The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 17, April 25, 2004, Article 5

HUNLEY CREW LAID TO REST

  I published last week's issue a little early, and while checking
  the news one last time before bed I saw a story I would have
  liked to have included in the issue.  Last Sunday, the Chicago
  Tribune reported that the remains of the eight crew members
  of the Confederate sub Hunley were laid to rest the day before
  in Charleston, S.C.

  The E-Sylum first reported on the Hunley in the May 27, 2001
  issue (v4n22):

  "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."

  "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 coin that senior archaeologist Maria Jacobsen pulled out
  of the muck of the Hunley ... bears the cursive engraving:
  "Shiloh / April 6, 1862 / My life Preserver / G.E.D."

  Here are some excerpts from Sunday's article in the Chicago
  Tribune:

  "The Confederacy buried the last of its Civil War dead here
  Saturday, laying to rest in Southern soil the long-lost crew of
  the legendary submarine Hunley in a glittering pageant of rebel
  remembrance."

  "After so many decades in the dark of the deep, the men were
  buried beneath a bright Southern sun in Charleston's Magnolia
  Cemetery alongside the graves of 13 earlier Hunley crewmen
  who drowned during trial missions and 1,700 other
  Confederate dead.

  Thousands of Civil War re-enactors in colorful Confederate
  uniforms accompanied the dead, who were borne to the
  cemetery on horse-drawn caissons, their coffins covered with
  Confederate battle flags. The procession included 100 or more
  women with Civil War-era dresses, veils, hats and parasols of
  mourning black."

  "According to estimates, nearly 50,000 visitors were in
  Charleston for the day's events, some from as far as away as
  England, France, Germany and Australia. An estimated 8,000
  to 10,000 spectators lined the 4 1/2-mile funeral procession
  route."

  "The commander, Lt. George Dixon, believed to have been in
  his mid-20s, had been a Mississippi River steamboat engineer
  who was in Mobile, Ala., when the Civil War broke out and he
  enlisted in the Confederate army. He was identified in part by a
  $20 gold piece he carried--a piece that had prevented a Union
  bullet from doing serious damage when he was shot and
  wounded at the battle of Shiloh."

  To read the complete story  (registration required), see: Complete Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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