![]() Alexander (1863) CSS Chicora and CSS Palmetto State Horace Lawson Hunley, the submarine's namesake and inventor Drawings of H. Inboard profile and plan drawings, after sketches by W.A. ( October 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. The crew escaped, but the boat was not recovered. However, the submarine foundered in the heavy chop caused by foul weather and the currents at the mouth of Mobile Bay and sank. Nonetheless, it was decided to tow the submarine down the bay to Fort Morgan and attempt an attack on the Union blockade. American Diver was ready for harbor trials by January 1863, but she proved too slow to be practical. The builders experimented with the new submarine's electric and steam propulsion before falling back on a simple hand-cranked propulsion system. Lieutenant William Alexander of the 21st Alabama Infantry Regiment was assigned to oversee the project. Their efforts were supported by the Confederate States Army. Hunley and McClintock moved to Mobile to develop a second submarine, American Diver with the collaboration of two others. John Confederate submarine may have been constructed about this time. But the Union advance towards New Orleans caused the men to abandon development and scuttle Pioneer the following month. Hunley, McClintock, and Baxter Watson first built Pioneer, which was tested in February 1862 in the Mississippi River, and was later towed to Lake Pontchartrain for additional trials. While the United States Navy was constructing its first submarine USS Alligator, in late 1861, the Confederacy was also doing so. Horace Lawson Hunley provided financing for James McClintock to design three submarines: Pioneer in New Orleans, Louisiana, American Diver built in Mobile, and Hunley. Examination in 2012 of recovered Hunley artifacts suggested that the submarine was as close as 20 ft (6.1 m) to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, which caused the submarine's sinking. Hunley did not survive the attack and sank, taking all eight members of her third crew with her, and was lost.įinally located in 1995, Hunley was raised in 2000 and is on display in North Charleston, South Carolina, at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River. On 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240- ton United States Navy screw sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbor. Both times Hunley was raised and returned to service. She sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew, including Horace Lawson Hunley himself, who was aboard at the time, even though he was not a member of the Confederate military. Hunley (then referred to as the "fish boat", the "fish torpedo boat", or the "porpoise") sank on 29 August 1863 during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She was then shipped by rail on 12 August 1863 to Charleston. Hunley, nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, and launched in July 1863. She was named for her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, shortly after she was taken into government service under the control of the Confederate States Army at Charleston, South Carolina. Twenty-one crewmen died in the three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship ( USS Housatonic), although Hunley was not completely submerged and, following her attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. Hunley demonstrated the advantages and dangers of undersea warfare. Hunley, or CSS Hunley, was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War.
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