The Sea Hunters

  Wicks. Besides, she has a protective net sunk along her hull.

  We'll go in over the net with only our hatch towers awash and place the charge just below their waterline. If we miss this opportunity, they won't give us a chance for a second one."

  In less than a minute the correct amount of water was pumped into the forward and aft ballast tanks; the sub sank beneath the surface until only a narrow band of upper hull and both hatch towers were exposed.

  There was no thought of turning away, no hesitation. The men inside Hunley experienced no fear, nor were they stoic about their fate. They persevered and pushed themselves beyond the depth of endurance.

  They probably did not realize that undying glory was in their grasp' "Now!" Dixon said more loudly than he intended. "Crank hard, crank like hell. We're attacking."

  The men turned the crank with every ounce of muscle in their arms and shoulders until the propeller beat the water to froth. Standing in the forward hatch tower, squinting through the darkness until the enemy warship completely filled the three-inch-diameter viewing port, Dixon pushed hard on the rudder wheel and swung the submarine in a wide arc toward Housatonic's starboard side. He used her mizzenmast as a guide and steered toward the black hull directly below it.

  Walking the deck of his command, U.S.S. Housatonic, for a final inspection before turning in for the night, Captain Charles Pickering stopped and gazed over the black water outside of Charleston at the lights of the steam sloop Canandaigua. Larger and more heavily armed than Pickering's ship, Canandaigua was stationed one Mile further to sea as part of the stranglehold to intercept commercial ships attempting to supply the Confederacy. Pickering turned and gazed with contentment across the length of his own ship. She was prepared for any threat, above water or below.

  One of four new screw sloops fresh out of the shipyards of Boston, Housatonic mounted thirteen guns, one of them a big rifled hundred-pounder. She displaced 1,240 tons and measured 205 feet in length. Her beam was 38 feet and her draft, 16 feet, 7 inches. This night only 12 feet separated her keel from the soft silt of the seabed.

  Pickering had been alerted to the dangers of a possible attack by the Confederate torpedo boat. The entire Union fleet knew about the threat, courtesy of spies and deserters who had described her. As a precaution, Pickering ordered his crew to drop around the ship nets weighted by shot to act as a shield. He thought, mistakenly as it turned out, that the nets could snag the underwater craft if it crept close to his ship. Additional lookouts were posted and howitzers on the deck were aimed not at land but at the water below. Engineers were ordered to have twenty-five pounds of steam on the boilers at all times.

  The engines were also set in reverse to allow the ship to slip her anchor and back away in a hurry without entangling herself in the chain.

  Satisfied, Captain Pickering retired to his ornate, cedar-trimmed cabin, lit his fuel lamp, and began studying charts of the South Carolina coastline. His executive officer, Frank Higginson, was the watch commander. A good man, Pickering thought. Nothing would escape his attention.

  Lieutenant ffigginson spoke briefly to watch officer John Crosby, who stood on the bridge peering through binoculars for telltale sparks from the stack of a blockade runner.

  "I didn't think it got this cold down south," said Higginson, his hands jammed deep in the pocket of his coat.

  Crosby lowered the glasses and shrugged. "Before the war, my brother married a girl from Georgia. She claimed that it often snowed in Atlanta."

  After the brief conversation, Higginson dropped belowdecks for an inspection of the engine room. He had no sooner approached Assistant Engineer Cyrus Houlihan than he heard a commotion topside.

  At about 8:45 P.m Lieutenant Crosby saw something in the water that he thought at first was a porpoise. He hailed the nearest lookout, who was stationed in the rigging above him. "Do you see anything in the water about a hundred yards off the starboard quarter?"

  "No, sir, only a small ripple on the water."

  "Look again!" Crdsby shouted. "I see something coming toward us very fast."

  "I see it now," replied the lookout. "It has two knobs showing on the surface."

  Crosby prodded awake a young drummer boy. "Beat to quarters."

