History of the Hunley Essay

The concept of underwater endeavors has been around since the ancient times, the Egyptians used reeds to hunt in the water. The first time the concept was used in a military manner was by Alexander the Great’s army to clear obstructions during the siege of Syracuse in about 413 BC. Both of these instances were very primitive underwater developments, but held the basic concepts of a modern day submarine. They used underwater concealment to achieve a goal and that is the overall main concept of a modern day submarine. In the modern era our idea of underwater boats became a lot more refined and more practical. Many submarine designs started popping up around 1578. The first modern submarine was built in 1605 by Magnus Pegelius his submarine was lost in mud. The first successful submarine was propelled by oars and was invented by Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel many say its design was based on that of an Englishman William Bourne who designed a prototype submarine in 1578. Drebbel was a Dutchman in the service of King James I whose submarine was redesigned two more times from 1620 to 1624. In 1775 the first propelled self reliant submarine was invented in Connecticut and funded by the United States. It was named Turtle due to its resemblance to a turtle. David Bushnell inventor of Turtle was an American patriot and had his designs approved by George Washington. Turtle was the world’s first submarine to be used in battle. Turtle’s design was simple yet very efficient, it consisted of two wooden pieces secured with two metal bands and was covered in tar. It submerged by allowing water into a bilge tank at the bottom of the vessel and ascended by pushing water out through a hand pump, and was propelled vertically and horizontally by hand-cranked propellers. Turtle was the first recorded use of the screw propeller for ships. It also had two hundred pounds of lead which could be released in a moment to increase buoyancy. It was manned and operated by one person. It contained enough air for about thirty minutes and had a speed in calm water of about three miles per hour. Six small pieces of thick glass in the top were the only source of natural light. After Bushnell pondered the problem of lighting the inside of the ship and after learning that using a candle would hasten the use of the limited oxygen supply of the air inside, he solicited the help of Benjamin Franklin who cleverly hit upon the idea of using bioluminescent foxfire to provide illumination for the compass and depth meter. Foxfire is a glowing light given off by several species of fungi. The light given by the material was said to be sufficient at night, though likely dimmer than expected, because the ship was cooled by the surrounding sea water and the metabolic rate of poikilothermic, heterotrophic organisms, such as the mushrooms used in Turtle, is temperature-dependent. Turtle was designed as a naval weapon, and it’s method of attack was to drill into a ship’s hull and plant a keg containing 130 pounds of gunpowder. Then a fuse would be attached and ignited when the Turtle was a safe distance away. Much testing was done by the inventor’s brother, Ezra Bushnell, in the waters of the Connecticut River to ensure the structural fastness of the ship as well as to figure out the abilities of it. During the night of September 7, 1776, to support the upcoming Battle of Kip’s Bay, Turtle, under the guidance of army volunteer Sergeant Ezra Lee, attacked the English’s flagship HMS Eagle, which was moored off what is today called Governors Island, which is due south of Manhattan. A common misconception was that Lee failed because he could not manage to bore through the copper-sheeted hull. In practice, it has been shown that the thin copper would not have presented any problem to the drill. A more likely scenario is Lee’s unfamiliarity with the vessel made him unable to keep the Turtle stable enough to work the drill against the Eagle’s Hull. When he attempted another spot in the hull, he was unable to stay beneath the ship, and eventually abandoned the attempt. Governors Island is the place where the Hudson River and the East River merge. The currents at this point would have been strong and difficult. The Turtle would only be able to attack ship moored here during the short period of time when the incoming tide balanced the river currents. It is possible that during the attack the tide turned and Lee was unable to compensate. He released the keg of gunpowder when some British in row boats tried to pursue him. The British, suspecting some trick, gave up the pursuit. This was the beginning of a new era of naval battle. After several years of innovations and refinements to submarines designs and the building of many other successful ships such as France’s Nautilus and the US Navy’s Alligator, there came along a man named Horace Lawson Hunley who designed and created the Confederate States of America’s first successful submarine, the CSS H. L. Hunley. The Hunley and two earlier submarines were privately developed and funded by Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock, and Baxter Watson. The three men first built a small submarine named Pioneer at New Orleans, Louisiana. Pioneer was tested in February 1862 in the Mississippi River, but the Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to abandon development and scuttle Pioneer the following month. The three inventors then moved to Mobile and joined with machinists Thomas Park and Thomas Lyons. There they soon began development of a second submarine, American Diver. They were supported by the Confederate States Army. The men