Civil War re-enactors hold pillows bearing Confederate States of America medals of honour for the eight-man crew of the submarine.
Posted on 04/19/2004 5:40:39 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The eight men of the CSS Hunley came to the end of their journey Saturday, a journey interrupted by 136 years on the ocean floor outside Charleston harbor, entombed in the submarine hull fabricated on Mobile's Water Street.
They went home to Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery, their route thronged by tens of thousands of people who still hold the Confederate cause warmly in their hearts. Their arrival was heralded by speakers who dwelt on the nobler aspects of the Confederate struggle.
The remains of Lt. George Dixon, the Mobile resident who commanded the Hunley, were ushered to his grave by members of Mobile's Raphael Semmes Camp, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and were accorded Masonic rites by members of Mobile Lodge 40, Free and Accepted Masons.
The other crewmen were Joseph Ridgaway, second in command; James Wicks, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Navy; Arnold Becker, a native of Germany; C. Simpson, at 44, the oldest crew member; Frank Collins, 23; and two crewmen known only as Cpl. Carlson and Pvt. Miller.
They manned the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. The Hunley itself went down after sinking the USS Housatonic, which was blockading Charleston Harbor.
Charleston gave the Hunley crewmen an enthusiastic but dignified reception. Estimates of spectators at White Point Gardens on the historic Battery, at Magnolia Gardens and along the 4 -mile route between ranged from 35,000 to 50,000.
Wayne Sirmon, past grand master of Mobile Lodge 40, compared the crowd to a Mobile Mardi Gras turnout on a good day.
"No beads, no Moon Pies," Sirmon quipped on the bus ride that took Mobile Masons from North Charleston to the Battery. "What kind of parade is this?"
At White Point Gardens, the scene was like the mustering site for the Confederate Army. Men in uniforms of all shades of gray, butternut and black teemed beneath the Spanish moss-draped live oaks. One young Civil War re-enactor in Rebel Butternut stretched out on the Battery seawall with his cap over his face.
George Hughes, 74, wearing the uniform of a quartermaster in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment was conspicuous by the color of his uniform -- Union blue -- and of his skin, black.
"We're here today because they were brave men," Hughes said. A native of Ohio, he has lived in Charleston for 37 years and considers himself a Charlestonian.
"Everyone was fighting for what they believed in," Hughes said. Black men, he said, made up part of the crew of the Housatonic and were among the casualties. Five Union sailors died in the attack.
The seawall of the Battery, which looks out toward Fort Sumter, was lined with spectators and media cameramen. Offshore, a pleasure craft flew a billowing Confederate navy jack -- the navy's version of the Battle Flag -- at half mast.
Overhead, a small yellow airplane circled the Battery, towing a streamer consisting of a Battle Flag and the message, "Dump Beasley."
David Beasley, a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. senator, tried unsuccessfully to have the Battle Flag removed from the State House dome when he was governor of South Carolina. A Democratic governor succeeded where Beasley failed, then lost his bid for re-election.
The speaker's stand in front of the Confederate monument was surrounded by a sea of people, a large portion of them wearing uniforms and bearing firearms.
Eight wooden coffins, each draped in the "Stainless Banner," the Confederacy's second national flag, were arranged in front of the speakers.
A succession of speakers paid tribute to the Hunley crew.
"Lt. Dixon and his crew stand in a long line of patriots who were willing to die that freedom might live," said Johanna Pate, representing the Order of the Confederate Rose.
Anthony Hodges of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars speculated that thousands of lives on both sides might have been saved had the Hunley returned safely after sinking the Housatonic. It might have meant that the Confederacy then had the means to break the Union blockade of its ports, thus opening the door to equipment and supplies from abroad. Such a breakthrough might have led to an early negotiated end to the war, some believe.
Stan Clardy, an entertainer from Statesville, N.C., put his Confederate sentiments to music in his ballad, "Hunley Shine On." He recalled the Hunley's 136-year sojourn on the bottom with "Only the seagulls to cry out the dirge" and urged, "Shine on, shine on, brave men of the South."
Pallbearers in Confederate uniforms loaded the coffins onto horse-drawn caissons. Dixon's pallbearers included Joe Ringhosser, commander of the Semmes Camp of the SCV; David Toifel, former camp commander; and A.J. DuPree Jr.
The procession to the cemetery started on time at 10:30. Long lines of bayonets glinted in the sun as men in Confederate uniforms shouldered arms. Among those in the procession of 5,000 to 6,000 people were women of all ages dressed in black hoop skirts and black hats with veils.
