Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine

Sea Power, May 2003 by Gardner, Sherry L

RAISING THE HUNLEY: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine, by Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf. New York, N.Y.: Ballantine, May 2002. 303 pp. $25.00. ISBN: 0-345-441-771-9. Hicks and Kropf, award-winning journalists for Charleston, S.C., newspapers who had followed the story of the Confederate submarine CSS Hunley for several years, share the results of their research in this history of the submarine, which disappeared in February 1864 after a successful attack. For more than a century the fate of the Hunley remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Civil War. Built to counter the Union blockade of Charleston, the Hunley lost the members of two crews, who drowned on test runs. The Hunley finally made good on its expectations when it rammed a spar torpedo into the sloop USS Housatonic, accomplishing a feat of stealth technology that would not be repeated for half a century. Hicks and Kropf weave a story-peopled with a fascinating cast of characters-that take the reader through the long search for the Hunley, into the 21st-century drama of her discovery and salvage. With 17 color photographs, epilogue, notes, bibliography, and index.

Unless otherwise noted, the preceding book reviews were written by Editorial Assistant Sherry L. Gardner.