WEBVTT - The First Successful Submarine Attack 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:13.760 This is Lee Habbib and this is Our American Stories, 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.079 the show where America is the star. And the American 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.880 people who search for the Our American Stories podcast go 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.800 to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.440 up next to the the story from the South Carolina Military 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.479 Museum in Columbia, the state capital. The first successful submarine 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:38.600 attack on February seventeenth, eighteen sixty four was only a 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.479 partial success. When it was all said and done, the 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.720 uss Ou Satanic laid on the bottom of Charleston Harbor. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.240 But so did the sub the c SS Nley. Here's 0:00:50.320 --> 0:01:00.800 John Freeman with the story. The Honey wasn't built here. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.880 It wasn't even the first submersible type craft used by 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.040 the Confederacy. So they had something else called the David, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.720 which was called a semi submersible. It was a boat 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.600 that it rowed really low in the water and because 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:14.759 they thought, well it would be difficult to detect, difficult 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.000 to hit, but they would call it a torpedo boat 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:18.520 because it was supposed to be do what the Honey 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.160 similar to that they did, which is take a torpedo, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.839 which torpedoes at that time were more mines and running 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.040 at the side of enemy ships. While the Hunley was 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.560 built elsewhere, it was brought to Charleston and it was 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.119 brought here for testing. Actually it was hopeful that after 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.280 testing it could break the blockade that was going off 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.000 the harbor by the Union fleet. And so when they 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.120 initially built it, there was actually a rope and a 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.720 floating mine behind them, and what they thought they would 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:44.960 do is they would paddle a rod. Neither those are properties. 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.320 It was. It was person powered. The honey was there 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.360 was like a crankshaft. They were all sitting there, hunched 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.840 over in this little tin can and they're working with 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:53.680 their arms just getting this thing to go. So it 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:55.880 was manpower. It's what they're supposed to do was go 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.240 out of the harbor, head out towards the fleet, which 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.440 wasn't in the harbor. It was actually outside the harbor, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.200 so the fleet was anyone called it off shore, but 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:04.680 those are decent ways out. You had to get there 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.000 by hand, and then when they got close they would 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.640 actually submerge and then they would drag this mine which 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:12.720 was floating into the side of the ship to destroy 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:19.480 the ship. Well, during training they realized that wouldn't work 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.080 because at one point during training due to the tides, 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:23.959 they came to a stop and they turned around and 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:25.520 looked behind the boat whether they're still on the surface, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.200 and the mine was coming up on them pretty fast, 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:28.880 and they said, well, hang on, this might be a 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.040 bad idea and we need to figure something else out 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:32.600 so we don't just blow ourselves out of the water. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.000 So what they did is actually went to a spar 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.480 system off the front of the hunley. And for the 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.560 longest time I remember as a kid I grew up 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.760 in Charleston, there was a reproduction of the Hunley in 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:43.919 front of the Charleston Museum and it had the spar 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.600 mounted to the top of the hunley. And you can 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.400 still find tons of publications and photos and paintings of 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.440 the spar mounted to the top of the front of 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.960 the Hunley of the bow and just sticking out straight. 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.200 And that's why everyone thought it happened. And so they 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.320 actually went and they recovered the Hunley in the harbor, 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.320 and they realized the bar was mounted to the bottom 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:02.560 and stuck upwards at more of an angle so it 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.480 could hit into the bottom of the boat better. So 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.560 they went to a bar mountain on the bottom Unfortunately, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.799 there were some there's some accidents during training. I think 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.640 they lost multiple crews where something would happen, the billows 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.200 would leak, or a hatch would somehow be left open 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.080 if I recall, and they would just flood, and they 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:20.880 would lose crews, and they'd always go out, and it 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:22.800 was too vital. They couldn't leave it. They'd always go out, 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:24.720 they'd always recover it, and they'd always managed to recruit 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:31.000 a new crew for it. So the night, the night 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:32.760 of the attack, they got the crew in there, and 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.120 I want to say, one of the members is Dixon. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.400 Is the name of the commander of the boat. Anyways, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.400 so Dixon, he's seen combat before, you know, he's been 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.040 on the battlefield. He's actually got a gold coin in 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.920 his pocket because on the battlefield he received he got 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.960 shot and the gold coin actually caught the bullet and 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.720 prevented it from him losing limb, losing an appendage or 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:56.680 something like that, and it actually may have saved his 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:58.560 life due to the medicine at the time. So it 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.240 keeps it as a good luck charm. Gold coin that's 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.400 cupped out looking like the top of a mushroom. So 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.440 they go out and they have signals they give to 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.840 the shore of when they're leaving when they're successful, just 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.080 so they have some form of communication between shore and 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.120 the Hunley. So it's nighttime they're rowing out to the fleet, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.719 and out at the fleet is the Hausatonic, which is 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.560 a fairly large boat with pretty big guns, so the 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.320 Hunley won't actually approach completely underwater, otherwise they'd have no 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.359 idea where they were going. However, they have these little 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.400 conning towers with these little glass viewports on them, so 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.600 they can sort of see where they're going. So they 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.680 start approaching the Hausatonic. One of the lookouts sees it 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.159 and raises the alarm, and they never get any heavy 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:42.960 fire like cannons onto the Honey, but there are some 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.400 small arms fire, but then the whole boat is just 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.279 shuttered by a blast and actually goes down in a 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:56.400 decent decently short amount of time. Well, the Honey's never 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.640 seen again after this. However, lookouts on the coast claim 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.440 that they see the lights from the Honey signaling that 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.200 they're going to return, which is what is part of 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.120 the mystery of it never shows up, It never returns. 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.080 How did it sink? Some people believe that maybe small 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.040 arms fire penetrated one of those lookout portholes and actually 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:17.720 took on water and sunk. Some think that when the 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.159 blasts went off, because what was supposed to happen is 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.719 the mine hits the side of the boat and then 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.600 the honey actually kicks in reverse. I guess they rode 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:27.680 their arms the other way and they started backing away 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.479 from the Housatonic and there's actually a rope that comes out, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:33.080 and as that rope hits a certain point and they're 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.600 a safe distance away, it's supposed to go off on 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.719 the side of the boat. So they're thinking, well, maybe 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:40.600 went off an impact. Maybe it went off before it 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.560 was supposed to and it actually because the effects of 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.320 an acoustic blast like that underwater, just devastating the human body. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.440 Maybe that caused it. Maybe it sunk due to small 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.200 arms fire. No one knows. But doesn't explain the suppose 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.680 the lights that the lookout saw on shore, because that 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.159 was after the Whosa Tonic would have sunk. They received 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.720 the lights saying we're coming in. So it's always been 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.200 a bit of a mystery, and where it sunk as well. 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.000 On the finding of it is also an interesting story 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.560 in itself. There's two claims to the find of the Hunley. 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.600 Elie Spent claims to have found a magnetic anomaly and 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.599 the location where the Hunley was found and therefore he 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.040 found the Hunley. Another one is by big money bookseller 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.280 Clive Custler also claims he's the one who's found, who 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.600 found and he's actually the one who funded a lot 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.200 of it through NUMA, pulling the thing up everything like that, 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:24.880 so he tends to get the line share of it, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.160 but Spent still claims he's the one who found the 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.960 Hunley to this day. Anyways, get to the end of it. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.560 I believe the Hunley is now done with conservation. I 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.719 think they're actually looking to get it on permanent display 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.800 sometime in the next couple of years. But in the 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:40.640 process of going through, you know, they have to be 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.159 delicate because there's remains. It's become a tomb for over 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.599 a hundred years. But when going through the remains and 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.719 going through and cleaning out the inside, they find a 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.240 gold coin and it's the gold coin that actually has 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.320 the bullet and the dimple of it. Because it never 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.200 knew if that was actually truthful in that there was 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.760 always set a myth, as it a legend, as a rumor, 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.400 did even take it with him when he went on 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.680 the boat, finding the coin in the boat in a 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:03.560 sort of an awesome little story that he took it 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:05.520 with him to the very end. And it's still some 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.919 debate of how it sunk exactly, but the debate or 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.320 not it does stan as the first submarine in history 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:16.520 to sink an enemy vessel, and a terrific job on 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.720 the storytelling and the production by our own Monty Montgomery 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.480 the first successful submarine attack. More interesting things you learn 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:30.440 right here on our American story Folks. 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