Hunley Mystery Update

Monday, Jan. 05, 2009

Hunley’s last hours still a murky mystery
After nearly a decade of research, answers about Confederate submarine have not come easily
BRUCE SMITH - The Associated Press

NORTH CHARLESTON — 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 in history to sink an enemy warship?

Their hand-cranked sub rammed a spar with black powder into the Union blockade ship Housatonic off Charleston on a chilly 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 back in 2000. But the submarine has been agonizingly slow surrendering her secrets.

http://www.thestate.com/local/story/640020.html