1
00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:05,120
Speaker 1: I'm Happy Saturday everyone. Coming up on the show, we

2
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:07,760
Speaker 1: have an interview with Dr Rachel Lance, author of the

3
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:10,320
Speaker 1: book In the Waves, My Quest to Solve the Mystery

4
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:13,680
Speaker 1: of a Civil War Submarine. That book recounts her pH

5
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:17,079
Speaker 1: d research into the disaster aboard the h L. Hunley,

6
00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:20,320
Speaker 1: And since the interview is more focused on her research

7
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 1: than on the greater story of the Huntley and what happened,

8
00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:26,000
Speaker 1: we wanted to replay that earlier episode is a Saturday

9
00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 1: classic for folks who may not know or may not

10
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:33,120
Speaker 1: remember the details. Um we briefly discuss her research from

11
00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:35,600
Speaker 1: back before the book was published. At the end of

12
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:39,559
Speaker 1: the episode. One thing to note, there's discussion about one

13
00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:42,960
Speaker 1: of the Hunley's predecessors, the Pioneer in this episode, which

14
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,600
Speaker 1: her research uncovered different information about, and we're gonna leave

15
00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:48,760
Speaker 1: that for the upcoming interview, but when you get to

16
00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:51,519
Speaker 1: that part, just know that we will be revisiting it

17
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,560
Speaker 1: in a couple of days. This episode originally came out August.

18
00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:02,280
Speaker 1: Well Come to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a

19
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:11,919
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

20
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,039
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We have

21
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,160
Speaker 1: a past podcast subject that has been in the news lately,

22
00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:21,640
Speaker 1: that is the c s S. H L. Hunley, and

23
00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:24,960
Speaker 1: that's following a newly published paper on the cause of

24
00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:28,480
Speaker 1: death for the people who were inside that Confederate submarine

25
00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:31,600
Speaker 1: when it was lost. And typically it's the sort of

26
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:34,520
Speaker 1: news that we would cover with an episode update, where

27
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,840
Speaker 1: we would either play the previous episode first and talk

28
00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:40,360
Speaker 1: about the new developments afterward, or the other way around.

29
00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:44,200
Speaker 1: But that previous appearance of the Hunley on our show

30
00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:49,080
Speaker 1: is from the episode More Shipwrecks Stories Battleships, so it's

31
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:51,680
Speaker 1: only about eight minutes of an episode that also covers

32
00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:55,040
Speaker 1: several other shipwrecks as well. So instead of doing a

33
00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:59,320
Speaker 1: normal episode update that we might do typically in another circumstances,

34
00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:01,640
Speaker 1: we're going to give the h L. Hunley the full

35
00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:05,240
Speaker 1: treatment today. And huge, huge thanks to Rachel Lance, who

36
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:07,480
Speaker 1: dropped us a note about the Hunley a few days

37
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,120
Speaker 1: before we recorded this. She's one of the authors on

38
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:12,320
Speaker 1: this paper that just came out about it, which actually

39
00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:14,480
Speaker 1: grew out of her pH d research, So we will

40
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:17,520
Speaker 1: be talking about that some more later in the episode,

41
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:20,680
Speaker 1: and the story of the h L. Hunley really begins

42
00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 1: with the Union blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War,

43
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:26,679
Speaker 1: which was ordered less than a week after the fall

44
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,240
Speaker 1: of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. So for a quick recap.

45
00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:34,920
Speaker 1: After multiple Slave states, including South Carolina, seceded after the

46
00:02:34,919 --> 00:02:38,440
Speaker 1: election of Abraham Lincoln, Major Robert Anderson of the U.

47
00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:41,600
Speaker 1: S Army occupied Fort Sumter and refused to hand it

48
00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:44,880
Speaker 1: over to the Confederacy, and after a couple of skirmishes,

49
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,240
Speaker 1: a Confederate force attacked the fort on April twelfth, and

50
00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:52,480
Speaker 1: the Union surrendered it on The attack on Fort Sumter

51
00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 1: is generally marked as the official beginning of the war.

52
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:59,320
Speaker 1: Almost immediately after this, the United States government started working

53
00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:02,040
Speaker 1: on a plan to cut off the Southern ports from

54
00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:05,679
Speaker 1: international shipping. The goal was to prevent the South from

55
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:09,520
Speaker 1: exporting its goods, including cotton and produce, and to prevent

56
00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,360
Speaker 1: Southern states from importing trade goods, weapons, and other material

57
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:15,880
Speaker 1: that would be needed for the war. This was all

58
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,799
Speaker 1: part of a military strategy called the Anaconda Plan, meant

59
00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:22,520
Speaker 1: to choke off the South and bring a speedy end

60
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:26,400
Speaker 1: to the conflict. There is some debate about how effective

61
00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:29,639
Speaker 1: this was. It definitely made things tougher on the South,

62
00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:32,560
Speaker 1: but the war was definitely not brought to a remotely

63
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,000
Speaker 1: speedy end by putting it into place. The government had

64
00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:39,040
Speaker 1: two main options for stopping commerce at the southern ports.

65
00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:43,280
Speaker 1: President Lincoln could issue an executive order closing them, or

66
00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 1: a blockade could prevent ships from entering or leaving them.

