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To search for the Our American Stories podcast, Go to the iHeartRadio app. or wherever you get your podcast. Up next a story from the South Carolina Military Museum. in Columbia, the state capital. The first successful submarine attack on february seventeenth, eighteen sixty four, was only a partial success.
When it was all said and done, the USS USA Tonic laid on the bottom of Charleston Harbor. but so did the sub the CSS Unley. Here's John Freeman, with with the story. The Hunley 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 rowed really low in the water. And because of it, they thought, well, it would be difficult to detect, difficult to hit. But they would call it a torpedo boat because it was supposed to be doing what the honey similar duty did, which is. take a torpedo, which torpedoes at that time were more mines, and uh run it run it the side of enemy ships.
Well, the Hunley was built elsewhere, it was brought to Charleston and it was brought here for testing actually. And 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 would do is they would paddle a row, neither of those are properly.
So, it was person-powered the honey was. There was like a crankshaft. 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, it was man-powered.
So, what they're supposed to do is go out of the harbor, head out towards the fleet, which wasn't in the harbor, it was actually outside the harbor.
So, the fleet was. You wouldn't call it offshore, but it was a decent way 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 and looked behind the boat while they were still 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 Hunley in front of the Charleston Museum. And it had the spar mounted to the top of 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 Hunley, at the bow, and just sticking out straight. And that's what everyone thought happened, until they actually went and they recovered the Hunley 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 into the bottom of the boat better.
So they went to a bar mounted on the bottom, and fortunately there were some. There were 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 it would just flood and they would lose crews. 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, and they'd always manage to recruit a new crew for it.
So the night The night of the attack, they got the crew in there, and I want to say. One of the members is um Dixon. Is the name of the commander of the boat. Anyway, 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 bullet and prevented it from him losing him losing 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. This gold coin that's cupped out, looking kind of like the top of a mushroom.
So they go out and um they have signals they give to the shore of when they're leaving and when they're successful, just so they have some form of communication between shore and the Hunley.
So it's night time, 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 they they start approaching the Housatonic, one of the lookouts Seize it. And raises the alarm, and they never get any heavy fire like cannons onto the Hanley, 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 decently short amount of time. Uh Well, the Hunley's never seen again after this.
However, lookouts on the coast claim that they see the lights from the Hunley signaling that they're going to return. which is what is part of the mystery of It never shows up. It 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 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 in reverse. I guess they row their arms the other way and they start backing away from the Housatonic, and there's actually a rope that comes out. And as that rope hits a certain point and they're a safe distance away, it's supposed to go off on the side of the boat.
So they're thinking, well, maybe it went off on impact. Maybe it went off before it was supposed to, and it actually, because the effects of an acoustic blast like that underwater are just devastating the human body. Maybe that caused it. Maybe it sunk due to small arms fire. No one knows, but it doesn't explain the supposed lights that the lookout saw on shore.
Because it was after the Housatonic would have sunk, they received the lights saying we're coming in.
So it's always been a bit of a mystery. Where it's sunk as well and the finding of it is also an interesting story in itself. There's two claims to the find of the Hunley. Ely Spence 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 Kustler. Also, claims he's the one who found it. He's actually the one who funded a lot of it through NUMA, pulling the 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 this day. 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 um delicate because there's remains. It's become a tomb for over a 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 or not. That was always a, is that a myth?
Is it a legend? Is it rumor? Did he even take it with him when he went on the boat? But they ended up finding the coin in the boat, and it's sort of an awesome little story that he took it with him to the very end. And it's still some debate of how it sunk exactly, but debate or not, it does stand as the first submarine in history to sink an enemy vessel.
And a terrific job on the storytelling and the production by our own Monty Montgomery. The first successful submarine attack More interesting things you learn right here. on our American story. Folks, 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 free and terrific online courses. Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected.
That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at let's get real about skincancer.com. In Working Forest Across America, professionals like Kit are committed to planting more trees than they harvest. Planting more trees than we harvest is important because it ensures our sustainability.
Learn more at WorkingForestInitiative.com. Mm-hmm. Honey, Felipe sent another photo. From Argentina? How?
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