Sen.

Glenn McConnell> Hello there, I'm Senator Glenn McConnell, Chairman of the Hunley Commission, and I'm right here at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where we're conserving and exploring the H.L.

Hunley submarine.

And ahead of you is an opportunity to meet our scientific staff and to see what's going on here and to ask questions about some of the things we're finding, like the gold, the jewelry, the gold piece, many of the things that the crew had, many of the scientific discoveries that are being made.

It's all occurring here where technology, history and science is coming together to write a story that we otherwise would never have.

So, I hope you enjoy your visit here with us at the Hunley.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Bette> Welcome to Project Discovery .

Project Discovery is produced by the South Carolina Department of Education and South Carolina ETV.

Hi.

I'm Bette Jamison with Instructional Television, and we've got an exciting program for you today.

You probably know the history.

The Hunley disappeared on February 17th, 1864, after being the first submarine to sink a ship in battle.

And, you know, it was lost at sea for over 130 years.

And then it was discovered in 1995, recovered in August of 2000, and then brought here to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston.

Wow!

You know, during this time, a group of international scientists have worked on the excavation and conservation of this historic vessel and its artifacts, the H.L Hunley.

It was- it's such a historic vessel.

And, you know, it's still making history.

Let's go back right now to Senator McConnell and learn- Sen.

McConnell> Well people ask me, they say, "How can y'all recreate the Hunley?"

And we can do it because fortunately, they have the technology.

Just as at home with your computers, you can see things on screens.

We can take lasers and electronics and almost recreate in computers another time.

And so the fascinating thing here is that not only can we project for the future what the past looked like, but we literally now can take our computers and our technology and go in and record the past, analyze it and tell it accurately.

And so what they're seeing here is science coming together with history in a way that has never been done before, and with something that has come back from the bottom of the ocean.

in 136 years that she sat on the ocean floor.

And then, the humans on board and all of the things that are on board are so well preserved that we can rebuild their faces with 98 percent accuracy.

We can tell their story by analyzing them with computers and technology and things that are happening around them and on their computers at home are coming to play in this vast laboratory right here.

And this is just an exciting opportunity to do something that was not possible ten years ago.

Bette> Thank you, Senator McConnell.

You know, the Hunley is one of the largest intact metal artifacts ever recovered from the ocean floor.

The 45 foot vessel is truly a national treasure.

And today, on Project Discovery , we have a wonderful opportunity because we have some of the key people who have touched history themselves by working here with the Hunley and the artifacts.

Let's meet them right now.

You might recognize, Shea McLean and Shea was on with us last time.

Shea is a staff archeologist.

Welcome to Project Discovery .

Shea> Thank you.

Bette> Thanks for being here again.

<It's great to be here> You're a star from last time.

And next to Shea is Mike Scafuri.

And Mike also is a staff archeologist.

Mike, welcome back.

We had you with us last time, too.

Thank you for being here.

And you might recognize Warren Lasch, who is the Chairman of The Friends of The Hunley.

And, Warren, thank you so much for letting Project Discovery come back to the Conservation Center.

Warren> It's an honor and a privilege to have you back.

Bette> Well, it is so much fun.

We love being here.

And next to Warren is Paul Mardikian.

And he is on the senior conservator here.

And thank you so much Paul for being here.

And we're going to see a lot of you later on, right?

Okay.

First, let's start off Warren, by talking a little bit about how we really got to this point.

Now, I know you can spend hours doing this, but just give us a quick couple minutes of how we got the submarine from where it was to where it was- here today.

Warren> Thank you, Bette.

In May 1995, Clive Cussler found the Hunley.

And it started this incredible series of events that brings us here today.

Right after the finding, South Carolina established the Hunley Commission, who was in charge of the raising, the recovery and the long term conservation of the Hunley.

In 1999- In November of 1999, an international symposium was convened right here at the Center, and two questions were asked.

What do you think of our recovery plan?

And number two, what do you think of our conservation plan and how to set up the lab?

And after three days and these are the best, very best maritime archeologists and conservationists <in the world> in the world, from all over the world.

They voted that the Hunley project raised the bar, was the international standard for shipwreck recovery.

And here we are today, four years later and we still hold that honor.

It has been just an incredible example of teamwork, professionalism, and when people become involved in the- the Hunley, they don't ask, "What's in it for me?"

They ask, "What can I do to help?"

Bette> So why is this project important, not only to us, but to the students of South Carolina and really to the world?

Warren> Hopefully, as everybody will see as we go through the facility- facility today, we have a center of competency that is by far the leading edge, the state of the art, when it comes to maritime conservation and archeology techniques.

The scientific capabilities that we have here in the lab far exceed what exists elsewhere in the world, as recognized by the experts.

We have this golden opportunity to develop this.

The Hunley will be here for five, seven, eight years.

The plan- the final conservation plan has not been finalized, but we have a competency center that we can take forward and hopefully apply to additional maritime shipwrecks or terrestrial artifacts.

The second important benefit to the state of South Carolina is these men never had their story told.

