History of submarine still a cold case

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. --- It could be one of the nation's oldest cold case files: What happened to eight Confederate sailors aboard the H.L. Hunley after it became the first submarine to sink an enemy warship?

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Associated Press

Paul Mardikian, the head conservator on the Hunley project, puts towels on the Confederate sub. What happened to the sub remains a mystery eight years after it was brought from the ocean.

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Associated Press

"She was a mystery when she was built. She was a mystery as to how she looked and how she was constructed for many years, and she is still a mystery as to why she didn't come home."
-- Sen. Glenn McConnell
Chairman of the South Carolina Hunley Commission

Their sub rammed a spar with black powder into the Union blockade ship Housatonic off Charleston on a winter night in 1864 but never returned.

Its fate has been the subject of almost 150 years of conjecture and almost a decade of scientific research since the Hunley was raised in 2000. But the submarine has been agonizingly slow surrendering her secrets.

"She was a mystery when she was built. She was a mystery as to how she looked and how she was constructed for many years, and she is still a mystery as to why she didn't come home," said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston and chairman of the South Carolina Hunley Commission, which raised the sub.

Scientists hope the next phase of the conservation, removing the sediment coating the outside of the hull, will provide clues.

When the Hunley was raised, the design was different from what scientists expected and there were only eight, not nine, crewmen, as originally thought.

The first phase of work consisted of photographing and studying the outside of the hull. Then several iron hull plates were removed allowing scientists to enter the crew compartment to remove sediment, human remains and a cache of artifacts.

With the inside excavated, the outside of the hull will now be cleaned before the sub is put in a chemical bath to remove salts left by years on the ocean floor. It will eventually be displayed in a new museum in North Charleston.

Archaeologist Maria Jacobsen said the Hunley is like a crime scene except that, unlike on TV shows, there is no smoking gun.

"If we compare this crime site investigation with, say, a tragic plane crash in the mountains, that investigation would be a lot easier," she said. "You can go to the crash you can see the metal pieces and they have the fingerprints of the crash site."

On the Hunley, some fingerprints may be covered with the encrusted sediment on the hull referred to as concretion.

The crew's bodies were found at their duty stations, suggesting there was no scramble to get out. And the controls on the bilge pump were not set to pump water from the crew compartment, suggesting there was no flooding.

After the attack both Confederates on shore and Union ships reported seeing a blue light, believed to be the Hunley signaling it had completed its mission.

A lantern with a thick lens that would have shifted the light spectrum and appeared blue from a distance was found in the wreck.

But after the attack, the USS Canandaigua rushed to the aide of the Housatonic and there is speculation the light could have come from that ship instead.

Could the Canandaigua have grazed the Hunley, disabling her so the sub couldn't surface? A good look at the hull in the coming months may provide the answer.

Historians also know the Hunley needed to wait for the incoming tide to return to shore.

"Were they waiting down there and miscalculated their oxygen and blacked out?" said Mr. McConnell.

If the Hunley crew miscalculated and surfaced too close to the Housatonic on their final approach they would not have had time to replenish their oxygen before the attack, he said.

The clues now seem to indicate the crew died of anoxia, a lack of oxygen, and didn't drown. "Whatever happened, happened unexpectedly, with no warning," Mr. McConnell said.