CSS Hunley and Magnolia Cemetery

Last Updated on September 12, 2023 by

The CSS Hunley Museum is located at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center at 1250 Supply Street in North Charleston. It sits on the grounds of the old Charleston Navy Base, so it doesn’t seem like you are going to the right place if you are navigating solely by GPS. It is currently only open Saturday 10AM -5PM and Sunday 10AM – 3PM.

CSS Hunley

I’m not sure how to feel about the CSS Hunley. On the one hand, the history of its recovery by NUMA divers is pretty incredible and the preservation efforts are equally remarkable. I was an avid reader of Cussler’s Dirk Pitt novels in my youth and seeing the real life efforts of Cussler’s first love was pretty neat. I had no idea that he had actually founded and financed NUMA on his own dime.

On the other, it is a Confederate submarine that managed to kill its crew not once, but three times. Twice in training, and the final during the successful (if you don’t count dying in the effort) run to sink the USS Housatonic. Hailed as the first ever successful combat submarine mission, it is the progenitor to all US Submarine efforts since.

These men, beyond the simple motivation of a large payday, had to be at least slightly off balance. Prior to the attack on the Housatonic, the submarine had sunk twice, killing its crew both times. Further, the Confederacy had completely given up on the idea due to its danger. One enterprising Lieutenant, George Dixon, convinced General Beauregard to give it one more go. With an all volunteer crew, they manually paddled the submarine out into the bay and literally rammed the Housatonic with an explosive device attached to the nose of the submarine. What happened after that is anyone’s guess, but over 100 years later when the sub was recovered, the entire crew was still sitting in their assigned seating, apparently never making an effort to escape the sub.

The sub currently sits in a ginormous bathtub, ever so slowly leaching the saltwater from its hull to prevent it from rusting. The whole enterprise is pretty incredible, and worthy of a visit to the museum even if you aren’t a Civil War buff. As a bonus, the guys who made the recovery still come to the museum to talk about their efforts and tell a few fish tales along the way!

Magnolia Cemetery

Magnolia Cemetery is awesome. It’s the sum total of every movie cemetery ever made. Huge, and I mean huge (even a map doesn’t keep you from getting lost in all of the nooks and crannies), with hundreds of graves dating back to the 1700’s, Confederate flags everywhere, and hundreds of ancient Live Oaks dominating the landscape. It’s a creepy day trippers dream. The actual reason for our visit was to find the graves of the crews from the USS Hunley, but it turned into an entire afternoon.

We actually had a Sons of the Confederacy volunteer show us to the burial site of all three Hunley Crew graves because we had no idea how to get to it. Once he found out we were Yankees, I could see him tense for some confrontation, but once I assured him we were simply there to take in the history, he couldn’t have been friendlier. Clearly, the Old South has been taking a bit of a beating lately.

The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling around the grounds finding each area more impressive than the last. Many large areas are laid out for military personnel according to the unit they served, from the Civil War through modern conflict. There is, of course, plenty of prime real estate occupied by the South’s movers and shakers both past and present. If you are not a fan of cemeteries like we are, I urge you to visit this one to become a convert.