67
00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:49,640
Speaker 1: Either way, though, cutting off the Southern states to shipping

68
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:52,720
Speaker 1: would have a negative impact on international trade, which meant

69
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,760
Speaker 1: other nations were likely to object, so the likely international

70
00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:59,240
Speaker 1: response had to be part of that decision, and there

71
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,400
Speaker 1: were pros and cons to each of these two strategies.

72
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:05,640
Speaker 1: An executive order closing the ports would be simpler it

73
00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:09,720
Speaker 1: would not require a massively huge navy to enforce, but

74
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:13,640
Speaker 1: it would also be difficult to enforce. This was especially

75
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:16,560
Speaker 1: true since violators would need to be tried in the

76
00:04:16,600 --> 00:04:19,680
Speaker 1: state where they'd violated the order, which at that point

77
00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:22,479
Speaker 1: would have been a state under Confederate control. That would

78
00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:26,080
Speaker 1: make such a proceeding highly unlikely, so it was really

79
00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:29,279
Speaker 1: easy to imagine someone just ignoring the order knowing that

80
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:32,160
Speaker 1: it wasn't likely or even impossible that they would be

81
00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:35,400
Speaker 1: prosecuted for it. A blockade, on the other hand, was

82
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:40,160
Speaker 1: an internationally recognized wartime action, and standards for blockades had

83
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:43,400
Speaker 1: been outlined in the eighteen fifty six Declaration of Paris.

84
00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:46,840
Speaker 1: Although the US was not a signatory of the declaration,

85
00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:50,360
Speaker 1: it could expect other nations to respect the blockade as

86
00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:52,920
Speaker 1: long as it was implemented and maintained in a way

87
00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:56,880
Speaker 1: that followed international law. The only exception would be if

88
00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 1: other nations were willing to officially take the Southern side

89
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,599
Speaker 1: in the conflict, which would put them at war with

90
00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:06,160
Speaker 1: the United States, but at the same time, implementing a

91
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 1: blockade would shift the framing of the war. You might

92
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,719
Speaker 1: remember how in our podcast on nuclear close Calls, the

93
00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:16,080
Speaker 1: United States presented its blockade of Cuba during the Cuban

94
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:19,240
Speaker 1: Missile crisis as a quarantine rather than as a blockade,

95
00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:22,440
Speaker 1: because a blockade assumed a state of war, and the

96
00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:25,360
Speaker 1: United States was not at war with Cuba at that time,

97
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:28,919
Speaker 1: so this was similar Blockading the Southern States meant that

98
00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:33,200
Speaker 1: the Union was recognizing the Confederacy as an opposing belligerent.

99
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,280
Speaker 1: This meant the war was no longer an insurrection or

100
00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:39,560
Speaker 1: a rebellion or some kind of internal matter. It was

101
00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 1: a war between two separate opposing entities. On April nineteen,

102
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:48,440
Speaker 1: President Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering the blockade of the

103
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:53,520
Speaker 1: entire Confederate coast, with the exception of North Carolina and Virginia.

104
00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,760
Speaker 1: He issued a second proclamation eight days later which added

105
00:05:56,760 --> 00:05:59,599
Speaker 1: those two states to the plan. In the words of

106
00:05:59,640 --> 00:06:03,760
Speaker 1: his Shill proclamation, quote for this purpose, a competent force

107
00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,520
Speaker 1: will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit

108
00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:10,599
Speaker 1: of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If therefore, with a

109
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,280
Speaker 1: view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach or

110
00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,359
Speaker 1: shall attempt to leave, any of the said ports, she

111
00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:19,719
Speaker 1: will be duly warned by the commander of one of

112
00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:23,160
Speaker 1: the blockading vessels, who will endorse on her register the

113
00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:25,960
Speaker 1: fact and date of such warning. And if the same

114
00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:29,640
Speaker 1: vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded ports,

115
00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:32,520
Speaker 1: she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient

116
00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,120
Speaker 1: port for such proceedings against her and her cargo as

117
00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:42,120
Speaker 1: prize as maybe deemed advisable. This was a colossal undertaking.

118
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:46,240
Speaker 1: The plan involved not only blocking the twelve major southern ports,

119
00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,520
Speaker 1: but also guarding its entire coastline. This is about three thousand,

120
00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:54,039
Speaker 1: five hundred miles or five thousand, six hundred kilometers, and

121
00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:56,599
Speaker 1: although leaders hoped that it could be done with about

122
00:06:56,760 --> 00:07:00,359
Speaker 1: thirty warships, it became clear really quickly that there was

123
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:04,400
Speaker 1: not nearly enough. Small vessels dodged the warships guarding the

124
00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:10,280
Speaker 1: ports by traveling along inland waterways, and commerce continued essentially unimpeded.