A rear guard soon formed, consisting of an assortment of people, some in period costume, some in jeans, shorts and T-shirts. One man was riding an electric-powered wheelchair. A man pulled a red wagon with a small child for a passenger. Tom and Wendy Tucker of Greenville, S.C., pushed strollers with their 20-month-old daughter, Chandler Marie, and their 4-month-old son, Jackson Lee, aboard. Tom is commander of an SCV camp.
The route was lined with spectators, some of whom offered bottled water to those in the procession. A man from Charleston Rigging and Marine invited walkers to help themselves to ice cubes in a cooler.
"A bunch of us got into our company's ice chest," he explained.
The procession ended at the cemetery around 1 p.m. It's in this cemetery, where live oaks cast their shades over gravesites dating from the 19th century, that two earlier crews of the Hunley were buried after dying during training missions.
State Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, delivered a homily in which he recalled the time -- 8:35 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2000 -- when the Hunley was recovered from the sea with the remains of the men who manned it still at their duty stations.
"Those who knew them in person were gone," he said, "but those who knew them in spirit were waiting."
As the ceremony drew to an end, Dixon's pallbearers moved his coffin to a platform in front of the speaker's stand and smartly folded the flag. Members of Mobile Lodge 40 stepped forward to render Masonic rites to the man who had carried a badge from their lodge when he stepped into the Hunley. Wayne Sirmon, past master of Lodge 40, stepped forward and recited a funeral service written in 1843 by the Rev. Albert Case of Charleston.
"My brothers," he began, "we are now assembled around the final resting place of these mortal remains and are about closing the last solemn duties of respect we owe to our departed and brother."
Newton Cromer, junior warden and chaplain, offered a prayer, and other Masons joined in the "funeral grand honors." The Masons crossed both arms at the breast, with hands striking shoulders. They then raised their hands above their heads, striking their palms together, then let them fall sharply on their thighs.
Evergreen sprigs were cast onto Dixon's coffin and carried to the grave.
The eight coffins were placed side-by-side in a single grave, the pallbearers lowering them by rope. Pallbearer Mark Dangerfield presented Dixon's flag to Sally Walker Necessary of Midlothian, Va., great-great granddaughter of Dixon's Mobile sweetheart, Queenie Bennett. The flags later were presented to McConnell.
Descendants then tossed long-stemmed roses on the coffins. And as a final tribute to Dixon, Stephen Ellison spooned soil from a silver bowl onto the lieutenant's coffin. The soil was taken from the site of the Hunley monument in Mobile's Magnolia Cemetery. The silver bowl had belonged to the great grandfather of A.J. DuPree Jr. The grandfather had served in the 21st Alabama Regiment -- the one in which Dixon served.
Confederate rifles spoke once again as a 50-gun infantry salute brought leaves falling from the water oaks around the site. Then 50 cannon were fired in sequence at five-second intervals.
The spirit of the occasion was articulated by Warren Lasch, chairman of the board of Friends of the Hunley, an organization devoted to the preservation of the submarine.
"The Hunley belongs to all of us," Lasch said in remarks at the cemetery. "It transcends geographic lines. It unites North and South, East and West, and it spans the vast oceans that separate nations."
Civil War re-enactors hold pillows bearing Confederate States of America medals of honour for the eight-man crew of the submarine.
Spectators gather around the grave containing the eight caskets of the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley Saturday, April 17, 2004, in Charleston, S.C. Thousands of men in Confederate gray and Union blue and women in black hoop skirts and veils escorted the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship, to their final resting place Saturday. The hand-cranked Hunley made history on Feb. 17, 1864, when it rammed a spar with a black powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic. (AP Photo/Alan Hawes, Pool)
A bugler belts out taps after the members of the H.L. Hunley were laid to rest at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston South Carolina, April 17, 2004. Thousands of men in Civil War uniforms and women in black hoop skirts crowded into this antebellum city on Saturday to pay final respects to the crew of the H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy warship. REUTERS/Grace Beahm/Pool
Long may they be remembered ... May they rest in peace.
Kudos to them. Deo vindice.
And, of course, that makes it all right. Forget that what they believed in was the right to own other human beings like property. They really believed in it, so it was noble.
Al Qaeda really believes in what they're fighting for, too...
Amen.
God rest their souls.
These were men whom power could not corrupt,
whom death could not terrify,
whom defeat could not dishonor.
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