Bayou St. John Submarine

A Submarine of Unknown Origins

In 1878, a dredge crew working near the mouth of Bayou St. John in New Orleans uncovered a twenty-foot-long iron submarine.  For years people thought the sub was the CSS Pioneer, the first of three submarines built by Horace Hunley, but in reality, the ship’s origin is still unknown to this day. Join us as we explore some of the theories and facts behind this Civil War mystery.

This minisode is a companion to The Mystery of the Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley.

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ADDITIONAL LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• View images of the Bayou St. John Submarine on the Louisiana State Museum’s Online Exhibit: Civil War Era Submarine.

• Check out the history behind the Old Spanish Fort in New Orleans in the video Lost Amusement Parks.

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Sources:

Haines, Matt. “Today a picturesque waterway, Bayou St. John once harbored a Civil War Submarine.” The Advocate (New Orleans, La), May 14, 2019. https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/article_3f3c6e2b-e7d1-588c-bf35-237196179342.html. 

Lambousy, Greg. Monster of the Deep: The Louisiana State Museum’s Civil War Era Submarine. Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, 2006.

“Civil War Era Submarine.” Copyright 2018. Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-museum/online-exhibits/civil-war-era-submarine/.

Mystery of the Confederate Submarine

“Accounts of the Hunley’s sinking had assumed horrific scenes of the men trying to claw their way through the thick iron hatches, or huddled in the fetal position beneath the crew bench in their agony. Sinkings of modern submarines always resulted in the discovery of the dead clustered near the exits in their desperate efforts to escape their cold metal coffins, because to sit silently and await one’s own demise simply defies human nature. The crew of the Hunley, however, looked quite different. Each man was still seated peacefully at his station.””

— Rachel Vance, In the Waves

The First Combat Submarine to Sink a Warship

On the night of February 17, 1864, an immense explosion took down the USS Housatonic, a massive warship that was part of the Federal forces’ twenty vessel blockade of the Charleston harbor. Yet the destruction came seemingly out of nowhere, as eyewitnesses in the crew claimed their only warning was the sight of a dark cigar shaped vessel headed straight towards them. What they soon found out was that this sloop-of-war was the victim of the first successful submarine attack in modern warfare.

Unfortunately for the crew of the H.L. Hunley, who carried out this historic mission, the Confederate submarine did not make it back to shore, giving way to a century old mystery– what happened to the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley and why did it go down in the fight?

Additional Links From This Episode:

• Visit the H.L. Hunley on weekends in Charleston, South Carolina.

• Check out the 1999 Made for TV movie, The Hunley on IMDB.

• Watch Drain the Oceans: Season 2, Episode 5 - Secrets of the Civil War on the Disney Plus.

Sources:

Brimelow, Benjamin. “The first submarine to sink a warship was more deadly for its own crew than for the enemy.” Business Insider, February 17, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-civil-war-submarine-hunley-first-sub-to-sink-warship-2021-2.  

Curry, Andrew. “A Civil War Time Capsule from the Sea.” June 24, 2007. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2007/06/24/a-civil-war-time-capsule-from-the-sea 

Duncan, Ruth H. The Captain and the Submarine CSS H.L. Hunley. Memphis, TN: S.C. Toof & Company, 1965.

The Friends of the Hunley. “The Friends of the Hunley.” 2021. https://www.hunley.org/

“H. L. Hunley (submarine).” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. Washington DC: US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1978. Accessed at https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/ 

Hicks, Brian. “One-Way Mission of the H. L. Hunley.” January 2014. U. S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2014/january/one-way-mission-h-l-hunley 

Hicks, Brian. “Rewriting history: Discovery alters legend of doomed sub Hunley.” Updated December 8, 2016. The Post and Courier. https://www.postandcourier.com/archives.  https://www.postandcourier.com/archives/rewriting-history-discovery-alters-legend-of-doomed-subhunley-submarine-lifted/article_ebecd2a4-9288-51c7-b6e2-5f26ade4090b.html

Hicks, Brian and Schuyler Kropf. Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine. New York: Ballantine Publishing, 2002.

