CSS Hunley Confederal Submarine

CSS Hunley Civil War Submarine model. Privately invented by Horace Lawson Hunley and built in 1863 by Park and Lyons of Mobile, Alabama, Hunley was fashioned from a cylindrical iron steam boiler, which was deepened and also lengthened through the addition of tapered ends. Hunley was designed to be hand powered by a crew of nine: eight to turn the hand-cranked propeller and one to steer and direct the boat. As a true submarine, each end was equipped with ballast tanks that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was added through the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event the submarine needed additional buoyancy to rise in an emergency, the iron weight could be removed by unscrewing the heads of the bolts from inside the vessel.The Confederate Navy seized the boat from its private builders and owners a few weeks after its arrival in Charleston, South Carolina.Three of the Hunley's night missions failed against the Union ironcl