April 18, 2024 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the CSS Hunley's sinking of the Housatonic was only a partial success, but represents the first time a submarine managed to sink an enemy vessel...and it happened in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast up
next to the story from the South Carolina Military Museum
in Columbia, the state Capitol. The first successful submarine attack
(00:34):
on February seventeenth, eighteen sixty four was only a partial success.
When it was all said and done, the USS Hoosatonic
laid on the bottom of Charleston Harbor, but so did
the sub the Csshunley. Here's John Freeman with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Wasn't built here. It wasn't even the first submersible type
craft used by the Confederacy. So they had something else
called the David, which was called a semi submersible. It
was a boat that it rowed really low in the
water and because of the thought, well it'd be difficult detect,
difficult to hit, but it would call it a torpedo
boat because it was supposed to be do what the
Honey similar to that they did, which is take a
(01:20):
torpedo which torpedoes at that time were more mines and
run at the side of enemy ships. Well, the Honley
was built elsewhere, it was brought to Charleston and it
was brought here for testing. Actually it was hopeful that
after testing it could break the blockade that was going
off the harbor by the Union fleet. And so when
they initially built it, there was actually a rope and
a floating mine behind them, and what they thought they
(01:42):
would do is they would paddle or row. Neither of
those are properties. It was person powered. The honey was
there was like a crank shaft. They were all sitting there,
hunched over in this little tin can and they're working
with their arms just getting this thing to go. So
itose man powers. What they're supposed to do was go
out of the harbor, head out towards the fleet, which
wasn't in the harbor. It was actually outside of the harbor.
So the fleet was you called it offshore, but those
(02:03):
are decent ways out. You had to get there by hand.
And then when they got close they would actually submerge
and then they would drag this mine which was floating
into the side of the ship to destroy the ship. Well,
during training they realized that wouldn't work because at one
point during training, due to the tides. They came to
a stop and they turned around to look behind the
(02:24):
boat whether it's on the surface, and the mine was
coming up on them pretty fast, and they said, well,
hang on, this might be a bad idea. We need
to figure something else out so we don't just blow
ourselves out of the water. So what they did is
actually went to a spar system off the front of
the Hunley. And for the longest time I remember as
a kid I grew up in Charleston, there was a
reproduction of the Huneley in front of the Charleston Museum
and it had the spar mounted to the top of
(02:45):
the hunley, and you can still find tons of publications
and photos and paintings of the spar mounted to the
top of the front of the hundlay of the bow
and just sticking out straight. And that's why everyone thought
it happened. And so they actually went and they recovered
the Hundley in the harbor, and they realized the bar
was mounted to the bottom and stuck upwards at more
of an angle so it could hit in the bottom
of the boat better. So they went to a bar
(03:06):
mountain on the bottom. Unfortunately, there were some there are
some accidents during training. I think they lost multiple crews
where something would happen, the billows would leak, or a
hatch would somehow be left open if I recall, and
they would just flood and they would lose cruise, and
they'd always go out, and it was too vital. They
couldn't leave it. They'd always go out, they'd always recover it.
They'd always managed to recruit it and a crew for it.
(03:29):
So the night, the night of the attack, they got
the crew in there, and I want to say, one
of the members is Dixon. Is the name of the
commander of the boat. Anyways, So Dixon, he's seen combat before,
you know, he's been on the battlefield. He's actually got
a gold coin in his pocket because on the battlefield
he got shot and the gold coin actually caught the
(03:51):
bullet and prevented it from him losing him losing an
appendage or something like that, and it actually may have
saved his life due to the medicine at the time.
So it keeps it as a good luck charm, gold
coin that's cupped out looking like the top of a mushroom.
So they go out and they have signals they give
to the shore of when they're leaving them, when they're successful,
just so they have some form of communication between shore
(04:13):
and the Honley. So it's nighttime, they're rowing out to
the fleet, and out at the fleet is the Housatonic,
which is a fairly large boat with pretty big guns,
so the Hunley won't actually approach completely underwater, otherwise they'd
have no idea where they were going. However, they have
these little conning towers with these little glass viewports on them,
so they can sort of see where they're going. So
(04:34):
they start approaching the Housatonic. One of the lookouts sees
it and raises the alarm, and they never get any
heavy fire like cannons onto the Honey, but there are
some small arms fire. But then the whole boat is
just shuddered by a blast and it actually goes down
in a decent decently short amount of time. Well, the
(04:55):
Huntley is never seen again after this. However, lookouts on
the cove claim that they see the lights from the
Honey signaling that they're going to return, which is what
is part of the mystery of it never shows up.
