“It’s interesting,” says Harris, explaining why he’s stuck with the project for so long.
That’s where connecting the dots in this latest report could offer researchers new breadcrumbs to follow in the ongoing quest for answers about the Hunley’s fate.įor Harris, this research has become as much about unraveling the mystery of what happened to the submarine and its crew as it has been about the science. Those conditions help explain why some artifacts and remains of the crew were more intact than others. What’s more, says Harris, the way the dirt filled the sub indicates that sediments first came in at the forward conning tower and flowed to the stern, where there was less oxygenation. And we know from the presence of microorganisms and from dating of the sediments that the submarine was completely buried within about 25 or 30 years of its sinking.” “Did they settle on the bottom and wait to come up? Or did they immediately flood and go to the bottom? We may never know the answer to that question,” says Harris, “but we do know that sediments came in fairly early. Throughout his involvement with the Hunley, Harris has studied the geological environment in the submarine to help give context to the vessel as an archaeological site. Harris on our team back in the early days, and that continues today.” “Since then, a team of scientists has worked in multiple fields like archaeology, conservation, metallurgy and geology to study the vessel. Hunley submarine was such a significant discovery in maritime history, as she was the first successful combat submarine,” says Kellen Butler, president and executive director of Friends of the Hunley. Standing on a bobbing shrimp boat, he watched with great anxiety as the sub was placed on the deck of a barge before making its way to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, where it continues to be studied more than 20 years later. Harris was there in 2000 when the Hunley emerged from the ocean for the first time in 136 years – becoming one of the largest intact metal artifacts ever recovered from the seafloor. But the Hunley never resurfaced, and the vessel and its eight-man crew remained lost at sea until 1995, when the National Underwater and Marine Agency located it in 30 feet of water about four miles from the shores of Sullivan’s Island.Īn illustration of the “Hunley” ramming the “USS Housatonic.” (Photo compliments of Friends of the Hunley/Dan Dowdey) The Hunley accomplished its task by ramming the hull with an explosive device attached to a 16-foot spar on the bow. 17, 1864, the Hunley, a private vessel conscripted by the Confederacy, became the first successful combat submarine in history when it sank the USS Housatonic, which was part of a Union blockade off the coast of Charleston.
“Understanding the oxygen content and the sedimentation at the time the Hunley sank – and in the years after – really gives us an understanding of what the environmental conditions were inside the submarine,” says Harris, who first got involved with the recovery and excavation of the Hunley in the late 1990s while he was still a doctoral student at the University of Delaware. But to Harris, who specializes in coastal systems and geoarchaeology, the way the sediments settled and the sea life that moved through it offer insight into how the vessel came to rest on the ocean floor. To the casual observer, all of the sand and mud that settled in and around the 40-foot submarine after it disappeared in 1864 may seem inconsequential.
The “Hunley” on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center (Photo compliments of Friends of the Hunley)
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