, under the auspices of the Confederate Navy and brought
from that port to Charleston on flat cars for the purpose of trying to
break the blockade of that port by Federal war-ships. The _Hunley_ was
about forty feet long, six in diameter, and shaped like a cigar. Its
motive power came from seven men turning cranks attached to the
propeller-shaft. When working their hardest these men could drive the
boat at a speed of about four miles an hour.
Several attempts to use the _Hunley_ were unsuccessful, each time it
sank, drowning its crew of from eight to ten men. These experiments,
which were carried on in shallow water at Charleston, mark one of the
bright pages in our seafaring annals, as crew after crew went into the
boat facing practically certain death to the end that the craft might be
made effective. Each time the vessel sank she was raised, the dead crew
taken out, and a new experiment with a new crew made. In all
thirty-three men were sacrificed before it was finally decided that the
boat could make her way out to the blockading line. It was on the night
of February 17, 1864, that the _Hunley_ set out on her last journey. The
vessel submerged, reached the side of the United States steamship
_Housatonic_, and successfully exploded a mine against the hull of the
Federal war-ship, sending her to the bottom.
But in the explosion the submersible herself was sunk and all on board
were lost. The commander of the expedition was Lieutenant George E.
Dixon, of Alabama, who with his crew well appreciated their danger.
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