It's an incredible advancement in science and technology, as you will see later on.

It's an incredible demonstration of courage and bravery.

And we want to recognize these men, do the the facial reconstructions and tell their story.

Bette> That's great.

Okay.

We are going to see today some of the artifacts.

And one of them, I think, Shea, you brought us an example of, to talk about the lantern.

So let's talk about the lantern.

Then we're going to talk about some very important other artifacts later.

<Okay> So, what's the story of the lantern?

Shea> Well, the lantern was the last thing seen from the Hunley, in February 17th, 1864.

And it's a very important artifact.

As you know, when the Hunley went out to sink the USS Housatonic that night, to make their way back to shore, a bonfire was lit.

And, this is how you would guide them back to the inlet and the way they would signal the crew on board- the crew on board would signal them on shore was to show a blue light.

And, Mike here, has an example of a blue light- this is not the blue light.

<No, no, it can't be> It's not the blue light.

But this is a- this is actually a Civil War lantern.

And it, we use it as a- as an example because it's functional and it does work.

And, they would use this light to signal to shore to come back that night.

And it was the last thing seen of the H.L.

Hunley before she disappeared.

And it's one of many artifacts, I think, that we'll look at today.

And just a few of the features of this artifact.

It is a lantern.

It doesn't work on batteries.

So, like, like modern flashlights do today.

So there are a few differences, namely that, inside, if I can open it.

I don't know if anyone can see, but we have a wick inside that burned oil and a small fuel canister, and, hopefully our senior conservator, Paul Mardikian here, can show us some X-rays of some artifacts, such as this lantern that we have, and explain in detail- Bette> We're gonna be doing that.

We're going to the lab a little later.

That's great.

Now, this is one of the great parts of Project Discovery .

We invite your questions, so we have the authorities here to talk to you about what's been going on with the Hunley and most of all, the conservation efforts that are underway today.

So give us a call now.

We invite students to call us at 1-800-972-3881.

That's 1-800-972-3881.

Or if you're in the Columbia area, you can call us at 252-1136.

So we're waiting on your questions.

You know, there are a lot of artifacts.

And over the course of our hour, we're going to be talking about those, but we have some special footage that we're going to show of the coin.

You want to tell us that story of the coin or- or should we just show them the coin and then come back and do that?

Let's do that.

Let's show you this coin.

You're going to see real TV.

This was really the footage that was taped the day, the minute the coin was found.

So this is unedited.

Watch this.

You can't get more real than this TV.

[soft talking and loud background noises] Man 1> Say that again, what do you feel?

Woman 1> I got it.

Woman 2> Really?!

Man 2> Say the words!

Woman 1> I have the gold coin right here.

Man 2> You feel it in your fingers?

Woman 1> Oh, I feel it in my fingers.

Oh, I do.

Slide it out just gently, but I want to put it back in because I want a measurement of it.

But, I'll bet you 100 dollars that this is what it is.

Man 2> Fali, move to your right!

Woman 2> [Gasp] Oh my god!

Man 3> Ah, gold gems.

<Get teams!> Woman 2> Oh my god, oh my god, I have the chills.

Man 2> Where was it?

<God, that thing is beautiful> Woman 3> It's right next to his pelvic bone.

Man 2> Just where you expected it would be.

Where physically?

Man 1> Show me that that coin is bent, use your other hand to- Woman 3> It is in his left pocket, basically.

You see where the bullet hit it?

Man 4> Oh, man, that is real.

[background chatter] Woman 1> I'll turn it over.

Man 2> Oh my goodness, gracious.

Man 1> Can you imagine... you'd be sitting here holding something and it's priceless?

That's in beautiful shape... absolutely gorgeous!

Woman 1> 1862.

Man 1> What's the date?

Woman 1> April 6th, 1862.

There's an inscription on it: "My life preserver."

Man 1> Oh, wow- <Oh, you're kidding?

!> Woman 1> Yeah, some- he had it inscribed.

Man 1> Well, I guess that proves that sticks in there, huh?

Woman 1> Oh I know it sticks- he has a very, very fancy coat on, wow.

It feels pretty amazing to hold this coin in your hand.

I mean, this is- this is as close to touching his life as you'll ever get.

It's not so much finding it as reading the inscription.

I mean, you're seeing where the bullet hit it, and then you read this inscription.

So everything comes to- Man 1> What does the inscription say?

Woman 1> Yeah.

It says, he had part of it filed down and he wrote the inscription after it saved his life.

It said, "Shiloh, April 6th, 1862.

My life preserver."

And that's incredible.

It did save his life and this is the coin.

Incredible, huh?

Man 1> Yeah, it is, it's remarkable.

Everything's turned out to be true.

Bette> Woah.

Was that exciting or what?

Oh, that was great!

Tell us the story of the coin.

Warren> As in so many other discoveries, Bette, that we found with the Hunley it was totally unexpected.

The gold coin was a legend.

And the legend had it that Lieutenant Dixon's sweetheart had given him a gold coin before he went to the Battle of Shiloh and that he was hit in his left leg.

