I am surprised they did not find steel balls at the bottom of that sub, because that is what it took to get into that coffin. Steel balls.
By the way I wish they had removed that PVC pipe from the interior before they took the pictures.
If it took steel balls for the first crew to climb inside that iron coffin, it took casehardened balls for the second crew to climb in after the first drowned in the initial sea trial, and then it took dropforged manganese balls for the third crew to squeeze through the hatch and take their chances (they were lost in the attack) and even THEN volunteers were lined up to crew the Hunley’s successor.
Those who fought the Civil War were a different breed.