125
00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:13,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it was harder to do, but like they

126
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:16,920
Speaker 1: didn't make much of a dent, and getting done continued

127
00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:21,280
Speaker 1: at the southern ports for months. Gideon Wells, Secretary of

128
00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:25,480
Speaker 1: the Navy, then established a Blockade Strategy Board, which convened

129
00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:28,960
Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian Institution and made an extensive study of

130
00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:31,960
Speaker 1: Southern waterways to try to figure out how to bolster

131
00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:36,240
Speaker 1: this blockade. Their research stretched from July to September of

132
00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:40,560
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, and they ultimately issued ten total reports

133
00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:43,840
Speaker 1: on how to make the blockade more effective. The number

134
00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:46,840
Speaker 1: of blockading ships would grow well into the hundreds, and

135
00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:49,320
Speaker 1: by the end of the war, the United States would

136
00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:53,680
Speaker 1: have the largest navy on earth. Meanwhile, the Confederacy worked

137
00:07:53,680 --> 00:07:56,080
Speaker 1: out a number of strategies to try to get around

138
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,520
Speaker 1: this blockade. For a time, the Confederate government tried issuing

139
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,440
Speaker 1: letters of mark to privateers to operate from the southern

140
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:05,640
Speaker 1: ports and try to take prizes from the Union trade ships.

141
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,679
Speaker 1: This was particularly effective at distracting the United States Navy

142
00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: for the first several months of the war, but as

143
00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:15,160
Speaker 1: the blockade got tightened, privateers stopped being able to sneak

144
00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:18,760
Speaker 1: out and into the Southern ports, so their usefulness declined,

145
00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:22,160
Speaker 1: and eventually their use in the war really waned. Another

146
00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:26,920
Speaker 1: technique was blockade runners, small lightweight sailing vessels and steamers,

147
00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:30,800
Speaker 1: most of them civilian vessels that largely operated at night.

148
00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:34,080
Speaker 1: Blockade runners would sneak in and out of Southern ports

149
00:08:34,360 --> 00:08:37,520
Speaker 1: and carry goods to and from neutral ports like Bermuda

150
00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:41,320
Speaker 1: and Nasau. Charleston, South Carolina was a hot spot for

151
00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:45,040
Speaker 1: blockade runners until early eighteen sixty three, when the Union

152
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:50,160
Speaker 1: significantly reinforced the blockade there. Then most blockade running activity

153
00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:54,359
Speaker 1: moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Small vessels ran the blockade

154
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:56,840
Speaker 1: all through the Gulf Coast throughout the war as well.

155
00:08:57,480 --> 00:08:59,760
Speaker 1: Having grown up in North Carolina and spent a fair

156
00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:03,199
Speaker 1: amoun of time in the Wilmington's and Rightsful Beach areas

157
00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:07,240
Speaker 1: in the summer, blockade runners they have kind of a

158
00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:10,320
Speaker 1: folk hero quality in this like they're kind of a

159
00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:13,040
Speaker 1: nod to the very romanticized idea of how the Civil

160
00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 1: War went down, have kind of a sticking it to

161
00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:20,640
Speaker 1: the man running the blockade like spirit. Uh So, I

162
00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:22,959
Speaker 1: have always found the story of the Blackade Runners kind

163
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:28,360
Speaker 1: of fascinating, um from that point of view and life experience. Yeah,

164
00:09:28,400 --> 00:09:31,920
Speaker 1: I think it's certainly like conjurors images of just sort

165
00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:36,719
Speaker 1: of some interesting stealth moving and yeah, and I can

166
00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:39,160
Speaker 1: see where it gets romanticized. I think they're they're even

167
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,560
Speaker 1: you know, hotels and restaurants and things like that named

168
00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 1: with the Blockade runner or or nods to famous blockade runners.

169
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 1: To me, those words will always mean star wars. So

170
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,439
Speaker 1: of course there were not just efforts to run the Blackade,

171
00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:56,680
Speaker 1: but also to destroy the ships in the blockade themselves.

172
00:09:56,720 --> 00:09:59,840
Speaker 1: And that is what brings us to the c s S. H. L. Huntley,

173
00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 1: which we will talk more about after a sponsor break.

174
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:14,880
Speaker 1: The H. L. Hounley is named for Horace Lawson Hunley,

175
00:10:14,920 --> 00:10:18,800
Speaker 1: who was born in Tennessee on June three. He got

176
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:21,599
Speaker 1: a law degree from the University of Louisiana which is

177
00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,600
Speaker 1: now to Lane University in eighteen forty nine, and he

178
00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:27,680
Speaker 1: opened a law practice in New Orleans. He also worked

179
00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:31,160
Speaker 1: at the New Orleans Customs House, and he'd previously served

180
00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:34,439
Speaker 1: in the Louisiana legislature. In eighteen fifty nine or eighteen

181
00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 1: sixty he bought a plantation, and in addition to the

182
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,840
Speaker 1: enslaved labor that worked on the plantation, according to the

183
00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:43,280
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty census, he enslaved eight people for domestic work

184
00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,520
Speaker 1: at his home in New Orleans. By eighteen sixty one,

185
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:49,680
Speaker 1: he was doing pretty well financially, but he was always

186
00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:52,800
Speaker 1: interested in finding new ways to bring in additional income,

187
00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:55,840
Speaker 1: and one of these was the development of a submarine

188
00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:58,920
Speaker 1: vessel to be used in the Confederate war effort. This

189
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:01,280
Speaker 1: really seems to have in a scheme that was driven