experimented with electromagnetic and steam propulsion for the new submarine, before falling back on a simpler hand-cranked propulsion system. The ship was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but proved too slow to be practical. One attempted attack on the Union blockade was made in February 1863, but was unsuccessful. The submarine sank in Mobile Bay during a storm later the same month and was not recovered. After the disappointment of the American Diver the construction of Hunley began soon. At this stage, Hunley was variously referred to as the â€Å"fish boat†, the â€Å"fish torpedo boat†, or the â€Å"porpoise†. Legend long held Hunley was made from a cast-off steam boiler, maybe because a cutaway drawing by William Alexander, who had seen the real boat, showed a short and stubby machine. In fact, the Hunley was purpose-designed and built for her role. Hunley was designed for a crew of eight. The eight man crew consisted of seven to turn the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the boat. Each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added through the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel. Hunley was equipped with two watertight hatches, one forward and one aft, atop two conning towers with small portholes. The hatches were very small, making entrance to and egress from the hull very difficult. The ship had a hull height of 4 ft 3 in. By July 1863 Hunley was ready for a demonstration. Supervised by Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan, Hunley successfully attacked a coal flatboat in Mobile Bay. Right after this demonstration, the submarine was shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, by train. The Hunley arrived in Charleston August 12, 1863. The Confederate military seized the vessel from its private builders and owners soon after its arrival in Charleston and turned it over to the Confederate Army. The submarine would operate as a Confederate Army vessel from that point forward. Horace Hunley and his partners remained involved in the submarine’s further testing and operation. Confederate Navy Lieutenant John A. Payne volunteered to be Hunley’s skipper, and a volunteer crew of seven men was assembled to operate the submarine. On August 29, 1863, Hunley’s new crew was preparing to make a test dive to learn the operation of the submarine. Then the fatal moment came when Lieutenant Payne accidentally stepped on the lever controlling the sub’s diving planes while the crew was rowing and the boat was running. This caused Hunley to dive with hatches still open, flooding her. Payne and two other men escaped; the remaining five crewmen drowned. The Confederacy did not give up hope on the Hunley. Within 72 hours of the fatal accident, General Beauregard sent the following order: â€Å"Fish Torpedo still at bottom of bay, no one working on it. Adopt immediate measures to have it raised at once. Work quickly began to salvage the submarine from the harbor’s bottom and exhume the crew from their iron casket. For the submarine’s second outing, Hunley convinced the Confederate Navy to man the sub with a crew from Mobile who were familiar with the Hunley’s operations. Hunley went straight to where the submarine was built, Park and Lyons machine shop in Mobile, to enlist a new crew to man the vessel. Eve n their experience proved futile. On October 15, 1863, the Hunley again sank while performing a routine diving exercise. All eight men on board, including Hunley, succumbed to the depths. Although Hunley was in charge of the sub’s operations, he was not part of her crew. It is not known why he was at the helm when the sub sank for the second time. It is uncertain what caused the fate of the Hunley the second time. But if the crew had been able to close the forward sea valve which caused the ship to dive nose first, the freezing water that had already entered the ballast tank and spilled over the top could have been bailed back into the compartment and pumped into the sea. Although it would have been extremely difficult to do so in the darkness and confusion that followed the impact with the ocean floor, the valve handle must have fallen off the stem and become lost beneath the bodies that had been thrown into the forward area. Causing icy water and internal pressure to steadily rise within the vessel, panic would have gripped the terrified crewmen. As they were beneath nine fathoms it would have been a hopelessly miserable way to die. Hunley having now sunk twice, both times killing some of her crew including Hunley himself. Even so, the desperation of the times kept hope alive that the Hunley could save Charleston from the strangling blockade. Though Beauregard had grave concerns over the twice-fatal Hunley, at the urging of Lt. George Dixon, he nevertheless approved her to be to be salvaged by divers and pulled up by ships so that she could again attempt a strike at the Union blockade. Another new and courageous crew had already quickly assembled after the second sinking. Until the final resurrection of Hunley, little was known about members of the final crew. Since the Hunley was a venture with close ties to the Confederate Secret Service, many records were intentionally destroyed at the end of war to protect the identities of those involved. After months of repairs, re-modification and practice missions, the Hunley was ready to attack again. Finally on the night of February 17, 1864 Lt. Dixon and his new crew took Hunley out for its final voyage. The target was the Union Navy’s largest ship, the USS Housatonic. The Housatonic was also the main body of the Union’s naval blockade of Charleston. As Hunley came close to the