This early excuse for a submarine proved to be far more dangerous to her own crews than she was to the Union Navy, but she was to start a revolution in naval engineering that remains with us to this day. Built by the Confederates in 1863 specifically to sink Union ships then barricading Southern ports, she sank twice while being tested, killing 13 of her crew (including her designer, H.L. Hunley) in the process. Finally ready for her first combat test, on the evening of February 17, 1864, the Hunley, which never seemed to run out of men eager to serve on her despite the generally suicidal nature of doing so, snuck up on the Union sloop Housatonic and buried a spar torpedo in her side. Remarkably, the torpedo detonated as planned and the Housatonic sank, giving her the dubious distinction of being the first ship in history to be sunk by a submarine. Tragically, the little boat didn’t make it back to dock but sank for the third and last time that evening for unknown reasons, taking her entire eight-man crew down once again. After sitting on the bottom of Charleston Harbor for the next 136 years, she was finally located and raised in August of 2000 to great fanfare. The remarkably well preserved hulk now sits in a specially designed tank awaiting conservation.
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