Ravenel of Charleston and Captain Theodore Stoney devised the craft, and
she was built by funds subscribed by Charleston merchants. In command of
Lieutenant W.T. Glassell, C.S.N., and with three other men aboard, she
torpedoed the United States ship _New Ironsides_, flagship of the fleet
blockading Charleston. The _New Ironsides_ was crippled, but not lost.
After this United States vessels blockading Charleston protected
themselves with booms. This resulted in the construction of an actual
undersea torpedo boat, the _Hunley_. This extraordinary vessel has been
spoken of as having had the appearance of a huge iron coffin, as well as
the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews
on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline
engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together
turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated
sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again.
Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United
States man-o'-war _Housatonic_, but at the same time went down, herself,
drowning or suffocating all on board. A memorial drinking fountain on
the Battery, at the foot of Meeting Street, commemorates "the men of the
Confederate Army and Navy, first in marine warfare to employ torpedo
boats--1863-1865." On this memorial are given the names of sixteen men
who perished in torpedo attacks on the blockading fleet, among them
Horace L. Hunley, set down as inventor of the submarine boat. The names
of fourteen others who were lost are unknown.

* * * * *

Lord William Campbell, younger son of the Duke of Argyll, was British
governor at Charleston when the Revolution broke out. He had married a
Miss Izard, of Charleston, who brought him a dowry of fifty thousand
pounds, a large sum in those times. Their home was in a famous old house