THE H.L. HUNLEY LOOKS LIKE A SUBMARINE AGAIN

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V18 2015 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 18, Number 38, September 20, 2015, Article 26

For more than a century, the H.L. Hunley rested at the bottom of the ocean just outside Charleston harbor, its crew entombed, its hull gradually encased in hardening encrustations.

When it was raised 15 years ago off South Carolina, it looked more like a barnacled sea monster than the world’s first combat submarine to sink an enemy warship. The Hunley sank in battle during the winter of 1864.

The remains of its eight sailors were removed in 2001, but research has continued and Thursday a conservation team announced that experts have now removed more than half a ton of the encrustations.

The result: The Hunley has much of the look and menace of a modern sub, and is clearly the ancestor of the U-boat and the nuclear submarine of today.

On the night of Feb. 17, 1864, the crude Confederate vessel — which was made from a boiler, had no extra air supply and was powered by a hand crank — rammed a torpedo into a Union warship anchored off Charleston.

The Yankee ship, the USS Housatonic, went down, but so did the 14-ton Hunley with its captain and crew.

"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..."

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."

Here's how the coin is displayed. And guess what - you can buy a replica in the gift shop! "With the gold coin replica, you can actually feel the curvature left from the impact of the bullet and read the words Dixon had inscribed on his lucky gold coin. It truly is breathtaking!" -Editor