But the bullet protected- the bullet hit the coin and protected his left leg and saved his life.

And it was basically the second or third day before excavation of the crew compartment was going to be finished, and we discovered the gold coin.

And it was just an incredible surprise, unexpected, and after the discovery, anybody that saw the coin, you would have tears in your eyes because you understood it.

It was at the Battle of Shiloh.

It went down with the Hunley.

We believe it's one of the most preeminent artifacts from the War between the States.

Bette> So this- the story that you had heard, right?

<Correct, there's a legend> This proved the legend is true.

Warren> Exactly.

And as Maria said in the movie, you can feel- it makes you feel what this person was about.

Where the bullet had impacted the coin, you could put your thumb in that little valley, and you could rub it, and you could see exactly how- what he would do with that coin in his pocket, like gentlemen jingle their change in their pocket.

And another interesting fact about the coin, right around the date, there were remnants of the mini ball that struck the coin at the Battle of Shiloh.

And we also found remnants of the mini ball in Lieutenant Dixon's femur bone.

Bette> Oh, so an actual- in his bone <actually the femur> you could tell where that injury had happened, that impact?

<Correct> Woah.

That is- Paul> We found some lead on the coin, lead is still embedded in the coin.

Slightly microscopical level it's embedded in.

Bette> We'd love to hear from you.

If you have a question you'd like to ask, please give us a call.

The phone number is 1-800-972-3881.

Or if you're in the Columbia area, we invite your call at 252-1136.

Okay, we have a call, go ahead with your question, please.

Caller> Yes.

I was wondering how the Hunley sank and where it was discovered at?

Bette> Oh, okay.

Want to take us back to that?

Warren> It was discovered again in May 1995, approximately three miles off the coast, due east of Breech Inlet, which is between Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms.

The quest that we have- that we do not know how the Hunley definitively has sunk or why she sunk.

Over the next two, maybe three years, we will know with a high degree of confidence.

But it's going to be like a jigsaw puzzles- puzzle.

We're going to have to take the forensics.

We're going to take the metallurgy, the biology, the sediment analysis, analysis of the artifacts.

And once we put all those pieces together, we will be able to determine with a high degree of confidence, why she sank.

But we're still several years away from that.

Bette> Woah.

But a lot has been found out already.

And what you're doing here at the Conservation Center is really working on all those aspects.

It's a lot more than archeology, isn't it?

Warren> Absolutely.

It's the forensics.

It's the genealogy.

And an interesting story.

When we were laying out the remains of one of the sailors, Doctor Doug Owsley from the Smithsonian Institution, the chief forensic anthropologist, looked at the sailor's shoulder and saw where he had a torn rotator cuff, and he had pulled a piece of the bone away from the shoulder.

And our genealogist said, "Well, his father was a baker, and he probably received that from lifting 40 pound sacks of flour in the bake shop."

So to be able to put the history with the actual physical evidence is just incredible.

Bette> Oh, that's so exciting.

We have another phone call.

Whitlock Middle School, go ahead with your question, please.

Caller> I was wondering, how deep under water was the Hunley when y'all found it?

Bette> How did you know it was the Hunley when it was found underwater?

How did they know?

<Mike?> Because really, wasn't this the size that you expected, right?

It was close?

Mike> It was close, but it wasn't exact.

And they didn't really know for sure.

There were a lot of questions we had about the Hunley that we could only answer by finding it.

And the search for the Hunley, as you know, went on for many, many, many years.

And the remote survey search off the shore, out in the area where they found the Hunley, took many, many years.

And what we discovered was that there were so many anomalies out there.

There are so many things, so many metallic objects, that you have to discriminate out the ones that could be the Hunley and the ones that are definitely not the Hunley.

The way they did the survey was with a device called a magnetometer, which is a- it reads magnetic anomalies and large iron objects put out magnetic field anomalies and the magnetometer will pick that up.

And what we discovered was that picking the right anomaly to search is the key to finding what you're looking for.

And it was the key to finding the Hunley, because, of course, the Hunley was buried under three feet of mud and sand.

And so, a lot of it was just day in and day out, searching and searching, and a lot of it was just luck.

Diving on that anomaly and finding the right one.

Bette> Okay.

We have got another call.

That's great and you know, what really intrigues me about that is it was hard to find because it was in the sand and buried.

But yet that's what makes it what it is today, that it really is more intact because of that, right?

<Exactly> Sort of a double-edged sword there.

Okay, we have Gilbert Middle School on the line.

Go ahead with your question, please.

Caller> What has been the most surprising thing that y'all have found so far?

Bette> Ooo, the most surprising thing.

Paul?

Paul> Well, everything is pretty amazing on this submarine... I would say that besides- besides the artifacts, finding that the Hunley had conserved so well, the remains and so intact in place was a very interesting surprise.

It was a best case scenario for that because, you know, it was pristine.

It was very well kept in the submarine.

So the time capsule thing was real and all the degradation was obvious.

The position of all the remains was meaningful and I think useful for us.

