Housatonic, master John H. Crosby of the Union Navy saw what he described as a porpoise sliding through the water on a direct course for his vessel just a few hundred feet away.Three years prior, President Abraham Lincoln had ordered a blockade of all major Confederate ports, and the Housatonic, a sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, was stationed in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor to help the president apply a stranglehold to the South.
But the agrarian South could never hope to defeat the well-equipped, powerful Union Navy using traditional battle tactics.
They needed a secret weapon, and that’s exactly what Crosby saw coming toward him that night.By the time Crosby realized he wasn’t seeing a porpoise, it was too late.
Hunley, a first-of-its-kind, 40-foot-long, hand crank-powered submarine, and her crew were already close enough to deliver their payload.
Sailors sounded the alarm and fired their guns at the oncoming shadow, but their bullets simply bounced off the submerged metallic hull.
When Hunley met Housatonic, an explosion ripped a hole in the ship, and within 5 minutes the Housatonic sank, claiming the lives of 5 of the 155 crewmen.The sinking of the Housatonic marked the first time a submarine had successfully taken out an enemy vessel—anywhere.