190
00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,880
Speaker 1: more by money and by pride than by patriotism. Although

191
00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:07,920
Speaker 1: Hunley himself was a slave owner and he supported the

192
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:10,959
Speaker 1: institution of slavery, he also thought it was really foolish

193
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,200
Speaker 1: and shortsighted for the South to be going to war

194
00:11:13,320 --> 00:11:16,880
Speaker 1: over it. But businessman and the Confederate government had offered

195
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:20,320
Speaker 1: substantial prizes to anyone who could sink a Union warship,

196
00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:23,840
Speaker 1: and Huny really hoped to get himself one of those prizes,

197
00:11:24,200 --> 00:11:26,360
Speaker 1: and he was also wanting to make his own mark

198
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,200
Speaker 1: on history and establish a legacy for himself. In his

199
00:11:30,320 --> 00:11:33,600
Speaker 1: pursuit of a workable submarine, Hunley teamed up with other

200
00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:37,280
Speaker 1: financial backers and went to James McClintock, an engineer who

201
00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:39,800
Speaker 1: was living in New Orleans who had also been working

202
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:43,760
Speaker 1: on a small underwater craft with Baxter Watson, and once

203
00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:46,400
Speaker 1: they were all working together, their first attempt at a

204
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:49,920
Speaker 1: submarine was the Pioneer, which was a thirty five ft long,

205
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,960
Speaker 1: roughly cylindrical vessel with tapered ends. It was powered by

206
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,960
Speaker 1: two men turning a crank while a commander controlled the

207
00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:01,400
Speaker 1: depth and used fins to steer. Although the Pioneer essentially

208
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:04,440
Speaker 1: worked and it was authorized for privateering with a letter

209
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:08,760
Speaker 1: of mark, it wasn't particularly refined. It moved slowly, and

210
00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:11,840
Speaker 1: it leaked, and it never saw combat. When the Union

211
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,760
Speaker 1: captured New Orleans in April of eighteen sixty two, the

212
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,280
Speaker 1: team intentionally scuttled it so that it would not fall

213
00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:21,640
Speaker 1: into enemy hands. This might be where things like privateers

214
00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:24,720
Speaker 1: get romanticized, because you have to have nerves of steel

215
00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:27,319
Speaker 1: to be like it's essentially a big barrel. I think

216
00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,600
Speaker 1: I'll take it under water and pull a crank. Yeah,

217
00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:33,360
Speaker 1: this whole they talked about in the prior episode, which

218
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 1: I think was from Sarah and Bablina, about how nerve

219
00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:38,280
Speaker 1: racking it must have been to be in any of

220
00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:40,840
Speaker 1: these vessels. I mean, at this point, being in a

221
00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:46,360
Speaker 1: submarine is still a pretty closed in, tight quarters experience.

222
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:49,679
Speaker 1: But these were just basically metal tubes that you had

223
00:12:49,720 --> 00:12:53,400
Speaker 1: to crawl into and then crouch. Yeah. Yeah, Like, here's

224
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:56,000
Speaker 1: the submarine I built in my backyard, Go take on

225
00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:58,960
Speaker 1: the war effort in it. That would be scary. And

226
00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:03,040
Speaker 1: from there, Hunley, Watson and McClintock fled to Mobile, Alabama,

227
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,440
Speaker 1: where they met Thomas W. Park and Thomas B. Lions

228
00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:09,240
Speaker 1: of the Park and Lions Machine Shop, and it was

229
00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:12,479
Speaker 1: there that these five men, along with William A. Alexander,

230
00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:16,680
Speaker 1: worked on another submarine, American Diver. Their efforts with the

231
00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:19,920
Speaker 1: Diver weren't nearly as successful as they had been with

232
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:23,800
Speaker 1: the Pioneer, though McClintock spent months trying to develop an

233
00:13:23,800 --> 00:13:26,720
Speaker 1: engine that could power the sub rather than using the

234
00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:31,120
Speaker 1: power of human beings turning cranks, because moving fresh air

235
00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:34,880
Speaker 1: into a submersible craft was a tricky proposition. Using an

236
00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:38,360
Speaker 1: engine rather than than human exertion for propulsion would give

237
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 1: it a greater range and more power, but he couldn't

238
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:43,520
Speaker 1: get an engine that was small enough to fit, so

239
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:46,240
Speaker 1: he ultimately gave up after having spent months trying, and

240
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,000
Speaker 1: then went back to the crank method that they were

241
00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:50,600
Speaker 1: using before, and he wound up with a design that

242
00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,880
Speaker 1: was slightly larger than the Pioneer and had two additional

243
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:56,880
Speaker 1: crew to power that crank. Uh It performed well enough

244
00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:59,360
Speaker 1: in tests in the lake, but even with two more

245
00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:02,800
Speaker 1: men working the crank, once the American Diver was launched

246
00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:05,679
Speaker 1: into the sea, it wasn't powerful enough to overcome the

247
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,720
Speaker 1: pull of the tide. The crew had to struggle just

248
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,240
Speaker 1: to make it back to port, and once they did,

249
00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:14,839
Speaker 1: for reasons that aren't entirely clear, the vessel was immediately