Warren> In general, also, the level of technology and science far exceeded anybody's expectation.

This- the Hunley is just not a converted steam boiler or a locomotive.

The Hunley is a very well designed, sleek, fighting machine with advancements that nobody ever expected.

Bette> Wow, that's so intriguing that it was built this way and it's lasted.

We have Westview Elementary on the line.

Go ahead with your question, please.

Caller> Hi, we were wondering how much this coin was worth then and how much it is worth now?

Bette> Oh, well... <I can answer that> Okay, Mike.

Mike> The coin is a 20 dollar gold piece.

So it was worth originally 20 dollars.

[laughter] It's value now, well, it's priceless.

It has no value.

It will never be sold.

You can't put a price on it.

It's an archeological artifact, which by definition, means it really has no value.

So it's priceless.

Paul> Right, it's part of the history of the Hunley now and therefore, it belongs to everyone.

So it has no price, as you said.

Bette> And such an exciting- I mean, gold is always exciting, right?

[laughter] Paul> Right.

Bette> Well, you know, the Hunley is a time machine, I think, Warren, you might have actually said this, that the Hunley is a time machine and it's truly enabling us to relive history.

Wanted to take you now into the lab.

We're going to go in there with some scientists.

We're going to see more of what's going on and the actual work they do.

So let's go meet some scientists in the lab.

Dr.

Drews> One of the challenges we face- there are many challenges.

One of the challenges we face in conserving the Hunley is removing the salt that has intruded into the haul in 130 some years of sitting at the bottom of Charleston Harbor.

And if we don't remove this salt, then we cannot successfully conserve the Hunley for posterity.

So crucial to our conservation of the hull itself, is the removal of the salt from an experimental challenge, there's two parts to this.

First, how much salt is there?

And the second, evaluate different technologies that could be used to remove it and measure how much these technologies remove from a particular kind of artifact.

And for our work, a lot of our work is using the metal shavings that came from drilling the rivets that were removed for the excavation of the interior.

To analyze salt removal, our first challenge is to measure how much salt is there.

And to do that, we do a digestion.

We dissolve the entire sample and then measure the salt that was originally in that sample.

From the perspective of treating the Hunley, what we really want to know is how much salt is in the corrosion.

It's not likely that there's very much salt in the iron itself, that it's almost all located in the corrosion layer on the surface of the metal.

So for those experiments, we want to use different techniques that will just remove the corrosion products and leave the underlying metal intact.

And therefore- so for those experiments we're using much milder conditions.

Now both digestion and what we call extraction.

Neither of these that we're showing you today would we actually use on the Hunley itself, these are techniques that we're using to analyze things from the Hunley.

They're not things that we would use or chemicals that we would use, or processes that we would use on the submarine itself.

Now, at some point, we may take some very small samples, that you would never know we took and analyze them by these techniques to help us tell how well we're conserving her.

> First of all, x-rays are extremely important, extremely critical to our work.

It's like, you know, when you go to the medical doctor to have a chest x-ray, x-rays are going to be able to go through your body.

And, the doctor is going to be able to understand what's not working, what's broken, and we do the same thing with artifacts.

And we've done the same thing on the Hunley, something like 800 times.

We took 800 x-rays of the submarine, of artifacts, shoes, human remains, plates, all kinds of features.

In the old days, the way you look at x-ray films was to put them on the light box, you know, like I'm doing right now.

And, it was pretty simple.

You could look at the x-ray and you know that with x-rays, what's going to happen is that everything that has a high density is going to appear white on your film.

With new technology, you can now apply digital images processing to the understanding of what you have.

And for instance, on- on this x-ray right here, you've got lots of different ways to change the density and make something that is completely invisible to the naked eye, visible on the screen.

If I blow the right- right side of this film, you can see different.

If I change a little bit of density, you can see a very, very dense material here.

This white circle.

You can also blow the image to such an extent that you can really see pretty well.

Even inscriptions on the artifacts are sometimes visible.

And guess what this is?

I mean, this is something that is really dense.

It's made of a very dense metal.

If you look a little bit at this item, you might guess what this could be.

It was used to read the time.

So now you've got it.

It's a watch- it's a bucket watch.

And, I mean, this bucket watch is interesting.

Remember that this is a watch, but here the watch is in a block of sediment, so it's very difficult to see inside.

And even, you know, hopefully read the time or see the movement of the watch, it would be just wonderful to be able to do so.

But so we have to- have to remove the watch from the block and reaccelerate.

And this is what I'm going to show you on this screen here, where you've got the movement right here, you see, you're going to see the movement appearing thanks to this- again, this technology.

I'm going to try to use different settings, but now you can see the mechanism.

You can see the movement of the watch.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to see the hands.

And actually we found the time, but, the hands were so thin that you could not see them on the x-ray.

But what you can see here on this watch is that even though it spent so many years underwater, it's still in very good shape.

And remember that gold is a beautiful metal, but not everything is made of gold.

Some pieces are made of iron and they are still here.

That's incredible.

That's like a miracle because there was very little oxygen on the submarine.

