Sunday, February 18, 2001
BY
EDWARD C. FENNELL
Special to The Post and Courier
SULLIVAN'S ISLAND - As the name of each lost H.L.
Hunley crewman was read aloud, one woman from a row of mourners in black hoop
skirts and veils stepped forward and tossed a red rose into the sea.
Confederate re-enactors then marched to the water's
edge and together fired a series of rifle shots. As the echoes of the gunshots
faded, about 300 onlookers joined those conducting the memorial service for the
crew of the Hunley in prayer and the singing of "Dixie."
Many of those who attended the first memorial service
to be held at Breach Inlet - the site from where the Hunley last went to sea in
1864 - are involved in the current project to unseal the Confederate submarine
that was recovered last year.
On Feb. 17, 1864, the Hunley became the first submarine
to sink another vessel in combat. The super-secret submarine didn't return and
was found in recent years four miles off Sullivan's Island.
Researchers have begun to open the sub now housed in a
tank at the former Charleston Navy Base and expect to learn a lot about the sub
and its nine-man crew in the coming months.
The lives lost when the Union blockade vessel
Housatonic was sunk by an explosive device also were rememb