The force of the blast rippled through the entire ship, and even the sailors at the bow nearly 200 feet away instantly understood that their vessel would soon be on the ocean floor.” And so would Hunley. The submarine had hit its target, punching a lethal blow through the boat’s underbelly. A spray of shattered wood planks burst upward from the deck of the ship. “As the black powder exploded, the copper casing ripped open, releasing the fearsome pressures of explosive black powder into the water and against the wooden hull of the Housatonic. The author describes the dramatic events of Hunley’s attack. The article is from her new book on the subject published in April this year, which has received excellent reviews.

One of the mysteries-how the crew died-was addressed by a fascinating article in the March 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine by Rachel Lance. The submarine’s remains are on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina, the subject of continuing research seeking to understand what happened to her. (See ECW post “ Making Naval History: The CSS Hunley.”)

Hunley promptly disappeared with all hands not to be rediscovered until 1995 and raised from the harbor bottom in 2000. On February 17, 1864, the Confederate submarine H L Hunley became the first combat submarine to sink a warship when she snuck up on and rammed her spar torpedo into the hull of the screw sloop-of-war USS Housatonic outside Charleston Harbor.

Hunley submarine civil war