10/18/2023 0 Comments Hunley submarine plansOnce the torpedo and the ship connected, the 135 pounds of gunpowder exploded, destroying the Housatonic within minutes. The captain of the ship, John Vessel, only noticed a shadow approaching the boat that he assumed was a porpoise until it approached closer and closer, and the captain realized he was dealing with a revolutionary new weapon.ĭixon stayed under the water as the submarine approached the edge of the boat, close enough to strike the ship with a spar torpedo that was attached to a 16' foot rod. With a brave group of volunteers, Dixon submerged into the harbor and led an attack on the USS Housatonic, a Union blockade ship that was lurking just three miles away from neighboring Fort Sumter. George Dixon who was well aware of the vessel's deadly reputation, was assigned to the ship. Once again, the submarine itself was saved, and a new commander, Lt. A second crew was assigned to the submarine, and two months later, a similar disaster struck during the ongoing training, killing all 8 members of the Confederate crew inside. Testing commenced in Charleston in August 1963, and shortly after, five members of an inaugural crew were drowned after a ship officer accidentally caused the strange new craft to dive while the hatches were still open. The Hunley was tested in Alabama on the Mobile River soon after it was constructed, and once it had constructed a successful demonstration of attacking a test coal floatboat, it was immediately seized by the Confederate Army and shipped to the Charleston Harbor, where the blockade ships were at their thickest and most devastating. Only 8 men could somewhat-comfortably fit in the vessel, including the aforementioned 7 propeller operators, and an eighth man to steer the submarine itself At just 14" x 15 ¾", the small hatches made entering and exiting the submarine very difficult, and the small haul, which was just over 4' feet high, led to some very claustrophobic quarters. The craft was powered by a hand-cranked propeller which required 7 men to operate, and was equipped by ballast tanks on either end that could be flooded by valves or by hand, as well as two watertight hatches located at the front and the top of the vessel, respectively. The Hunley was known as the "fish boat," the "fish torpedo boat," and the simpler "porpoise," and the design entailed a short and stubby vessel that measured just 40' feet long. Desperate to find a way to break the Union blockade which was starving the southern states, engineer Horace Lawson Hunley began privately constructing and testing the vessel in early 1863, after the loss of two unsuccessful submarines, the Pioneer in New Orleans, and the Americans Diver in the Mobile Bay. Hunley was not the first experimental vessel that was being built during the war, but clearly, it would become one of the most famous. Today, weekend visitors can visit the working library where the Hunley lives, and where scientists are diligently working to find out more about this history-making craft, such as how it operated, how it was constructed, and most important and still relatively unknown, how it met its end. Hunley was an experimental new addition to the Confederate's fleet of warships, but on that clear but chilly evening, it would land in military history books for generations to come as the first submarine to successfully take down another wartime vessel. On February 17th 1864, the city of Charleston, deep in the throes of the Civil War, made history with a small 8 men crew that was stationed in a revolutionary new vessel in the Charleston Harbor.
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