So the corrosion was low.

And, you can see all those pieces are made of brass, made of iron.

When I say iron, it's- it's steel so it's more, a little bit more durable and harder and so that's really a great technology.

So, you know, I love to play with this system and- and again, those little scenes are jewels, the jewels were used by clock makers, to allow a very smooth movement between different pieces.

And this is a great technology.

So this is coming from the past to the light of, you know, a new technology.

It's offering itself to our study.

So that's really cool.

Bette> That is very cool, so amazing.

We've got another phone call.

We want to get to that.

Go ahead Singlery Elementary.

Caller> Hi, this is AG Melendez.

Did any other legends come true on the Hunley?

Bette> Did any other legends come true?

Shea> Well, there's a lot of mystique to the Hunley.

It's a very special sub.

And there's so little that we know about it.

Unfortunately at the, at the end of the war, a lot of the documents and records were lost when it comes to the Hunley.

So unfortunately, we don't know a lot about the crew themselves.

But we do expect that we'll discover a lot of new and interesting things about these individuals.

The gold coin is a wonderful story because it's not only a story of history, but there's a romance involved there with George Dixon and his sweetheart back in Alabama.

But, there are a lot of legends is- according to how the Hunley was built and its technology.

And we are discovering those on a daily basis.

So, yes, the gold coin really is just the tip of the iceberg.

It's really more of the technology that we're learning about day to day and just how advanced this submarine really, really was.

You know, this wasn't the first time someone attempted to build a submarine.

They'd been attempting to build submarines for hundreds of years, but this was in effect, the world's first successful submarine.

And that's what makes it and it's technology very, very special.

And if you ask what the importance of the Hunley really is, you have to kind of put it in a different light, I think, when you look at the first successful airplane, for example, you know, anyone can tell you, well, it was the Wright brothers and the Wright brothers' flight at Kittyhawk that was the first successful flight.

But not many people can tell you about the first successful submarine.

And this is the H.L.

Hunley, and we have it here.

The only difference is, imagine if the Wright brothers plane had been lost for over 100 years and you suddenly found it.

And not only did you find it, but you found it in wonderful condition.

And not only that, with the Wright brothers still at the controls.

Bette> That's an awesome analogy, that was great.

We have Whitlock Middle School back on the line with us.

Go ahead with your question, please... hello, Whitlock?

Caller> My class has two questions.

The first one is why did it take over 100 years for the archeologists and scientists to find the Hunley?

Bette> And your second one?

Caller> And the second one is did the salt effect the interior of the Hunley in the ocean?

Bette> Good, just want to briefly, Mike?

Mike> Yeah.

It took so long to find the submarine because of, the nature of its environment.

It was found outside of Charleston.

There are two rivers that flow out that way.

And, so it was- we believe it was covered over within 10 or 15 years.

When it was finally found in the mid 90s, it was under three-and-a-half feet of mud and sediment.

And so, you could have swum right over top of the Hunley and never seen it.

It was completely buried.

And that's what hid it for so long.

And, fortunately for us is what preserved it in such great condition.

As to your second part, that, did salts get into the interior of the submarine?

Yes.

The entire submarine was full of mud and filled up over time, and salt had penetrated into the inside of the submarine, along with the mud and even into the metal.

The iron of the submarine is completely penetrated with chlorides and salts, which is what happens over time in seawater.

Bette> But the amazing part, it really didn't ruin it... Mike> No, it did not.

No, it did not.

Bette> Must have been great metal they had back in the 80s.

<great condition to the metal> Now we've got Paul back in the lab, so let's go back and check in with Paul and see what he's doing right now, what he's working on with artifacts with the Hunley.

Paul, are you there?

<Yeah.

I'm here> Go ahead, tell us what you're doing.

Paul> Well, I'm playing with an [indistinct] scope here, and I wanted to show you a beautiful artifact that has not been affected by, the salts.

And, you know that gold is very durable.

Gold is a wonderful material.

I mean, it's like diamonds, it's, forever.

And the reason is that it doesn't corrode, it's very difficult to oxidize iron.

And basically what you have here is this magnificent watch that was found on Dixon's body.

And, the watch is simply decorated on the outside.

I mean, I'm showing right now the other case that shows a simple, but very nice pristine design here.

And on the other side, too, you've got a very neat pattern that I'm showing here on the TV monitor.

And, the story of the watch is incredible in terms of preservation because normally, you know, even if the outside is made of gold, the interior has very, very fragile pieces, like, you know, iron, brass.

And we were able to remove the the movement of the watch and be able to find the time.

Now, I'm not going to show you the movement.

I'm just going to show you the interior of the watch that we have removed.

And, so this is the empty shell of the watch that you see right here.

And you can also see some markings here on... I don't know if you can see that markings in the gold.

So that's pretty neat.

So compared to iron, which is extremely fragile, extremely unstable, as Mike said, the chloride coming from the seawater is extremely dangerous for the submarine.

And if, the long term conservation of this submarine involves a lot of chemistry and this chemistry he's aiming towards the removal of those salts.

