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Sinking of USS Housatonic

When: 17 February 1864
Where: Charleston Harbor
Part of: H. L. Hunley sinks USS Housatonic off Charleston

Hunley attacked USS Housatonic at 9:00 p.m. on 17 February 1864, sinking the ship and marking the first submarine combat victory.

Housatonic was on blockade duty outside the bar when struck. The spar deck was blown off, and the ship sank. Union recovery efforts later raised the guns. The submarine was lost with its crew, likely killed by the blast's pressure wave.

Sources

USS Housatonic (1861) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-05
H. L. Hunley Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.