The H.L. Hunley is still one of the most intriguing – and scary – things that has ever happened in the history of war. Its story is one part innovation, one part hopelessness, and one part enigma, all happening during the turbulent times of the American Civil War. The Hunley was not only a daring trial gone beyond; it was a concept of under-the-sea warfare that later would have a great impact on naval strategy.
The submarine fantasy didn’t begin in Charleston Harbor. Inventors had come up with the idea for centuries. In the 1620s, Cornelis Drebbel experimented with a leather-wrapped wooden ship using oars. David Bushnell’s Turtle in 1776 made a doomed but bold attempt to attack a British ship during the American Revolution. Robert Fulton’s Nautilus, built in 1800, was a copper hull with a hand-cranked propeller—a step, but still limited by constraints. By the mid-1800s, engineers and tinkers on both sides of the Atlantic were testing everything from compressed air to steam power, all attempting to solve the same issue: how to make a submarine practical, reliable, and lethal.
It was the Civil War that finally propelled the idea out of workshop curiosity and onto the battlefield. With its choking blockade along the Southern coast, the Confederacy was desperate for unorthodox weapons. Alabama entrepreneur Horace Lawson Hunley paid James McClintock’s team of engineers to build a series of prototypes. Their first boat, the Pioneer, was sabotaged in an effort to keep it from being captured by Union troops. Their second, American Diver, was lost during testing. But their third design—a 40-foot iron cylinder powered by a hand-cranked propeller—would enter history.
The Hunley was as smart as it was deadly. It accommodated eight men—seven to operate the crank that powered the propeller and one to power. Ballast tanks and pumps enabled it to dive and surface, and small conning towers with hatches gave the crew a little visibility. Its weapon was brutally simple: a copper torpedo mounted on a 22-foot spar. The plan was to drive the spar into a target ship, retreat, and detonate the explosive.
But the path to fame was littered with calamity. The Hunley sank twice in training, killing crews each time—Hunley himself among them. Both times, it was salvaged, repaired, and returned to service. On February 17, 1864, at night, under Lieutenant George E. Dixon, the Hunley sent a sortie against the USS Housatonic, a Union warship that was cruising the entry to Charleston Harbor.
Stealthily approaching in the dead of night, it slammed its torpedo into the side of the sloop. The Housatonic went down in minutes, the first time a submarine had ever sunk an enemy ship. The Hunley slipped into the darkness and was never seen again.
For centuries, it remained lost. Treasure seekers, historians, and divers scanned the dark waters of the harbor. A young diver named E. Lee Spence claimed to have found it in 1970, but Clive Cussler’s expedition did not officially find it, covered in sand and silt, until 1995 at 30 feet below the surface. On August 8, 2000, after 136 years underwater, the Hunley was carefully retrieved and moved to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston.
Untimely demise was only one part of the tale. Under the conservation tanks, archaeologists and scientists worked through an accurate process of desalination of iron, studying the design and artifact retrieval. Clemson University’s team, guided by preservation science specialists, used top-of-the-line technologies like 3D scanning and electron microscopes to study the ship and its last moments.
When the remains of the crew were studied, a gruesome truth was disclosed. There was no sign of hull breach. All men stayed in their place at their station, as if they had never made an effort to evacuate. Forensic examination showed that the shockwave from the torpedo likely ruptured their lungs and killed them instantly before the submarine hit the bottom. In April 2004, Dixon and the eight men were laid to rest with full military honors in Magnolia Cemetery with thousands in attendance.
Now, the Hunley is so much more than a relic. It’s a laboratory for scientists, an inspiration to preservation innovation, and a testament to human hubris. Objects discovered within—a gold watch, personal belongings, and boots of the crew—give up close portraits of the men who risked everything in a new kind of war. Due to the relentless work of historians, scientists, and the Friends of the Hunley, its story continues to inspire, teach, and remind us of the thin line between invention and sacrifice.
The H.L. Hunley’s most enduring legacy is not what it did, but what it symbolized: the tireless search for progress, the desire to reach beyond the limits of the unexplored, and the unbroken thread between yesterday and today in the ever-changing history of naval warfare.