And if we don't remove them thoroughly, we will leave a very unstable metal behind for the museum.

And this is not what we want.

We want to make the Hunley stable forever.

<Right> Bette> Thank you Paul, stay where you are and keep working.

We got another phone call or might be coming back to you with that answer.

<Okay> We've got a call from Hanahan, Go ahead, Hanahan.

Hannah> There's a student in our class [indistinct] and he took us on a field trip to see the Hunley.

And he mentioned that the wallet they found.

Have y'all found what was inside the wallet yet?

Bette> Oh, that's a good question.

Shea> Well, Mike found the wallet.

So he would be the perfect person to ask.

Bette> Talk about the wallet.

Mike> Yeah, I was the one that uncovered the wallet and removed it from the submarine.

We had to wait for a while before we could take a look at it, we had other things to work on, and I was- I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to examine the wallet.

And as it turns out it's leather.

It has three folds to it.

When we opened it up, there wasn't anything in it.

So yeah, it had- whatever had been in it had long since deteriorated away.

So unfortunately, something that I was waiting for but turned out to not be as exciting as I had hoped.

Bette> So you you think that there were materials in it, but over time, that is something that we've lost?

Mike> It's quite possible there was- there would have been possibly some money, some bills or some other paper products.

But what we found is that paper did not survive inside the environment of the submarine.

The leather did, so the leather was preserved.

But the- any paper that would have been in it is long gone.

Bette> Okay, Paul, you have a comment, we're back to you.

Paul> Yeah, well, I'm very interested by the wallet story.

The wallet was found by Mike, and we- we've been waiting, you know, really, we were hoping to be able to find something in the wallet, but there is always the option that you're not going to find anything.

What I want to say is that normally paper doesn't survive well, but banknotes, you know, and paper used to make banknotes is usually more durable.

And it is my personal opinion that there was nothing in this wallet.

Nothing made of this kind of specific paper.

Otherwise, you would have found the remains of it.

There might have been something more fragile.

It's possible that it disappeared, but the likeliness is that, I mean, the guy didn't have a lot on him and maybe there was nothing in his wallet.

Although it sounds, you know, weird.

Maybe there was nothing in his wallet.

<I don't know> Bette> You know, my husband goes around without anything in his wallet all the time.

<Yeah, that's my case too> But, now we have Anner on the phone with us.

Anner, your question?

Anner> Yes, ma'am, who invented the Hunley and when?

Bette> Do we know the who?

Shea> Yes, we do.

That's a great question.

One thing a lot of people don't know is the fact that the Hunley was the third submarine built by the same team and it was constructed initially by two gentlemen in New Orleans, Louisiana.

And that's James McClintock and a man by the name of Baxter Watson.

Now, these were very ingenious men and they had some wonderful ideas.

But what really made it come together was the addition of a third gentleman by the name of Horace L. Hunley.

Now, Mr.

Hunley was a wealthy planter, and he basically had a lot of money and connections in New Orleans.

So when you put the money with the technology and these men building this submarine, who could build a submarine together, that's what began this cooperative effort between the three.

The first submarine they built was called The Pioneer.

It was built in 1862 in New Orleans, 1861 and 62.

And unfortunately, before they could test this submarine, the Union Navy came into New Orleans sieged the city and they had to abandon the city and the submarine.

They moved their operation to Mobile, Alabama in 1863 where they built a second submarine.

The second submarine is called The Pioneer II.

Sometimes it's called the American Diver.

There's some- some questions about the name of the second submarine.

But again, the second submarine was tested.

They were going to send it out to engage the federal fleet.

And there was a heavy sea that day and it sank as it was being towed.

Now, Charleston, South Carolina was, you could say, the cradle of secession.

This is where the war began.

And, so the federal fleet was really putting a lot of pressure on Charleston.

So things were very urgent in 1863.

So this third submarine was moved to Charleston via a rail car.

And that's when it became the first submarine to sink a ship in history and enter the history books.

So there's actually a very long and interesting history prior to the submarine we have here.

But we're very fortunate to have found this submarine in the condition that it's in, and now being able to preserve it as we are.

Bette> And by the way, it's right over my left shoulder, right back here.

So we're sitting out, right in front of the actual submarine.

We have a call from Gilbert Middle School.

Bette> Gilbert, are you there?

Caller> Yeah.

How long did it take you to raise and find the Hunley?

Bette> Well, we've talked about a lot about finding it.

People had been searching for the Hunley for years, and it was finally discovered in 1995.

But what about the process of really raising it?

Mike> Yeah, the raising- the whole project around the raising, took many, many years to develop.

As you can imagine, it was a very complicated and complex procedure.

You can see right in front of us here.

We have a- a model of the whole system that was used to bring the Hunley off of the sea bottom.

And it was- it took years to plan because we didn't know anything about submarine.

We didn't know what kind of condition it was in.

And so they had to, anticipate any condition, if it was in poor condition, if there were cracks in the hull, they had to be prepared for that.