  Then he gave orders to slip the anchor chain and rang the engine room to back the ship. His orders were carried out in less than twenty seconds. The propeller was already turning when Higginson rushed back on deck. "Is it a blockade runner?" he asked Crosby.

  The watch officer shook his head and pointed over the side.

  "There it is. It looks like that damned torpedo boat." : "I've got it," acknowledged Higginson. 'It has the appearance of a plank with sharp ends. Look there, a glimmer of light is coming through the top."

  Captain Pickering raced from his quarters, carrying a double-barreled shotgun. He inquired about the cause of the alarm. On being shown the closing torpedo boat, he repeated Crosby's orders to slip anchor and back astern. To Pickering, the torpedo boat was shaped like a large upside-down whale boat with two projections a third of the way from each end. Then he leveled his shotgun and began blasting at the strange craft in the water, shouting as he pulled the trigger, "Go astern faster!" Higginson grabbed a rifle from a lookout and also opened fire. He was soon joined by others, including Ensign Charles Craven, who squeezed off two shots from his revolver. The attacking craft was now so close that Craven had to lean over the side to fire a third shot.

  Craven saw that small-arms fire was useless, and he ran to the nearest thirty-two-pound gun and attempted to train it on the object in the water, now backing away from Housatonic. He was about to pull the lanyard when the deck suddenly rose beneath his feet.

  The instant the barb on the end of the long spar that held the canister containing the hundred pounds of black powder rammed through the copper sheathing of the hull, Dixon cried out, "Reverse the crank, quickly! " The men inside the submarine furiously reversed the direction of their cranking, and the little craft slowly backed away from her adversary. As the gap widened, Dixon could look up through the view port and see men shooting over the railing of Housatonic. He heard the small-arms fire harmlessly striking Hunley and ricocheting off into the water. He was certain the barb containing the charge had penetrated and gripped the hull. Now they had to get clear and detonate the charge.

  Then Dixon spied a gun being trained on Hunley, the thirty-twopounder manned by Ensign Craven. The submarine was now fifty yards away, far short of the required distance to safely survive the explosion.

  Driven by desperation, Dixon realized they were within seconds of being shot out of the water. He saw no choice but to gamble and hope the odds ran in his favor. He intended to crack the hatch cover, snake out an arm, grip the detonation line with his hand, and trigger the explosion himself.

  Before he could act, a shot from Ensign Craven's revolver struck the reel and wedged it against the spindle. The line tightened, stretched, and then activated the detonator.

  The barb on the end of Hunley's spar entered Housatonic's hull, where it roun(ed inward near the rudder and propeller. Detonation erupted deep under the ship, with the main force absorbed by the stern section of the hull. There was no explosive thunder, no column of water, smoke, or flame. To those on board the Union vessel the convulsion came more like a collision with another ship. One of them said that the explosion sounded like the distant firing of a howitzer, followed by a ground tremor. Another reported fragments of the ship soaring in the night air.

  Water burst into Housatonic through a huge opening, crushing timbers and smashing through bulkheads. The engine raced as the propeller shaft was shattered apart. Most of the starboard part of the ship aft of the mizzenmast was blown off. The ship began to sink immediately by the stern. Like a dying animal, it gave a lurch to port and settled to the bottom as the black water drew a death shroud over the hull. Less than five minutes after the explosion, nothing remained above the surface of Housatonic except her masts and rigging.

/>   During the sudden frenzy, Acting Master Joseph Congdon shouted for the launches to be cleared away. Only two out of the six boats hanging in their davits were lowered free of the sinking ship.

  They swiftly began picking up the men who were carried overboard as the officers drove the rest of the crew into the rigging to save themselves, since very few knew how to swim.

  Badly bruised, Captain Pickering shouted from the rigging to the men in the boats. "Row for the Canandaigua, " he ordered, "and request assistance!"

  Not until the following day would a muster reveal that five of Housatonic's crew were missing after the disaster and presumed drowned.

