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Commemoration Of H.L. Hunley's Sinking Of USS Housatonic Coming To Fort Sumter National Monument

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This sketch depicting the torpedo strike on the USS Housatonic appeared in  Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 1864.

 

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago naval warfare history was marked when a Confederate submarine used a torpedo to sink the USS Housatonic in the waters near Fort Sumter. While that didn't mark a turning point in the Civil War, it did advance naval warfare.

Later this month you'll be able to learn more about that engagement on February 17, 1864, when National Park Service staff at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, commemorate the 150th anniversary of that engagement. 

On February 15, 16 and 17, Confederate and Union reenactors camping at Fort Moultrie will present living history programs, including musket firing demonstrations and artillery drills. Union reenactors will portray the crew of the USS Housatonic.

Musket firings are scheduled for 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. on Saturday the 15th and Sunday the 16th. Children'™s musket drills will be at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Park Historian Rick Hatcher will present a program on the history of the H.L. Hunley on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at 2 p.m. in the Fort Moultrie Visitor Center auditorium.

The National Park Service interprets 171 years of U.S. costal defense history at Fort Moultrie, from the site of the first major victory in the American Revolution on June 28, 1776, through the end of World War II.

Fort Moultrie is located at 1214 Middle Street on Sullivan'™s Island.

Comments

Another piece of Civil War submarine history connected to an NPS site: The largely forgotten union sub the Alligator was being towed when bad weather forced the towing vessel (USS Sumter by coincidence) to cut the first US Navy submarine adrift off Cape Hatteras. There have been efforts to find the wreck but she is still out there somewhere location
unknown.


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