And so it took a long, long time and a lot of effort by some great people to put the whole thing together.

And the end result was a lifting mechanism that pulled it off the bottom in- I think it was a half an hour was the final raising, didn't take very long at all.

Once everything had been done prior to the event.

And so it was successful, but the planning stage went for many, many years.

Bette> Okay.

We are going to look now at some of the footage of the watch because we want to make sure we get this in.

And I think Paul is going to talk a little bit about it.

Paul, can you tell us what we're seeing?

Paul> Well, this is just an x-ray of Dixon's block lift, one of the most famous block of sediment, including human remains and artifact that we have removed from the submarine and excavated in water in the tank.

You see that, Phillip and myself are working in water right now in a tank.

And this tank, holds one big portion of this block.

And attached to the fabric is the remains of the fabric of Dixon's- Dixon's fabric, you've got the watch.

And the reason why we work in water is very simple.

Because in water, you can handle very fragile materials.

And the fabrics, you know, the wool for instance, that was used for Dixon's clothing cannot be ended in the air.

You need to hold that in water so it's easier to move around and save.

And it was a day we found the gold watch, and we knew where before that there was a gold watch there.

But the point was to do it at the right time and document the work as usual.

You know, archeologist work very patiently, recording everything.

And we wanted to save all the materials.

Bette> Paul, tell us what a block lift really is.

Paul> When you work in this submarine, it's like, let's say excavating the inside of a cylinder.

It's a very small space.

And if you want to be able to save the most fragile pieces.

And usually on the hull, the most fragile items are the clothing are in desperate condition.

And if you want to be able to save some information, you need to, let's say, cut a block of sediment that includes everything, you know, and x-ray the block.

Then in the lab, and do sometimes some CAT scan on those blocks.

And then, work in those blocks as individual items that you're going to put back together with the other blocks.

It sounds weird to cut, you know, the sediment, including materials and we did our best to save as much as we could from this technique.

But it has proven to be the most reliable way to save what we had embedded in the middle of the Hunley submarine.

Bette> Okay, let's take a phone call while we're still watching this footage.

Elizabeth, are you there?

<Yes.

I'm here> Go ahead with your question.

Elizabeth> I have two questions.

I would like to know what y'all did with the bodies that y'all found?

And did y'all ever find out who they were?

Shea> The... yes, well, we are- one of the things we're studying besides the submarine are the crew of the submarine and determining a lot of things.

As I said earlier, we don't know a lot about the submarine, and we don't know a lot about the crew.

Unfortunately, those records were lost at the end of the Civil War.

But that's where we're learning about these men through the forensic study.

We're studying the human remains, the bones, and we can tell a lot about them from their remains.

For example, did you know that you can tell a person's.

obviously their height by their bones, you could tell their age by their bones.

You could tell if they were a male or a female.

You could also tell if they had any degenerative diseases.

What their oral health was like, if they had any tooth problems and such.

So we're really learning a lot about these men from their physical remains.

We have a genealogist working on the project as we speak, and she is very actively searching for these men and finding out who they were and where they came from.

And one by one, we're really starting to put the pieces of the puzzle back together here.

Bette> And maybe we'll have some incredible stories like Lieutenant Dixon.

<I think we will> Okay, We're gonna take one phone call from Rock Hill, and then we're going to visit inside the cooler.

Caller> Yeah.

I would want to know when it's going to be on public display and where?

Bette> Okay.

Well, it is.

[laughter] Who wants to jump in?

<I'll take that> Mike> Yeah.

It's on- we are open for the public to come visit the Hunley every Saturday and Sunday.

10 to 5 on Saturday and 12 to 5 on Sunday, I believe.

Eventually, the plan is the Hunley will be on display in a permanent facility.

In the air right now.

It's in a tank with water.

And something- it will be something that people can come right up to and see and touch.

But that is many years away as the conservation process continues.

Bette> So you are invited to check in to coming to see it because even though it's underwater, you can see a lot and it really is exciting- Shea> Absolutely.

And even if you can't make the trip to Charleston, you can always check us out on our website, www.hunley.org.

<And that'll tell you the dates of when you can actually come?> Absolutely.

Bette> So, www.hunley.org.

Okay.

We're going to take a step now into the cooler and see what that's all about with Paul.

Paul> So just to have an idea of where we conserve the remains, the artifacts, we've got a cooler here.

And this cooler is the place where we stored the remains of the sailors, as well as all the fragile artifacts that we have.

We've got something like 7000 numbers, samples, human bones, artifacts recorded on our database and everything is refrigerated.

This is the best way to keep- it's like in your fridge.

This is the reason why having a low temperature is the best way to preserve things.

And, you know, that's- that's the same at home, you know, this is why we've got fridges.

Bette> Thank you so much, Paul.

Okay, we've got a call from D.R.

Hill Middle.

Go ahead with your question.

Caller> Oh, I just wanted to know, how much does it cost to build the Hunley?

Bette> How much did it cost to build it?

Probably didn't cost too much.

Shea> Initially, to build the Hunley?

