Hunley legend altered by new discovery;
sub now believed only 20 feet from blast

Scientists have discovered a piece of a Confederate submarine’s torpedo was still attached to its spar, debunking eyewitness accounts that the Hunley was nearly 100 feet away from the explosion that sent a Union blockade ship to the bottom of the sea off Charleston in 1864.

Instead, the Hunley and its eight-man crew were less than 20 feet from the blast. And that changes everything about the story – and possibly even provides a clue as to why it sank.

“I would say this is the single-most important piece of evidence we have found from the attack,” Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist on the Hunley project, said.

Basically, Hunley conservators found a piece of the torpedo’s copper shell peeled back from the blast when they removed a century of hardened sand and shell from the submarine’s 20-foot spar. The torpedo was bolted to the spar, contradicting the conventional wisdom that the torpedo was planted in the side of the Housatonic with a barb like a fishing hook. It was believed the torpedo slipped off the spar and then was detonated by rope trigger when the sub was a safe distance away.

Instead, the Feb. 17, 1864, attack off Charleston was a dangerous, close-quarters assault that risked the sub and crew.

When the Hunley was built in 1863, it was equipped with an adjustable spar that could be raised or lowered. The torpedo was fixed on the spar at an angle, so that when the spar was lowered for an attack, the torpedo, that contained 135 pounds of black powder, was sitting dead horizontal.

The Hunley left Sullivan’s Island shortly after 6 p.m. on Feb. 17, 1864. Two hours later, it was spotted off the port bow of the Housatonic when it was several hundred yards out. Instead of directly ramming the sloop-of-war, Hunley commander, Lt. George E. Dixon, maneuvered the Hunley around the Housatonic’s bow and aimed for the starboard rear flank.

On the Housatonic, the ship’s hull curved upward and inward toward the stern. The Hunley planted its charge on the side of the ship beneath the bilge line, ensuring that an upward blast would go through the ship. And it did.

The blast left a hole in the Housatonic so large that accounts say a couch floated out of the breach sideways. But what did that blast do to the Hunley and its crew, which were also above the blast and less than two dozen feet away?

There is one clue that suggests a shock wave hit the Hunley hard. Dixon’s pocket watch is stopped at almost the exact moment the Housatonic crew said the Hunley attacked. Did the blast actually stop a clock?

Until the sub itself is examined more closely, scientists will use this new information and data to simulate the blast. Jacobsen said that will offer a better idea of what impact the blast had on the Hunley. She said that will be a time-consuming and costly project, one that will require the lab to partner with an outside source.

They will begin with computer simulations and may eventually move to scale models of the attack. And that ultimately may shed further light on one of the most mysterious legends of the Civil War.