250
00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,880
Speaker 1: swamped and sank, and it has never been recovered. So

251
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 1: not only had the team spent months working on a

252
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,640
Speaker 1: vessel that didn't work in real world conditions and then

253
00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:25,680
Speaker 1: lost it, they also sunk all of their capital into

254
00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:29,000
Speaker 1: that venture. They would have been out of the submarine

255
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:32,240
Speaker 1: game entirely had they not found a new investor that

256
00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:35,560
Speaker 1: was Edgar C. Singer of Texas, who was an expert

257
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:39,160
Speaker 1: in torpedoes and Singer arrived in Mobile in the spring

258
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:41,800
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty three and was impressed enough with their

259
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:45,240
Speaker 1: progress that he funded work on another submarine, which took

260
00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:48,400
Speaker 1: place over that spring and summer, and the result was

261
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:52,320
Speaker 1: the h L Hunley, which was originally named the fish Boat. Yeah,

262
00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:54,360
Speaker 1: it's not clear to me exactly when they changed it

263
00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:59,040
Speaker 1: to the HONLY Um, but the Homely was longer than

264
00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:01,920
Speaker 1: the Pioneer or the American Diver, with a total length

265
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,640
Speaker 1: of fort or twelve meters that included a five ft

266
00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:08,600
Speaker 1: long or seven point six meter main compartment, and then

267
00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:12,040
Speaker 1: running all through that compartment was the crank connected to

268
00:15:12,120 --> 00:15:14,520
Speaker 1: a propeller by a series of gears that would be

269
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,040
Speaker 1: operated by a crew of seven. Space inside of the

270
00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:21,160
Speaker 1: scrap was very tight. Those men would basically, one at

271
00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:25,280
Speaker 1: a time, crawl or sort of sidle their way in

272
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:30,320
Speaker 1: and then cunch over this central crank. Uh An eighth

273
00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:32,240
Speaker 1: man who was the one in the in command of

274
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:35,280
Speaker 1: the vessel controlled the depth and the direction. I'm so

275
00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:40,040
Speaker 1: claustrophobic just hearing that description. Tracy's watching me wins and squirm,

276
00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:43,200
Speaker 1: and the artwork for this episode on that will be

277
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:45,280
Speaker 1: on our website is like a diagram of what the

278
00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:47,720
Speaker 1: thing looked like. It is very it's very it's very

279
00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 1: tight and there. Out of the water, the hunley looked

280
00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,760
Speaker 1: like a giant metal tube with tapered ends and fins

281
00:15:54,040 --> 00:15:56,320
Speaker 1: and a couple of domes on top. But in the

282
00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:58,720
Speaker 1: water it was pretty easy to mistake for a porpoise

283
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:02,120
Speaker 1: or a dolphin. Bellows and snorkel tubes were used to

284
00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:04,720
Speaker 1: move fresh air into the craft, with a lit candle,

285
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:08,240
Speaker 1: providing an early warning system for oxygen getting too low.

286
00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:11,240
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that previous hosts remarked on

287
00:16:11,360 --> 00:16:13,640
Speaker 1: as being little nerve racking to have to keep an

288
00:16:13,640 --> 00:16:15,560
Speaker 1: eye on a candle to know if you had enough air.

289
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:18,920
Speaker 1: The craft's buoyancy and depth were controlled through a pair

290
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,800
Speaker 1: of ballast tanks, one four and one aft, and each

291
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,480
Speaker 1: of them was equipped with its own pump. The pumps

292
00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:27,840
Speaker 1: were also capable of removing water out from the crew compartment,

293
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:31,200
Speaker 1: which was somewhere it should not be. The vessel's buoyancy

294
00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:34,720
Speaker 1: was a very delicate balance, and too much water collecting

295
00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:37,440
Speaker 1: in the main compartment would cause the vessel to sink.

296
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,760
Speaker 1: They began testing the Hunley in the Mobile River in

297
00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:44,280
Speaker 1: July of eighteen sixty three, working the bugs out before

298
00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:49,160
Speaker 1: inviting Confederate military officials to observe. They conducted a successful

299
00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:52,640
Speaker 1: demonstration on July thirty one, which involved approaching a barge

300
00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:55,400
Speaker 1: in the river while towing a mine, and when it

301
00:16:55,440 --> 00:16:59,000
Speaker 1: got close to the barge, the Hunley submerged, passed under it,

302
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:03,080
Speaker 1: and resur fist farther up the river. Meanwhile, once the

303
00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:06,119
Speaker 1: Mind came in contact with the barge, it exploded and

304
00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,719
Speaker 1: sank it. This demonstration was a clear success, but it

305
00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:13,959
Speaker 1: was not met with the unanimous approval among the Confederate Navy.

306
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,919
Speaker 1: Submarine technology in general was viewed with some suspicion, and

307
00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:21,440
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought it was dishonorable or underhanded

308
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:23,439
Speaker 1: to sneak up on an enemy and attack it in

309
00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,040
Speaker 1: a way that had no hope at all of defense.

310
00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:30,399
Speaker 1: Uh The whole the whole collection of torpedoes and mines

311
00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:32,680
Speaker 1: and things like that that exploded in the water were

312
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:36,160
Speaker 1: all known as infernal machines at this point in history.