Lance, Rachel. In the Waves: My Quest to Solve the Mystery of a Civil War Submarine. New York: Penguin Randomhouse LLC, 2020.

Lance, Rachel M., Lucas Stalcup, Brad Wojtylak, and Cameron R. Bass. “Air blast injuries killed the crew of the H.L. Hunley.” PLoS One, 12 no. 8 (2017). Accessed December 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182244 

Roberts, Nancy. Ghosts from the Coasts. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Spence, Edward Lee. Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The "Real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations. Miami, FL: Narwhal Press, 1991.

Stewart, Charles W. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion: Series 1 - Vol. 15. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902. Google Books. https://books.google.com https://www.google.com/books/edition/Official_Records_of_the_Union_and_Confed/Bl1AAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1#spf=1584657754154

Still, William N., Jr. “A Naval Sieve: The Union Blockade in the Civil War.” Naval War College Review 36, no. 3 (May-June 1983): 38-45. JSTOR.

Walker, Sally. Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving the Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley.  Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books,  2015.

Whipple, John. “The Birth of Undersea Warfare - HL Hunley.” Undersea Warfare, 2006. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20121016165452/http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_32/hunley.html

Madame Félicité Chretien

A Real Life Scarlett O’Hara

Just north of Lafayette, Louisiana -- in the small town of Sunset -- is Chretien Point, a beautiful creole style two-story mansion that once served as the centerpiece to a vast cotton plantation known as Chretien Point.

Today, the enduring legacy of Chretien Point is not in its bricks or furnishings, but in the story of its mistress, Félicité Neda Chretien. Commonly referred to as a ‘real-life’ Scarlett O’Hara -- Madame Félicité Chretien was confident, strong-willed, intelligent, and beautiful.

Félicité learned how to successfully run a plantation from her father, and it was she who saw Chretien Point Plantation through its most prosperous days, and it was Madame Chretien who saved it from its darkest.

The Kennesaw House

The Kennesaw House of Marietta, Georgia was built beside the Western & Atlantic Railroad line in the 1840's; but over the course of this beautiful brick building's long life, it has seen numerous tragedies that has left many to believe that the building is haunted by spirits from the past. 

Lost Confederate Gold

As the end of the Civil War became imminent, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled his capital city of Richmond, Virginia.  After leading the South for four years, he had high hopes to escape the country and rebuild a new Confederacy. So Davis took with him the entirety of the Confederate Treasury, a massive fortune of gold, silver and bullion.  Yet when the Confederate President was finally captured by Union forces, this gold was nowhere to be found.

To this day, speculation runs rampant over the whereabouts and fate of that lost Confederate gold, a mystery that has grown for over a century and a half, spurring the imaginations of historians and treasure hunters alike.

The Burning of Atlanta

The city of Atlanta, Georgia was a strategic stronghold for the Confederacy during the Civil War, serving as an integral railroad hub supplying the South with men, munitions and supplies.  But by the spring of 1864, as President Abraham Lincoln became desperate for a military victory, the city would become the direct target of the infamously aggressive Union General William T. Sherman and his philosophy of '“total war.”

The Madison County Grey

Private Nicodemus Kidd enlisted in the Confederate Army on July 10, 1861; however, the young private quickly fell victim to an horrendous disease while camped outside of the Confederate capital.  A disease that would plague Confederate camps for the entire war, giving soldiers an horrific 1 in 5 chance of dying from illness and infection during the conflict.

Fort Jefferson's Most Infamous

Construction of Fort Jefferson began in the early 19th century to address the growing need for America to protect its shores.  The resulting massive coastal fortress is the largest masonry structure on American soil; however, its history as a defensive outpost is far overshadowed by its time spent as a prison, housing Union Army deserters and none other than the very men convicted for successfully conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.