Free Republic

Pocket Watch Found on Hunley Slowly Revealing Commander's Story Sept. 9, 2002--One of the smallest pieces of metal recovered from the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley may hold the clue to the life of her commander, Army Lt. George Dixon. It's a watch fob, a little piece on the opposite end of a pocket watch chain, used to secure the chain, and thereby the watch, to the owner's clothing. The one on Dixon's watch chain appears to be a Masonic symbol, including the name of a lodge. Hunley researchers won't yet say which chapter it is in order to give...

nbsp; Secrets of the sea03/10/02By ROY HOFFMAN Writer in Residence CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Shea McLean was born down in Alabama, in Mobile, on Feb. 17, 1964 -- one century to the day after eight Confederate sailors disappeared in Charleston Harbor on the submarine H.L. Hunley. McLean, a marine archaeologist, finds that coincidence slightly eerie. quot;Some re-enactors pointed out the dates to me,quot; says McLean, 38, a tall, dark-haired man who looks, ironically, a little like Armande Assante, who played Mobile riverboat engineer George E. Dixon, the Hunley captain, in a television movie about the submarine. quot;They say I was...