The H L Hunley was the first successful combat submarine. It was used during the Civil War by the Confederate Navy to sink the USS Housatonic on February 17, 1863. The development of a submersible was in response to the blockade of Charleston Harbor by Union ships. The Hunley was powered by a crew of seven cranking the propeller and a navigator.
Previous to the night of her successful attack she sank twice while on training missions. Both times were hard on her crews, the first killing five members and the second killing all eight including it’s designer, Horace Lawson Hunley. The sub was recovered after both sinkings but after the attack on the Housatonic the sub disappeared not to be seen again for 137 years. In 2000 she was brought to the surface and now sits in 90,000 gallons of water in a Clemson University laboratory working on a process to remove concretions from objects recovered from the ocean floor.
The Hunley and her contents were largely intact (including her crew’s bones) due to the lack of oxygen while submerged. Once the concretions have been removed, plans are to build a museum to house the sub and the artifacts found inside.