Again, that's one of those things that, unfortunately, the records have been lost.

But that's why we're discovering a lot of things about the submarine.

You know, even when we entered the submarine, we weren't sure how these plates were fastened together because we had no blueprints.

So, unfortunately, we don't have that information as to how much it cost, but, you know, I would guess that even at the time, it was probably more expensive than you would think.

You know, there was a lot of interesting technology incorporated into the sub.

Bette> So have you excavated all areas of the submarine now?

Shea> No, no, not yet.

We have really concentrated on the center portion of the submarine, which is the crew compartment, simply because that's where a lot of the things, made of organics would break down more quickly.

So we had to address these organic items first.

The human remains, the textiles, as Paul told you about.

The leather, such as the belts and the shoes that these men were wearing.

You know, they're going to go bad first.

Now, the submarine is made of iron and so it's more stable than the organic remains.

Bette> You know, we're seeing Paul work on some of those right now, they're really wrapping some of those blocks.

Right?

It looks like.

And you actually found some shoe shoes and buttons and all sorts of things.

Shea> Oh, absolutely!

Each crewman was wearing a pair of leather shoes, and they- most of them were in very good condition.

The leather survived very well.

We had some wooden objects, such as the box in which the compass was in that that survived well.

The bench in which the crewman sat on was in remarkable condition.

There wasn't a single wormhole in it.

The grain of the wood could still clearly be seen, and even white paint survived on the wooden bench and you could see where the crewmen had moved around on the bench and worn <wow> areas in the paint.

Bette> Okay, Paul, we want to check in with you.

Did you have something to add?

Paul> Well, yeah.

I wanted just to make a comment about the shoes.

The shoes are, it is true that the leather is very durable.

You can find leather after 2000 years underwater, but there is something that is different on the Hunley.

Those guys had not the same levels, you know, in terms of money.

Some of them were probably richer than others.

Some of those are inherited from a good pair of shoes.

While others had to, you know, to keep up, to keep up with very poor quality items.

And some of the shoes are extremely fragile, extremely degraded.

And this is also possibly because they were originally cheap.

So I believe that there are several- several grades of quality inside the Hunley.

And you can find that, you know, most of the people had cheap items on them.

I think I wanted to add something about the most- to me, I've been thinking about the most striking discovering in the Hunley and in terms of preservation, I was stunned to find that the bench on which these people were sitting was still painted.

The paint on the bench is still visible.

So I guess that this is something that tells you how wonderful can be the Hunley to conserve some of those fragile remains and so that's just, just wanted to tell you that.

Bette> Thank you.

We have a call from Westview Elementary.

Go ahead with your question.

Caller> I wanted to know, how many bodies did you find when you went inside the Hunley and what did you do with them after you found them?

Bette> Okay.

Shea> We found eight crewmen on the Hunley.

And as Paul just took you into the cooler or the morgue, that's where they're being kept now.

Now, what is going to happen to them?

Are we going to keep them in there indefinitely?

No.

After we study them, we're going to reinter them or rebury them.

But there are a lot of things we need to look at first.

We first of all, want to know what these men look like.

There are no photographs of the crew of the Hunley.

So one of the methods that we're using is facial reconstruction.

And, here you see that we have a cranium, a skull, that has been cast.

You're not actually looking at the man's skull, but a cast of it.

And then, scientists can place bits of clay on this, at predetermined distances, and get a fairly accurate idea of what this man looked like when he was alive.

Bette> Okay, we got Sangury.

Let's continue to look at this, but let's take Sangury's call.

Hello?

Are you there, Sangury?

Sangury> When are y'all going to discover the Housatonic?

Bette> When are we going to what?

Caller> Recover the Housatonic?

Bette> We don't- any plans?

Shea> Well, the- you know, the Housatonic was never lost.

When the Hunley sank the Housatonic, it was only in 27 feet of water.

And so the masts were sticking very much out of the water.

In fact, that's how most of the crew survived the sinking.

They simply climbed up into the rigging of the Housatonic.

Now, many people have looked at the Housatonic, and we in fact, have recovered artifacts already from Housatonic.

And that's something we've been working on.

Housatonic is very important because Housatonic is half the story of the Hunley.

So it's equally as important as the Hunley.

And it certainly deserves some attention and some more attention.

And we hope to get back to the Housatonic and do more investigations there as well.

Bette> Okay.

Our time has just flown by.

Give them the website again so they can go on and find out more information.

Shea> The website www.hunley.org.

Bette> So go there.

Find out information.

More questions, there's so many questions that can be answered and come visit the Hunley.

I'm quoting from Senator McConnell, "The Hunley is truly a complex story of American bravery and technology."

And we all have learned today that the Hunley was technologically number one.

It was first in a lot of areas, and so were the methods of excavation and preservation that are being done today.

It's the blending of history, technology and science coming together to write an important story.

Thank you to the Friends of The Hunley, the Commission of the Hunley, the great folks here at the Conservation Center.

And thank you for participating.

For the South Carolina Department of Education, I'm Bette Jamison.

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