Perhaps some intrepid members of the numismatic press will track them down for publication. And perhaps among our readers is a Civil War history buff who can tell us the source for the original story of the coin - was it a contemporary newspaper account? How did historians know that Dixon carried the coin? -Editor]

Wayne Homren, Editor

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