During the Civil War, the Union Navy conducted a successful blockade of all of the ports in the South. While some ships invariably got through, the blockade prevented the South from exporting its valuable cotton to European markets. This deprived the South of revenue that it desperately needed to continue its war effort. Because of the crippling effect that the blockade had on the Southern war effort, the Confederacy attempted a number of creative ways of breaking it. These included very early submarines like the H.L Hunley.
Horace Lawson Hunley was a lawyer and prominent figure in New Orleans before the war. During the war, he and two other private individuals developed paid for the construction of three submarines to help the Confederate navy break the Union blockade. Their first prototype appeared promising in trials in the Mississippi River, but the submarine had to be scuttled when the Union Army advanced on New Orleans. A second attempt also failed. This ship, called the American Diver, actually attempted an attack on a blockade ship in 1863, but failed. Shortly thereafter, it sank in Mobile Bay.
Their third attempt produced a working submarine called the H.L. Hunley in honor of its inventor. It was designed for a crew of eight. Seven crew members turned the hand-cranked propeller while one officer steered the vessel. It could be lowered or raised in the water by flooding or pumping dry one of two ballast tanks. The submarine was armed with a spar torpedo that would lodge an explosive charge in the bow of the ship. The charge could then be detonated remotely.
After proving a success at a demonstration in Mobile Bay, the vessel was shipped by rail to Charleston and officially entered the service of the Confederate Navy in August of 1863. Despite two accidents which killed most of the crew and sunk the ship both times, the ship was twice recovered. The ships inventor died during one of these attacks. As a result, General Beauregard ordered that the Hunley attack only from the surface. This required a modification of the spar, but it was ready for action by February of 1864.
Lieutenant John A. Payne volunteered to command seven volunteers in an attack on the Union blockade. On the night of February 17, 1864, the Hunley attacked the 12 gun USS Housatonic 5 miles out to sea from Charleston. The attack was a success and 1800 ton ship sank along with five crew members within minutes. The Hunley submerged for the journey back to Charleston and never resurfaced. It is likely that the Hunley received some damage in the explosion and began taking on water slowly when it submerged. By the time the crew realized what was happening, it would have been too late for them to resurface. They probably drowned at the bottom of the ocean.
Whatever the fate of the Hunley, no one knew of its location until relatively recently. There is still some dispute about who actually discovered its location first, but it was not found until at least 1970. In August of 2000, it was raised to the surface over 136 years after it went under. Long before that, however, it was known as the first submarine in the history of warfare to successfully sink an enemy ship.