ship, Housatonic’s lookout rang the alarm and the Hunley came under small arms fire, even though the Housatonic had six cannons aboard they were not built to be able to be aimed that low in the water. The Hunley then rammed its barbed charge into the hull of the Housatonic and then began to reverse away from the ship. It is uncertain how far Hunley got away from the Housatonic before the charge went off. After the explosion, which caused the first successful submarine attack on an enemy ship in wartime, the Housatonic sunk within four minutes killing five of its crew. After the attack Hunley signaled the men back at shore of the successful attack by means of a blue signal lantern. After the signal the men back on shore awaited the return of the Hunley, but sadly it never did return. Instead it sank to the bottom of the sea not to be seen again for another 137 years. Even though the Hunley itself sank more times than it sank other ships, it was a major naval innovation. It showed just how vulnerable ships were to submarines and how something so small and discreet can do so much damage to something as very large and discerning as the USS Housatonic. Since the Hunley military innovations and modern technology have continued to evolve and has provided the world with extremely deadly, accurate, reliable, fast, and stealthy submarines. But it all started with an American in a tar covered barrel trying to drill a hole in the bottom of a ship, and then led to success with human powered submarines such as the Hunley. Although the history of the creation of the Hunley and its military campaign is extremely interesting, the search and finding and preservation of the ship is equally intriguing. Two different individuals have claimed The Hunley discovery. Underwater Archaeologist E. Lee Spence, president, Sea Research Society, reportedly discovered Hunley in 1970, and has an impressive collection of evidence to validate the claim. On September 13, 1976, the National Park Service submitted Spence’s location for H. L. Hunley for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Spence’s location for Hunley became a matter of public record when H. L. Hunley’s placement on that list was officially approved on December 29, 1978. Spence’s book Treasures of the Confederate Coast, which had a chapter on his discovery of Hunley and included a map complete with an â€Å"X† showing the wreck’s location, was published in January of 1995. A few months after Spence’s book with the location of the Hunley marked, Diver Ralph Wilbanks, claims to have discovered the wreck in April of 1995 while leading a NUMA dive team. Ralph Wilbanks claims to have located the submarine buried under several feet of silt, which had concealed and protected the vessel for over a hundred years. The divers exposed the forward hatch and the ventilator box, which is the air box for the attachment of a snorkel, to identify her. The submarine was resting on her starboard side at about a 45-degree angle and was covered in a ? – to ? -inch encrustation of ferrous oxide bonded with sand and seashell particles. Archaeologists exposed part of the ship’s port side and uncovered the bow dive plane. More probing revealed an approximate length of 40 feet, with the entire vessel preserved under the sediment. On September 14, 1995, at the official request of Senator Glenn F. McConnell, Chairman, South Carolina Hunley Commission, E. Lee Spence, with South Carolina Attorney General Charles M. Condon signing, gifted the Hunley to the State of South Carolina. Shortly thereafter NUMA disclosed their location for the wreck. Spence claims that he discovered the Hunley in 1970 and verified the discovery in 1971 and again in 1979, and that he expected NUMA to verify the discovery, not claim it. This is an ongoing dispute involving allegations of political manipulation, judicial misconduct and other questionable behavior. On August 8, 2000 an Archaeological investigation and excavation culminated ith the raising of Hunley. A large team of professionals from the Naval Historical Center’s Underwater Archaeology Branch, National Park Service, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, and various other individuals investigated the vessel, measuring and documenting it prior to removal. Once the on-site investigation was complete, harnesses we re slipped underneath the sub and attached to a truss designed by Oceaneering, Inc. After the last harness had been secured, the crane from the recovery barge Karlissa B hoisted the submarine from the harbor bottom. Despite having used a sextant and hand-held compass, thirty years earlier, to plot the wreck’s location, Dr. Spence’s accuracy turned out to be within the length of the recovery barge. On August 8, 2000 at 8:37 a. m. the sub broke the surface for the first time in over 136 years, greeted by a cheering crowd on shore and in surrounding watercraft. Once safely on her transporting barge, Hunley was shipped back to Charleston. The removal operation concluded when the submarine was secured inside the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, at the former Charleston Navy Yard, in a specially designed tank of freshwater to await conservation. History has a very interesting way of reminding us of how our past affects our future. With something as magnificent as the discovery and resurrection of the Hunley it just goes to show us what hard work and dedication can bring us. As well as all the mysteries still unsolved about artifacts found in the Hunley as well as what really happened the night that the Hunley never returned home. I believe some things should stay mysteries; it makes it more fun to think about.