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C.S.S. H. L. Hunley confederate submarine. During the American Civil War, Confederate inventor Horace L. Hunley converted a steam boiler into a submarine. This Confederate submarine could be propelled at four knots by a hand-driven screw. Unfortunately, the submarine sank twice during trials in Charleston, South Carolina. These accidental sinkings in Charleston harbor cost the lives of two crews. In the second accident the submarine was stranded on the bottom and Hunley himself was asphyxiated with eight other crewmembers. Subsequently, the submarine was raised and renamed Hunley. In 1864, armed with a 90-pound charge of powder on a long pole, Hunley attacked and sank a new Federal steam sloop, USS Housatonic, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. After her successful attack on Housatonic, Hunley disappeared and her fate remained unknown for 131 years. In 1995 the wreck of the Hunley was located four miles off Sullivans Island, South Carolina. Plans are being made to raise Hunley for preservation and exhibition in Charleston. Even though she sank, Hunley proved that the submarine could be a valuable weapon in time of war.
