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Morning News

Confederate Submarine Raised After 136 Years Under Water

Aired August 8, 2000 - 11:19 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's been resting on the ocean floor since 1864, a long time. The Hunley, though, is back on the surface.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, raising the Civil War sub involved a very, very delicate process.

CNN's Brian Cabell live on Sullivans Island, which is near Charleston, with more now.

Really nice day to see this thing come on back, huh, Brian?

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it may be nice to you, Bill. I can tell you it's a day of absolutely sweltering heat out here on Sullivans Island off the coast of Charleston.

We are told -- in fact, we can see probably a couple miles away from here now the boat, the tug boat, and the barge with the Hunley is making its way in. It probably should be behind us here within the half hour or so. And as you can see, we have a beach full of spectators, literally thousands, lining the shores here. This is a festive day, time for families to bring their children to the beach and to watch history in the making.

Now, let's take a look. Just a couple of hours ago, at 8:40 p.m. Eastern time -- 8:40 a.m., rather, Eastern time, the Hunley was brought up off of the ocean floor; 29 feet down it had been for the last 136 years. Finally, at 8:40, it was brought up, apparently very efficiently, without a glitch, no problems whatsoever. And now it is back and it is heading toward a lab right now, a lab down river about 10 miles from where it is right now. It should be safely inside a cold water basin probably in the next four hours or so.

So history in the making here. And historians, of course, are fascinated by all of this -- Bill.

HEMMER: And Brian, Daryn and I did not mean to rub it in as we sit in our air-conditioned studio back here in Atlanta...

KAGAN: Nice day for us.

HEMMER: ... and your shirt is soaking wet.

CABELL: Yes, it is. HEMMER: Listen, we have some graphic videotape to show us the delicate process for how this thing was actually brought back above the water. We're going to roll it here and you talk us through it here.

CABELL: Yes, it's really a fascinating bit of technology that they unveiled here. They dug out from under the Hunley, as you can see a very deep pit around it, and then they lowered a steel truss, about 50 feet long, on top of it. And then they ran straps underneath the Hunley, 32 straps in all. And then, to make sure that they stabilized it as they brought it up and didn't jolt it, break it in any sense, they then blew up some foam underneath so it was stabilized as it was brought up. And as you saw just a little bit ago, they simply lifted this whole structure up -- they called it a cocoon -- lifted it up, and everything apparently went very smoothly.

We were just talking to one of the gentlemen involved in this. He said it appears to be a tight -- a very tight sort of equipment at this point. There was nothing breaking loose, there was nothing coming out. So they think that this thing is intact. And so the question still remains is, why did it sink? And historians and engineers and divers are hoping to discover that here in the weeks and months ahead. We still don't know exactly why this sank on a dark February night in 1864.

KAGAN: Well, Brian, here's another "why" question for you: Why bring it up? Why not just let it rest at the bottom of the ocean where it's been for over 100 years and, you know, kind of let those souls alone?

CABELL: Some people would argue that, as a matter of fact, Daryn. But the fact is that this is history. There is -- there are a lot of people -- and these are Confederacy types who want this brought up, too, and for these eight or nine men to have a proper burial. And, in fact, there will be a proper burial with full military honors here after they are brought up. Their bodies will be put into a unit that will preserve them as well as it can, then they will be buried at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston with 13 others who also died in previous missions with this submarine. So historians wanted it, Confederacy buffs wanted it.

And I'm told now that if you take a look here behind the people, the spectators, you will see -- I'm trying to see precisely where it is, but between those two big tugs is the Hunley. Now, we're told that as it's being towed to shore, it is being sprayed with saltwater. There is a great fear that it will degrade -- the organic matter on and in the sub will degrade.

There you can see it. Between those two subs, that is the barge on which the Hunley, inside its steel truss, now rests. It's about a four- or five-hour journey, about 15 miles.

And can you hear there are some cheers here.

I can tell you, this is an issue that hasn't divided South Carolinians. Unlike the flag wars... KAGAN: Yes, something they can agree on.

CABELL: ... that we've seen earlier, this is something they have indeed agreed on. There's been no controversy about this whatsoever.

KAGAN: Brian, when do they expect to open up the sub? And what do they expect, as far as they can tell, what they'll find inside?

CABELL: Well, they expect to get it into this basin of cold water, as I said, probably in the next four or five hours. They'll take a look at it, size it up, and probably within a month or so they will start excavating it. And it will be, as you might expect, a very tedious, detailed excavation, careful not to disturb anything. And probably within -- well, probably the next six months or so, they should have the entire insides of this 40-foot structure entirely excavated.

Inside, they will find bodies, they expect, they will find anything that these bodies had in their possession, including clothes, possibly coins, possibly some armaments. We don't know. That's the curiosity about this. They're not certain exactly what they will find. They don't even know for certain, as far as we know, that they will find bodies, but that is an assumption they have made all along. They will determine that early on through an X-ray, and then they will have a very tiny camera that they will insert into it.

But the excavation process will take probably until the end of this year.

HEMMER: Fascinating stuff there. And as we were talking earlier, too, it's not very large. It's only about 40 feet long. And at the time, only 9 people were able to fit inside. And we're going to get a pretty good idea of the early form of technology as it related to submarines back in the 1860s, too.

Brian Cabell, nice work down there.

CABELL: Thank you.

HEMMER: And grab yourself some water, OK?

KAGAN: Some lemonade or something.

CABELL: All right.

HEMMER: Brian Cabell, Sullivans Island there in South Carolina.

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