313
00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:40,320
Speaker 1: Um The counter argument to the idea that it was

314
00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:42,760
Speaker 1: dishonorable to be using these things to blow up a

315
00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:45,479
Speaker 1: ship when people had no way of defending themselves. Was

316
00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:49,080
Speaker 1: basically that, as underdogs with fewer naval resources than the

317
00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 1: Union the Confederates, that you basically had to use whatever

318
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:56,360
Speaker 1: tools they had at hand. Rear Admiral Franklin Buchanan, commander

319
00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:59,159
Speaker 1: of the Naval District of the Gulf, was one military

320
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:03,280
Speaker 1: figure who not entirely trust submarines. Yet he was the

321
00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:06,800
Speaker 1: one who contacted Flag Officer John Randolph Tucker, who was

322
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:10,200
Speaker 1: in command of the Confederate Navy and Charleston, to unreservedly

323
00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:14,439
Speaker 1: recommend the Huntley's use against the blockade there. Tucker passed

324
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:17,639
Speaker 1: the recommendation on to General p. G. T. Beauregard, who

325
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:21,560
Speaker 1: immediately requested that the Hunley be sent to Charleston. Tucker

326
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,800
Speaker 1: had apparently been confident enough that Beauregard would want to

327
00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:27,560
Speaker 1: take this infernal submarine off of his hands that he

328
00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:30,720
Speaker 1: had already made arrangements to transport it to Charleston before

329
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 1: he actually got that permission. The Hunley went to Charleston

330
00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,960
Speaker 1: by train, where it arrived in August. Soon the Confederate

331
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,200
Speaker 1: Navy took control of it, feeling the civilian team's progress

332
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 1: was too slow, but on August twenty nine, eighteen sixty three,

333
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:47,960
Speaker 1: while at the dock being prepared for a training mission,

334
00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:51,480
Speaker 1: the Hunley sank and five of the eight crew aboard

335
00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:55,240
Speaker 1: were killed. Horace Hunley then demanded that the control of

336
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:58,680
Speaker 1: the submarine be returned back to him from the Confederate military,

337
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,760
Speaker 1: and this was granted, but it did not end well

338
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:05,440
Speaker 1: for him either. On October fifteenth, he planned a demonstration

339
00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:08,520
Speaker 1: and in which he would dive under a Confederate vessel

340
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: and then surface again on the other side, with himself

341
00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,320
Speaker 1: in command of the vessel. But after the dive, the

342
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:17,840
Speaker 1: Hunley did not come back up again. Hunley himself, along

343
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 1: with the rest of the crew were all killed, and

344
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:23,600
Speaker 1: due to bad weather, the vessel wasn't recovered for weeks.

345
00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:26,159
Speaker 1: When it was recovered, it turned out a valve on

346
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 1: the ballast tank was open, which had allowed water from

347
00:19:29,240 --> 00:19:31,520
Speaker 1: the sea into the crew compartment, which had sunk the

348
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:34,800
Speaker 1: vessel and killed everyone aboard, although they had managed to

349
00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:37,240
Speaker 1: raise the h L. Hunley from the sea floor. After

350
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:41,439
Speaker 1: both of these incidents, General Beauregard was understandably reluctant to

351
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:45,480
Speaker 1: allow the vessel to be used again, but Lieutenant George Dixon,

352
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:47,959
Speaker 1: who had previously lived in Mobile and had worked at

353
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:50,600
Speaker 1: the Parking Lions machine shop when the Hunley was built,

354
00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:53,760
Speaker 1: asked to be put in charge of it. Dixon was

355
00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:57,280
Speaker 1: finally given permission to target the U. S. S. Housa Tonic,

356
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:00,280
Speaker 1: which was part of the Union blockade at Charles Sston

357
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,479
Speaker 1: Fix and carried out this operation on February eighteen sixty

358
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 1: four after about two months of training and practice for

359
00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:09,960
Speaker 1: the crew, and we will talk about the mission and

360
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 1: how it went both well and poorly. After a sponsor break.

361
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:25,439
Speaker 1: When the h L. Hunley embarked on its mission to

362
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: destroy the unionship He's a Tonic, it was no longer

363
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: towing a mind behind it as it had done in

364
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:34,600
Speaker 1: that initial demonstration in the Mobile River. Instead, it was

365
00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:37,719
Speaker 1: equipped with a black powder torpedo attached to the end

366
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 1: of a twenty ft spar so for the sake of clarity.

367
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:43,680
Speaker 1: Torpedoes at this point generally did not have any kind

368
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 1: of propulsion or guidance like they do today. They were

369
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:50,240
Speaker 1: a lot more like mines than modern torpedoes. They usually

370
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:52,680
Speaker 1: had to just be rammed into their target in some

371
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 1: physical way. The plan for The Hunley was to do

372
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:59,240
Speaker 1: exactly that and then raise a blue phosphorus lamp to

373
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,760
Speaker 1: signal at the mission was complete, and after seeing the signal,

374
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:05,439
Speaker 1: men on shore would light a fire that the Hunley

375
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 1: could use to navigate home. The Hunley approached the Housatonic

376
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:14,800
Speaker 1: at about eight pm on February eighteen sixty four. Robert F. Fleming,

377
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 1: one of the few black men stationed aboard, spotted something

378
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,879
Speaker 1: odd in the water. He alerted Acting Master's mate Louis

379
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:24,719
Speaker 1: a Compwait, who observed the object and so that it

380
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,119
Speaker 1: was a log. Fleming did not agree with this assessment,

381
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 1: given the objects shape and the fact that it was

382
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 1: traveling quickly across the tide instead of with the tide.