  The shock wave from the explosion affected the men inside Hunley far worse than it did the crew of Housatonic. The concussion knocked the wind out of them and threw them against the crank and walls of the submarine. Dixon was momentarily stunned and watched numbly as an explosion-driven wave surged over Hunley, twisting her sideways and pitching her up and down like a raft through rapids. Until now, he had no way of knowing the effects that an underwater explosion might have on a submarine from a short distance. No tests, that he was aware of, had ever been performed simulating such an occasion.

  Seaman Wicks was pitched into Arnold Becker, the man nearest him on the crank, and bloodied his nose. In the middle of the submarine, Seaman Simpkins's head jerked back against the inside of the hull, then forward against the crank handle, rendering him immediately unconscious. Frederick Collins smashed his chin, while the man next to him, Corporal Charles Carlson, wrenched his back.

  Artilleryman Augustus Miller fell against the crank on the rebound as well, snapping a front tooth cleanly in half. "Damn!" he muttered through bleeding lips. "My tooth is missing. Help me find my tooth."

  Everyone suffered from a ringing of the ears, and nearly all suffered bruises. There was no panic or chaos inside the submarine.

  Most simply sat in a state of shock for a few moments before the triumph of their feat began to sink in. Dixon shook the cobwebs from his dazed mind and peered through a view port. Already the tide had carried Hunley another fifty yards to the southeast away from the sinking ship, but he could see that Housatonic was settling fast.

  "Is anyone badly injured?" he called out.

  "Simpkins was knocked senseless," reported Wicks.

  "I think I broke my nose," said Collins.

  "I'm missing a tooth," grunted Miller.

  "What happened, lieutenant?" asked Wicks anxiously. "Did we get her?"

  "Take a look through the rear view ports", replied Dixon, excitement replacing numbing shock. "We sank the damned Yankee."

  The tension was suddenly released. Almost as if they were transformed into another life, each man shook off his lethargy and began cheering. After incredible adversity, they had put their lives on the line and won. Hunley had vindicated herself. She had finally accomplished what she had been designed to do.

  "We're not out of the woods yet," cautioned Dixon. "Take up the crank. I want to put another three hundred Yards between us and Housatonic before the Union fleet is alerted to her sinking."

  Their mood one of elation, seven of the crew propelled the craft as if their pain and fatigue did not exist. Simpkins began to come around, but he was too dazed to take up cranking duties. Dixon spun the wheel and steered a course eastward a quarter of a mile before he turned the bow toward Breech Inlet. Once he felt they were a Safe distance away, he ordered his crew to stop and rest.

  "Three of you work in shifts to keep us in position until the tide turns, and we can head back to port. I'll crank for Simpkins until he comes back on keel."

  "begging' the lieutenant's pardon," said Wicks. "But instead of going back to Battery Marshall, I say we head into Charleston and tell old General Beauregard what we done, personal like."

  "I agree," Dixon said, smiling. "But that would mean going through half the Union fleet. Best we return through Breech Inlet and continue to Charleston through the back bay."

  Taking turns rotating the propeller just enough to keep Hunley from being carried further out to sea until the tide turned, the men passed out the canteens of water and relaxed with a meal of turnips and dried beef.

  Dixon and Wicks opened their hatch covers to let in fresh air.

  Then Dixon stood, raised his arm through the hatch tower, and waved a blue light, the signal for sentries at Battery Marshall to light a bonfire as a beacon to guide Hunley home.

  At 9:20 P.m on board the Union warship Canandaigua, Captain Joseph Green was called on deck by his watch officer, who reported a boat Pulling alongside. Green immediately made his way to the railing and shouted over the side. "What boat are you?"

  "From the Housatonic, " answered Seaman Robert ]Fleming. "We were sunk by a Rebel torpedo craft. What's left of our crew is clinging to the rigging."

