H. L. Hunley sank a warship in 1864

On the night of 17 February 1864, a hand-cranked Confederate submarine named the H. L. Hunley approached the USS Housatonic. The Union warship was blockading the harbour outside Charleston when the smaller vessel moved in for an attack. The crew of the submarine carried a spar torpedo, which was a charge attached to the end of a long pole fixed to the bow. They drove this weapon directly into the hull of the warship, causing the Housatonic to sink in minutes. This event marked the first time in history that a submarine successfully destroyed an enemy ship.

After the collision, the submarine flashed a blue lantern toward the shore. This light served as the agreed signal that the mission had succeeded. The vessel never returned from the attack, and all eight crew members died at their stations. Lieutenant George Dixon commanded the mission. When researchers later recovered his remains, they found a bent gold coin alongside a diamond ring and a brooch. A story from Mobile claims the coin was a gift from a young woman that stopped a bullet during the Battle of Shiloh, yet the crew remained lost at sea for 131 years.

The wreck lay on the ocean floor until a team led by the writer Clive Cussler located it off the coast of Charleston in 1995. In 2000, salvage crews raised the submarine from the water. The vessel was found intact, with the remains of the crew still sitting at their original stations. Since that recovery, the submarine has remained in North Charleston for ongoing conservation inside a large tank of water. The conservation process is managed by the Friends of the Hunley.