383
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:37,240
Speaker 1: He alerted another sailor on watch that there was a

384
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: torpedo incoming. The Housatonic was prepared for a submarine attack.

385
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 1: Thanks to word carried by Confederate deserters, the Union knew

386
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 1: that the Confederate Navy had a vessel that could approach

387
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 1: ships while partially or entirely submerged. The semi submersible David

388
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,320
Speaker 1: had also attacked the U s s New Iron Sides

389
00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:00,000
Speaker 1: the previous October, so all the blockade ships in the area.

390
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 1: It took the precaution of anchoring in fairly shallow water

391
00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:07,280
Speaker 1: and keeping the boilers ready to move if necessary. Even so,

392
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 1: the response aboard the Housatonic was kind of sluggish. Fleming's

393
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 1: observations weren't readily heated, leading him to say he was

394
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: going to slip the anchor chain himself if he had to.

395
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 1: It was only after Compway took a second look with

396
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: binoculars that he actually sent word up the chain of

397
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:27,880
Speaker 1: command that an incoming vessel was on the way. Eventually,

398
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 1: Acting Master John Crosby alerted the Captain Charles Pickering. As

399
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 1: the rest of the crew began trying to take evasive action.

400
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: Pickering began firing on the Hunley with his shotguns, since

401
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 1: the Hunley had already gotten too close for them to

402
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 1: hit it with a cannon. In spite of the efforts

403
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: aboard the Housatonic, the Hunley successfully deployed its torpedo, blowing

404
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 1: a huge hole in the side of the ship and

405
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 1: causing it to rapidly sink since it had been in

406
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,200
Speaker 1: shallow water with the hope of deterring a submarine attack.

407
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: It came to rest with its rigging above the waterline line,

408
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: and those crew not able to make it to lifeboats

409
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,080
Speaker 1: were able to cling to the rigging while waiting for

410
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,639
Speaker 1: rescue by other ships in the blockade. Although the Housatonic

411
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 1: sank and very little aboard was salvageable afterward, most of

412
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,919
Speaker 1: the crew did survive, five were killed out of a

413
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: total of about a hundred and fifty five. Fleming reported

414
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 1: that while awaiting rescue, he saw a blue light on

415
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 1: the water, presumably the Hunley signal of success, and there's

416
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: some debate about what he might have seen them. He

417
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had knowledge of the Hunley signal plans, and

418
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have had reason to make it up, but

419
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: it seems likely that the only light actually burning aboard

420
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,159
Speaker 1: the Hunley was the candle that was used to monitor

421
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: the oxygen level. Fumily also never made it back to

422
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 1: port due to elapse in communication there on. Shore officials

423
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: in Charleston didn't actually realize the ship was missing for days,

424
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: and with no surviving witnesses on their side, it took

425
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:56,719
Speaker 1: the Confederate Navy a while to confirm that the Housatonic

426
00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: had been sunk as well. The Confederate Navy try to

427
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: keep the word of the Hunley's loss from spreading. It

428
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: would have been impossible to try to locate or raise

429
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: the ship, since it had gone down in the vicinity

430
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: of the blockade and no one aboard had survived to

431
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: give its precise location, But it was useful to the

432
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 1: Confederacy for the Union to believe it still had the

433
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: capability of a surprised submarine attack, and believing the Hunley

434
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: or at least the crew, were still out there was

435
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: also a boost to flagging Confederate morale. Once it was

436
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,399
Speaker 1: clear that no one had survived, theories abounded about what

437
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: might have happened that night aboard the Huntley. Perhaps too

438
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: much water had gotten into the Huntley when the hatch

439
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: was open to raise that blue light and it had sunk.

440
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: Perhaps the explosion had damaged the vessel, or gunfire from

441
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: the ship had pierced the hull. Or maybe in the

442
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: thrill of the moment, that candle had burned out and

443
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: nobody had noticed. Since the captain of the vessel was

444
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 1: the only one who could really control its direction or

445
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,360
Speaker 1: its depth, if he had been killed or injured somehow,

446
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: then his loss would have doomed the whole crews. There

447
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 1: was a lot of speculation, but no one had any idea.

448
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: The Hunley stayed in its place on the sea floor

449
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 1: long beyond the end of the Civil War in eighteen

450
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 1: sixty five. More than a hundred and thirty years later,

451
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: on May third, an expedition by the National Underwater and

452
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: Marine Agency, which you'll see abbreviated to NUMA spearheaded by

453
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 1: author Clive Cussler, discovered it in the Charleston Harbor. It

454
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: was raised from the seafloor on August eighth, two thousand,

455
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: but when it was open, things became even more mysterious.