  Having heard no sound from an explosion, Green and his officers were surprised at the news. The captain immediately hoisted distress signals and sent up three rockets to alert the rest of the fleet. Then Canandaigua slipped her anchor chain and came directly to Housatonic's assistance. On the way, they picked up the second boat, with the unfortunate Captain Pickering on board.

  They arrived at the sunken ship at 9:35 P.m lowered their boats, and began picking up the men clinging to the rigging. None of the officers and crew of Cananddigua reported anything unusual or out of the ordinary during their run to rescue the survivors of Housatonic.

  Too late Dixon felt a vibration in the water through the iron sides of Hunley. Too late he discovered the lights of the ship coming to rescue Housatonic's survivors. Too late the hatch covers were slammed shut as he ordered the submarine to dive. Too late he shouted a warning.

  Eight men desperately attacked the crank in a vain attempt to move Hunley out of the path of Canandaigua. Time had run out for the men inside the submarine.

  Dixon stood frozen as he stared through the view port at the bow of the Union warship looming up in the dark. The shock of the impact rolled Hunley over on her side and pushed her deep into the sea.

  Iron plates separated and water burst inside, filling the interior within seconds.

  No one can be sure of the final images that passed through the minds of the doomed crew of Hunley as she slipped beneath the waves for the final time. Dixon's last thoughts were probably of his sweetheart, Queenie Bennett, waiting for him in Alabama. James Wicks may have visualized his wife and four daughters before blackness swept over him.

  Hunley's final score of her own dead now stood at 22.

  In time, the bones of Dixon and his crew would be preserved by the silt that slowly filtered inside the submarine and filled her interior.

  A hundred and thirty-one years would pass before anyone learned where or why they died.

  The story of the little undersea craft that entered the history books as the first submarine to sink a warship, a feat that would not happen again until the U-21 torpedoed the British cruiser H.M.S.

  Pathfinder in World War I, began in New Orleans in early 1861.

  Her grandfather and predecessor was called the Pioneer A brainchild of machinist James McClintock and built three years before Hunley, she was a cigar-shaped craft with conical ends, thirty feet long and four feet in diameter. Gaining a seventy-year jump on Howard Hughes's racing aircraft, Pioneer used countersunk rivets to join quarter-inch iron plate to her interior framework, which reduced friction as she moved under the water. Reports say she worked surprisingly well when operated by her three-man crew, who actually blew up a schooner on Lake Pontchartrain during a test run.

  Two of Pioneer's financial backers, Horace L. Hunley and Baxter Watson, became very excited at the prospects of turning her into a Privateer, so they took out the necessary letters of marque for a privateer. Unfortunately, Union Admiral David Farragut had different ideas.

  He ran his fleet past the forts on the lower Mississippi River and captured New Orleans before Pioneer was completed.

  Hunley ordered the Pioneer scuttled to
keep her from falling into Yankee hands. Many years later, a submarine reputed to be the McClintock craft was recovered in a canal and now sits in Jackson Square.

  However, the size and shape do not match contemporary eyewitness accounts of the Pioneer Researchers also claim that Hunley and McClintock's submarine was raised and auctioned off for scrap several years after the war.

  Hunley, McClintock, and Watson escaped to Mobile, Alabama, and quickly began assembling a second submarine in a machine shop owned by Thomas W. Park and Thomas B. Lyons. They were ably assisted by two engineering officers from the 21st Alabama Regiment, Lieutenants William Alexander and George E. Dixon.

  Referred to as simply Pioneer II and occasionally called the American Diver, the new craft was larger and more efficiently designed to travel under water than her predecessor. She performed well and handled without undue effort. Her trials went smoothly, but when she set out on her first mission to sink a blockading Union ship, a sudden squall blew in from the sea. While being towed across Mobile Bay by a tugboat, the waves carried over Pioneer's open hatches. Bailing Proved hopeless, and her crew abandoned the sub before she slipped beneath the sea off Fort Morgan.