Brought from Mobile, Alabama in August

1863 to help defeat the Union naval

blockade of Charleston, H.L. Hunley

became the first submarine in history

to sink an enemy ship. Armed with a

spar-mounted torpedo, it sank the

Federal blockading vessel, Housatonic,

the night of February 17, 1864. Although

accomplishing its objective, H.L. Hunley

never returned to port.

Eluding searchers for more than a century,

the submarine was concidered perma-

nently lost. It was not, however,

forgotten in Charleston. Recognizing the

vessel's pioneer place in modern

undersea warfare, The Charleston

Museum between 1967 and 1979

operated a branch "Hunley Museum",

which featured this full-scale model.

Built according to the limited historical

data available at the time, the Museum's

model differs in several details from the

original vessel, which was found in

1955 and raised on August 8, 2000.

Owned by the United States government,

H.L. Hunley is under the authority of the

South Carolina Hunley Commission.

Marker is on John Street near Meeting Street, on the left when traveling east.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources: