The Hunley

After more than a decade of research at the National Archives and other repositories in the South and Mid Atlantic, Mark Ragan has put together an exhaustive work on the CSS H. L. Hunley. The narrative begins in the small machine shop in Mobile, Alabama, where the Hunley was conceived. The last chapter includes a detailed account of the recovery and excavation of the vessel. Ragan s personal accounts of his research and related activity enhance the overall reading experience. It ends with the vessel's recovery from her century-old gravesite on the ocean floor and the return to land of her final crew.
This volume contains photographs and documents gathered from private and public archives around the United States and brings the reader up to date on the history of the vessel, as it has evolved since the publication of Mark Ragan's first book in 1995, The Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, & Success in the Civil War. The new work adds an index and includes expanded endnotes, increasing its value as reference tool.

Mark K. Ragan served as Hunley project historian during the recovery and excavation of this history-making Civil War submarine. He dove with the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology during the 1999 investigation of the Hunley's victim the USS Housatonic, and worked as a diver on the night shift when the submarine was being retrieved from its watery bed. He occasionally assisted the archaeologists assigned the task of excavating the interior of the little torpedo boat. He holds a degree in archeology/anthropology and has published three previous volumes on the Civil War submarines. Mark Ragan lives with his wife in Maryland, where he owns Chesapeake Submarine Service, Inc