They never returns. How did it sink? Some people believe
that maybe small arms fire penetrated one of those lookout
portholes and actually took on water and sunk. Some think
(05:17):
that when the blast went off, because what was supposed
to happen is the mine hits the side of the
boat and then the honey actually kicks it reverse. I
guess they row their arms the other way and they
start backing away from the Hoosatonic and there's actually a
rope that comes out, and as that rope hits a
certain point, there's a safe distance away. It's supposed to
go off on the side of the boat. So they're thinking, well,
(05:38):
maybe went off an impact, Maybe it went off before
it was supposed to, and it actually because the effects
of an acoustic blast like that under water are just
devastating the human body. Maybe that caused it. Maybe it's
sunk due to small arms fire, and no one knows.
But doesn't explain the supposed the lights that the lookout
saw on shore because that was after the Whostonic would
have sunk. They received the lights saying we're coming in.
So it's always been a bit of a mystery, and
(06:01):
where it's sunk as well. In the finding of it
is also an interesting story in itself. There's two claims
to the find of the Huntley. Eli Spent claims to
have found a magnetic anomaly in the location where the
Hunley was found and therefore he found the Hunley. Another
one is by big money bookseller Clive Custler also claims
he's the one who'd who found it. He's actually one
who funded a lot of it through NUMA, pulling the
(06:22):
thing up everything like that, so he tends to get
the line share of it. But Spent still claims he's
the one who found the Hunley. To the stay anyways,
get to the end of it. I believe the Hunley
is now done with conservation. I think they're actually looking
to get it on permanent display sometime in the next
couple of years. But in the process of going through,
you know, they have to be delicate because there's remains,
(06:42):
it's become a tomb for over one hundred years. But
when going through the remains and going through and cleaning
out the inside, they find a gold coin, and it's
the gold coin that actually has the bullet and the
dimple of it. Because it never knew if that was
actually truthful, in that there was always a is that
a myth is it a legend as a rumor to
even take it with him when he went on the
boat up finding the coin in the boat, and it's
sort of an awesome little story that he took it
(07:03):
with him to the very end. And it's still some
debate of how it sunk exactly, but the debate or
not it does stand as the first submarine in history
to sink an enemy vessel.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And a terrific job on the storytelling and the production
by our own Montay Montgomery, the first successful submarine attack.
More interesting things you learn right here on our American story.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
If you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:52):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more.
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast up
next to the story from the South Carolina Military Museum
in Columbia, the state Capitol. The first successful submarine attack
(00:34):
on February seventeenth, eighteen sixty four was only a partial success.
When it was all said and done, the USS Hoosatonic
laid on the bottom of Charleston Harbor, but so did
the sub the Csshunley. Here's John Freeman with the story.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Wasn't built here. It wasn't even the first submersible type
craft used by the Confederacy. So they had something else
called the David, which was called a semi submersible. It
was a boat that it rowed really low in the
water and because of the thought, well it'd be difficult detect,
difficult to hit, but it would call it a torpedo
boat because it was supposed to be do what the
Honey similar to that they did, which is take a
(01:20):
torpedo which torpedoes at that time were more mines and
run at the side of enemy ships. Well, the Honley
was built elsewhere, it was brought to Charleston and it
was brought here for testing. Actually it was hopeful that
after testing it could break the blockade that was going
off the harbor by the Union fleet. And so when
they initially built it, there was actually a rope and
a floating mine behind them, and what they thought they
(01:42):
would do is they would paddle or row. Neither of
those are properties. It was person powered. The honey was
there was like a crank shaft. They were all sitting there,
hunched over in this little tin can and they're working
with their arms just getting this thing to go. So
itose man powers. What they're supposed to do was go
out of the harbor, head out towards the fleet, which
wasn't in the harbor. It was actually outside of the harbor.
So the fleet was you called it offshore, but those
(02:03):
are decent ways out. You had to get there by hand.
And then when they got close they would actually submerge
and then they would drag this mine which was floating
into the side of the ship to destroy the ship. Well,
during training they realized that wouldn't work because at one
point during training, due to the tides. They came to
a stop and they turned around to look behind the
(02:24):
boat whether it's on the surface, and the mine was
coming up on them pretty fast, and they said, well,
hang on, this might be a bad idea. We need
to figure something else out so we don't just blow
ourselves out of the water. So what they did is
actually went to a spar system off the front of
the Hunley. And for the longest time I remember as
a kid I grew up in Charleston, there was a
reproduction of the Huneley in front of the Charleston Museum
and it had the spar mounted to the top of
(02:45):
the hunley, and you can still find tons of publications
and photos and paintings of the spar mounted to the
top of the front of the hundlay of the bow
and just sticking out straight. And that's why everyone thought
it happened. And so they actually went and they recovered
the Hundley in the harbor, and they realized the bar
was mounted to the bottom and stuck upwards at more
of an angle so it could hit in the bottom
of the boat better. So they went to a bar
(03:06):
mountain on the bottom. Unfortunately, there were some there are
some accidents during training. I think they lost multiple crews
where something would happen, the billows would leak, or a
hatch would somehow be left open if I recall, and
they would just flood and they would lose cruise, and
they'd always go out, and it was too vital. They
couldn't leave it. They'd always go out, they'd always recover it.