456
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 1: The entire crew were still at their stations, apparently having

457
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: made no effort at all to escape, and showing no

458
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: evidence of serious injury among what remained of their corpses.

459
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: Dixon's pocket watch was stopped at eight three, leading to

460
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: questions of whether it had been running slowly and had

461
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: stopped at the moment of impact, or if it had

462
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: just run down and the time was a coincidence in

463
00:25:58,160 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: terms of it being close to the time of day

464
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: that they attack the housa Tonic Dixon's lucky twenty dollar coin,

465
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: which he had held onto you after it partially deflected

466
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: a musket ball that struck him in the leg, and

467
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: the Battle of Shiloh was recovered from the wreck as well.

468
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: Apart from the condition of the crew, the vessel itself

469
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: was also intact, with nothing to indicate that it had

470
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: been taking on water or incapacitated in some way. There

471
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: were two large holes in its sides and missing glass

472
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: panes from one of the viewports, but this was eventually

473
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: determined to have happened long after the Hunley came to

474
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 1: rest on the ocean floor. And this all brings us

475
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: to the new research that made headlines in August. While

476
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: doing work on a PhD dissertation about injury and trauma

477
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: patterns from underwater explosions, Rachel Lance looked at data from

478
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: several famous historical battles that involved underwater explosions, and one

479
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: of these was the h L. Hunley. This eventually led

480
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: to a paper published in Plus one on augusten entitled

481
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: quote air last injuries killed the crew of the submarine

482
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: h L. Hunley. Since the Huntley was on the seafloor

483
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: for more than a hundred years, coming to this conclusion

484
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: required construction of a one six scale model of the ship,

485
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: which they nicknamed the CSS Tiny. The CSS tiny was

486
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: exposed to a variety of underwater blasts in a pond

487
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,239
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, North Carolina, with the data from all

488
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: those explosions collected and analyzed. You can read this entire

489
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: paper online and we will link to it in the

490
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 1: show notes. But to sum it up, quote, the blast

491
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: produced likely caused flection of the ship hall to transmit

492
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: the blast wave. The secondary wave transmitted inside the crew

493
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of

494
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: survival were less than six for each crew member. The

495
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: submarine drifted to its resting place after the crew died

496
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 1: of air blast trauma within the hull. The blast wave

497
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,959
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to physically throw the crew around or damage

498
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: their skeletons, but it was enough to cause massive lethal

499
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: pulmonary trauma, which either killed the crew instantly or incapacitated

500
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: them beyond the ability to try and escape. This paper,

501
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: of course, does have some limitations. No matter how accurate,

502
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: a scale model is still a scale model, and the

503
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 1: analyzes required proportionately scaled down blasts to be done in

504
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: that lake. There's also some debate about exactly how large

505
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 1: the payload of the Hunley's black powdered torpedo was, and

506
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: also to confirm these findings, a modern autopsy would have

507
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: needed to have been performed on the bodies of the

508
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: crew when they initially died more than a hundred years ago.

509
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: Obviously that's not gonna happen. So when time travel gets invented,

510
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: we are going to sess this out. We have so

511
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: many terrible uses of time travel that come up on

512
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: our show and I'm like, could you maybe have like

513
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: prevented this from her? Oh? No, We're just going to

514
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: figure out what happened. But given all the other factors

515
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: about how the event transpired and all the other unanswered

516
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: questions and how the crew was found, it does make

517
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: a lot of sense as an explanation. Today, d H. L.

518
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: Hunley has been through a massive conservation that has removed

519
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: more than one thousand, two hundred pounds, or about five

520
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: of concretion from the vessel, and it's at the War

521
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: and Lash Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina, where

522
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: conservation work is still ongoing. Tours are available, but only

523
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: on the weekends to allow for conservation work. During the week.

524
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: The Hunley's crew were also given a funeral and buried

525
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: on April seventeen, two thousand four, in the same cemetery

526
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: as the men killed in its prior sinkings had been

527
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: laid to rest. The next successful attack by a submarine

528
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: during wartime would be on September five, when the German

529
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: U twenty one hit the British Pathfinder with a torpedo,

530
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: sinking it and killing two hundred and fifty six. So

531
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 1: that as the h L Hunley. We've gotten several requests

532
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: for the h L Hunley over the years, and it

533
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: was only more recently than I realized that that it

534
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: had been in that one eight minute segment earlier. Yeah,

535
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: So thanks again to Rachel Lampce for sending us a

536
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: note about this yeah, where we will link to the

537
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: paper which does have other authors in addition to her

538
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: as well. We will link to that from the show

539
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: notes for folks who want to read it. It It is

540
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: very interesting. Thank you so much for joining us today

541
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: for this Saturday classic. If you have heard any kind

542
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: of email address or maybe a Facebook you are l

543
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: during the course of the episode that might be obsolete.

544
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,479
Speaker 1: It might be doubly obsolete because we have changed our

545
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,959
Speaker 1: email address again. You can now reach us at history

546
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: podcast at i heart radio dot com, and we're all

547
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,959
Speaker 1: over social media at missed in History and you can

548
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcast the

549
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.

550
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of

551
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,

552
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you

553
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H m hm