Steve Huppert
Columnist
hupps440@aol.com
On March 27-29, the history department at Virginia Tech will conduct their annual Civil War Weekend at The Inn at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg.
This year the conference will feature civil war innovations. Numerous speakers with backgrounds in the Civil War will present information on the topic. The war known for destruction and death, also brought forth incredible creativity ideas using new technology ranging from weapons, telegraph, railroad, food production, battlefield strategy and photograph. After the war, American life would never be the same.
At the end of the conference individuals will have the opportunity to take a three-night trip to Charleston, Beaufort and other areas of South Carolina.
One of the highlights of the trip will be to visit the Confederate submarine the CSS Hunley, the 40-foot-long submarine, designed to sink wooden ships guarding the Charleston harbor during the Union blockade of Confederate ports during the war. The submarine was built in Mobile Alabama in1862.
The CSS Hunley was named after her inventor, Horace Hunley, who later died in the ships second trial run. The Hunley became the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic- Union ship). The Housatonic was one of the ships blockading the Port of Charleston.
After sinking the Houscatonic with a torpedo bomb, the Hunley and its crew of eight disappeared. The sub was lost for 136 years, until it was found in 1995, and raised in 2000. Much of the ship’s contents were still in place when the vessel was recovered.
The Hunley is currently being restored and displayed in a lab in Charleston, S.C., which is open to the public. Individuals at the lab try to explain what happened after the explosion.
For more information concerning the March 27-29 Civil War Weekend and the trip to South Carolina, go to civilwar.vt.edu.
