The Yorkville Enquirer reported on June 15, 1871 – “An attempt is to be made to raise the cigar boat which was swamped in an attack on the Ironside in Charleston Harbor during the war. It contains the bodies of the crew that perished in it.”
The Yorkville Enquirer reported on Feb. 1, 1872 – “The confederate rams: Chicora and Charleston, which were sunk to prevent capture by the Federals on their occupation of Charleston, have been raised and found in very good preservation.”
City Directories and History: H.L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in combat. It was built in spring 1862 in Mobile, Alabama at the Park & Lyons Machine Shop by a coalition of machinists and businessmen including engineers James McClintock and Baxter Watson, lawyer Horace L. Hunley, and four members of an organization of underwater “torpedo” (contact-mine) manufacturers called the Singer Submarine Corps. Eight crewmen operated the submersible. Seven individuals sat side-by-side on a wooden bench affixed along the port side of the vessel and turned a hand-cranked propeller featuring an innovative reduction gear system, while the commander was
responsible for steering the submarine and deploying the weapons system. Following successful testing in Mobile, the submarine was shipped to Charleston, South Carolina by flatcar in August 1863 at the request of Charleston’s military commander General P.G.T. Beauregard. Beauregard hoped the submarine could help break the naval blockade that was then preventing access to the city’s harbor.
H.L. Hunley’s history-making achievement occurred on the bright moonlit night of February 17, 1864, when its commander, Lt. George Dixon, spotted the Federal steam sloop-of-war Housatonic moored approximately two miles from Battery Marshall in the north entrance to Charleston Harbor. The submarine silently approached its victim and was not sighted by the watch aboard Housatonic until it was so close the sloop’s heavy guns could not be depressed sufficiently to defend against attack. As Housatonic’s crew slipped the anchor chain and backed the engine in an attempt to avert the attack, H.L. Hunley detonated an explosive charge against the sloop-of-war’s starboard side just aft of the mizzenmast; five minutes later, Housatonic lay completely submerged. H.L. Hunley failed to return from the mission, and the exact cause for its loss remains a mystery. The submarine was discovered May 3, 1995 and recovered from its watery grave on August 8, 2000. Currently, H.L. Hunley is
undergoing archaeological study and conservation treatment at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center. Listed on the National Register December 29, 1978. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]
THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM
Constructed 1979-80 Chrissman and Solomon, architects
“A Boston architectural firm won the design competition to produce the plans for the new
Charleston Museum in 1976. The monumental contemporary structure was intended to appear contextual but deliberately planned to lack historical references to the surrounding area. A planned mall, a series of four rectangles connected by glass corridors linking the new museum to its Joseph Manigault House, was never undertaken. The construction of this building, particularly in a neighborhood then lacking revitalization, was considered by the City Council and planners as a major first step toward rejuvenation of the area and greater access to the nation’s oldest museum.”
Information from: The Buildings of Charleston – J.H. Poston – Author, for the Historic Charleston Foundation, 1997
Other sources: Charleston Tax Payers of Charleston, SC in 1860-61, Dwelling Houses of Charleston by Alice R.H. Smith – 1917, Charleston 1861 Census Schedule, and a 1872 Bird’s Eye View of Charleston, S.C. The Hist. Charleston Foundation may also have additional data at: Past Perfect
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