They'd always managed to recruit it and a crew for it.
(03:29):
So the night, the night of the attack, they got
the crew in there, and I want to say, one
of the members is Dixon. Is the name of the
commander of the boat. Anyways, So Dixon, he's seen combat before,
you know, he's been on the battlefield. He's actually got
a gold coin in his pocket because on the battlefield
he got shot and the gold coin actually caught the
(03:51):
bullet and prevented it from him losing him losing an
appendage or something like that, and it actually may have
saved his life due to the medicine at the time.
So it keeps it as a good luck charm, gold
coin that's cupped out looking like the top of a mushroom.
So they go out and they have signals they give
to the shore of when they're leaving them, when they're successful,
just so they have some form of communication between shore
(04:13):
and the Honley. So it's nighttime, they're rowing out to
the fleet, and out at the fleet is the Housatonic,
which is a fairly large boat with pretty big guns,
so the Hunley won't actually approach completely underwater, otherwise they'd
have no idea where they were going. However, they have
these little conning towers with these little glass viewports on them,
so they can sort of see where they're going. So
(04:34):
they start approaching the Housatonic. One of the lookouts sees
it and raises the alarm, and they never get any
heavy fire like cannons onto the Honey, but there are
some small arms fire. But then the whole boat is
just shuddered by a blast and it actually goes down
in a decent decently short amount of time. Well, the
(04:55):
Huntley is never seen again after this. However, lookouts on
the cove claim that they see the lights from the
Honey signaling that they're going to return, which is what
is part of the mystery of it never shows up.
They never returns. How did it sink? Some people believe
that maybe small arms fire penetrated one of those lookout
portholes and actually took on water and sunk. Some think
(05:17):
that when the blast went off, because what was supposed
to happen is the mine hits the side of the
boat and then the honey actually kicks it reverse. I
guess they row their arms the other way and they
start backing away from the Hoosatonic and there's actually a
rope that comes out, and as that rope hits a
certain point, there's a safe distance away. It's supposed to
go off on the side of the boat. So they're thinking, well,
(05:38):
maybe went off an impact, Maybe it went off before
it was supposed to, and it actually because the effects
of an acoustic blast like that under water are just
devastating the human body. Maybe that caused it. Maybe it's
sunk due to small arms fire, and no one knows.
But doesn't explain the supposed the lights that the lookout
saw on shore because that was after the Whostonic would
have sunk. They received the lights saying we're coming in.
So it's always been a bit of a mystery, and
(06:01):
where it's sunk as well. In the finding of it
is also an interesting story in itself. There's two claims
to the find of the Huntley. Eli Spent claims to
have found a magnetic anomaly in the location where the
Hunley was found and therefore he found the Hunley. Another
one is by big money bookseller Clive Custler also claims
he's the one who'd who found it. He's actually one
who funded a lot of it through NUMA, pulling the
(06:22):
thing up everything like that, so he tends to get
the line share of it. But Spent still claims he's
the one who found the Hunley. To the stay anyways,
get to the end of it. I believe the Hunley
is now done with conservation. I think they're actually looking
to get it on permanent display sometime in the next
couple of years. But in the process of going through,
you know, they have to be delicate because there's remains,
(06:42):
it's become a tomb for over one hundred years. But
when going through the remains and going through and cleaning
out the inside, they find a gold coin, and it's
the gold coin that actually has the bullet and the
dimple of it. Because it never knew if that was
actually truthful, in that there was always a is that
a myth is it a legend as a rumor to
even take it with him when he went on the
boat up finding the coin in the boat, and it's
sort of an awesome little story that he took it
(07:03):
with him to the very end. And it's still some
debate of how it sunk exactly, but the debate or
not it does stand as the first submarine in history
to sink an enemy vessel.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And a terrific job on the storytelling and the production
by our own Montay Montgomery, the first successful submarine attack.
More interesting things you learn right here on our American story.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
If you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
(07:52):
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to learn more.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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