Submarine replica to be on display

By Douglas Farmer
Turley Publications Staff Writer

BRIMFIELD- The CSS Hunley – the world’s first successful attack submarine - may have had little impact on the outcome of the Civil War, but it has undeniably captured imaginations for more than a century. The 40-foot long vessel equipped with ballast tanks and iron weights successfully sank the USS Housatonic that was part of a Union blockade in the Charleston, S.C. harbor on Feb. 17, 1864.
But its eight-member crew never returned to tell the tale.
Much speculation has surrounded the fate of the men led by Confederate Lt. George Dixon – the ship was raised in August 2000 and the remains of all her men were found at their battle stations, said Tom Harrington of Brimfield, who witnessed the recovery of the vessel. While it seems clear the vessel ran out of air, he said one theory to which he ascribes is that the crew may have been trying to evade Union ships that were traveling to rescue those aboard the doomed Housatonic, done in by a long harpoon that struck a container of gunpowder in her hull.
Whatever may have been the case all those years ago, Tom and his wife Caren Harrington said a full-scale replica of the hand crank and propeller-driven vessel built by John Dangerfield will be a noteworthy feature of “The Battle of Brimfield,” a Civil War reenactment at the Heart-O-The-Mart off Route 20 in Brimfield on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 7 and 8.
The event, first held in Brimfield two years ago minus the Hunley, is being orchestrated in conjunction with Hitchcock Academy. So it was perhaps fitting that the couple revealed a small part of their knowledge of the history of the submarine’s development and tragic fate in a program titled “The Hunley Is Coming” at Hitchcock in a “Brown Baggers” program on Friday, May 21.
“I first went to Charleston back in 1990 and that city is a living museum, with its buildings and artifacts,” said Tom. “Caren and I kept going back, and I have had the privilege of seeing the Hunley on a few occasions.”
He went on to describe a full military burial attended by 5,000 reenactors in April 2004 in Charleston, on which occasion the reception for northern Yankees such as himself was “not good.”
Nevertheless, Tom said he has been an active member of the Friends of the Hunley (a nonprofit group founded to aid in the recovery of the ship and the crew’s remains) for the last several years. Curiously, he noted that the vessel – constructed in a collaboration of steam boiler-makers Horace Hunley, James McClintock and Baxter Watson – has rested in uneasy waters from the moment it was brought back to the surface after more than a century. It has been the subject of extensive litigation, as everyone from the Navy to the states of South Carolina and Alabama (it was originally constructed in Mobile, Ala.) and other interests have attempted to lay claim to the underwater historic marvel.
“The Hunley was tested in Mobile Bay in 1863 with a coal barge,” said Tom. “It was a successor to the Pioneer I and Pioneer II. It was first tested with a civilian crew, but eventually Confederate Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard put an Army crew in charge. However, Lt. John Payne and his crew died when he accidentally stepped on the lever sending the ship downward when he stepped through the hatch.
“Another crew perished after that, when Hunley himself took over for a short time. Gen. Beauregard was quoted as saying that the ship was more dangerous to us than to the enemy.”
One attendee at the Brown Bagger program last week that was appreciative of the presentation was Bill Jordan of Ware, who had recently been reading about the Hunley, and the Civil War overall.
“How did they navigate?” he asked, to which Tom Harrington replied that the crew used a compass and star sightings to mark their location.
Hitchcock Academy Executive Director Sue Gregory said she has long been impressed with the Harrington’s zeal for their subjects.
“The energy of these Civil War reenactors is great,” she said. “The event in August will be not just about the battles, but about the culture and the music.”
“The Battle of Brimfield” will be held at the same time as “Redcoats & Rebels,” a Revolutionary War reenactment at Old Sturbridge Village, and will include a variety of demonstrations like cooking and sewing in the fictitious Civil War-era town of Unity. For more information about either of the reenactments, visit www.hitchcockacademy.org or www.osv.org.