Reflections On Seven Coffins by MikeK

[MKSheppard]

Originally posted by Mike Kozlowski on 23 April 2004:

Reflections On Seven Coffins
By Mike Kozlowski

1045 EST
17 Apr 2004
M+ 140 Years, 2 Months

Charleston calls it the 'Antique District', and that's not far off - though certainly not in the sense they'd like you to take it. It is a semi-depopulated area of light industry and empty buildings, with empty, rattletrap houses poking up from islands of green/brown scrub with the sounds of traffic ricocheting off the weather-beaten brick and wood from nearby Interstate 26.

This being America, though, it is almost axiomatic that there are small gems to be found in places like the Antique District and this is no exception. Off of Meeting Street is a small cluster of cemeteries - once pleasantly out in the country from old Charleston, then subsumed in the growing city and finally bypassed. Most of them are spare, direct spaces whose condition ranges from neatly kept and manicured to flat out derelict, the surviving stones emerging from overgrown weeds like shipwrecks on a hostile shore. The worst ones have a certain grim despair about them, as if the last tangible reminders of their residents are finally about to disappear into eternity and we have no wish to consider that this may be our ultimate fate someday. We shall walk past them with heads held high, literally whistling past the graveyard.

It is the others that draw our attention, even curiosity. There is Bethany - neat, laid out in a precise, severe grid that is filled with Teutonic names dating back to the 1820s. More than a few of the stones are engraved in German, but whether or not one can understand it the traditional format is familiar enough that one can get the gist of it - Geborn 1817, Gestorben 1861. There is the Friendly Union, a much smaller space than Bethany, but filled with more familiar Southern names. There are two or three others, then you come to the jewel in the crown - Magnolia. Officially, it dates back to 1852, but there are some small, almost illegible stones that seem to indicate a few years earlier than that.

It isn't all that large, perhaps slightly smaller than the rest put together. It is beautifully kept, with Spanish moss and palmettos providing cool, comforting shade. A string of small ponds winds through it, running past dirt paths whose half buried fragments of red brick hint at a time long ago when horse-drawn hearses clip-clopped at a stately pace towards one of the hundreds of discreetly walled family plots, while men in black and women in veiled widow's weeds trudge behind it. The plots draw your attention - almost every one with a low wall running around it, low enough to comfortably step over without breaking your stride. The earliest ones often have long, almost poetic descriptions of the lost one along with their accomplishments, but as time goes on, the inscriptions tend to dwindle down to 'Dear Father' or 'Beloved Mother', then to a simple set of dates. Several stones proclaim their owners as former Governors of the Palmetto State, as well as Senators, Attorney Generals, Solicitor Generals, and other lesser political lights.

Many stones tell heartbreaking stories without saying a word. There are many smaller stones from the mid-1800s that have a lamb carved into them. Without exception, these have birth and death dates that are separated by only a few years, perhaps even just a few months or days. One tells of the death of a young woman 'In The Time Of The Plague', one of the yellow fever epidemics that periodically ravaged Charleston. If you take the time to look, you will often see clusters of stones from those dates. The earliest ones are ornately carved, but as the dates of the Plague Time crawl by, the stones become smaller and plainer, until finally they are no more than small stone loaves with initials and a final date engraved upon them. Mass death has a speed and haste all its own that sometimes gives us little time for the formalities we hope for, and the Plague Times did not always permit them.

There are other plain stones there as well, fields of them that simply say, 'UNKNOWN 1863' or 'UNKNOWN 1864'. These are the gravesites of hundreds of Confederate soldiers and a handful of sailors who rest at Magnolia. Most of them actually died of disease of one sort or another, one of the epidemics that periodically swept the camps and worsened by poor nutrition and exposure. We tend to forget that in the Civil War more than half of the casualties in that awful butcher's exercise were from noncombat causes, and we shake our heads in sadness at the futility of it all. Some of the warriors who lie there quiet and still have been identified, mostly through the efforts of the Sons Of Confederate Veterans, who have dedicated themselves to finding and giving names to these lost souls who died for a cause that did not outlive them by much. Their stones are shiny new marble, carved identically to those that the Federal government gives to retired veterans. They are dignified and noble, and the contrast to those little stones with 'UNKNOWN' is all the greater.

It is at the far rear of the cemetery where a small green island encircled by the remains of a brick path looks out over the marshes that lead out to the Wando River. The most modern thing in sight from there are the rising towers of the Arthur Ravenel Bridge a few miles away, while trees hide the towering stack of a manufacturing plant of some sort. The most recent stones there have dates into the middle and late twentieth century, ending family lines that other stones show dating back before there was a United States Of America. In that island now lie twenty-one men, America's first submarine crews. The last of them were laid to rest today, ending a journey that covered about fifty miles and nearly a century and a half.

"I have reliable information that the Rebels have two torpedo boats ready for service..."
RADM John A. Dahlgren, USN
Commander South Atlantic Blockading Squadron
7 Jan 1864

Dahlgren wasn't quite right; they actually only had one. It had so far succeeded only in killing fourteen Confederate soldiers and sailors - and not a single Federal sailor - for no apparent gain.

She was made from a converted boiler, and yes, it was every bit as claustrophobic as it sounds. One museum in Charleston has a small ring of steel with a wooden bench seat inside - an exact replica of the torpedo boat's cramped interior. Anyone even remotely approaching 5' in height is urged to avoid it.

It had no light, save for candles at either end or a row of glass ports down either flank called deadlights - a singularly unpleasant name given what they had witnessed so far. Since the torpedo boat had been designed to run a short distance underwater, the deadlights were utterly useless when the boat was preparing for an attack and the candles only illuminated a tiny space at either end of the boat. That left most of the crew in a Stygian darkness that was a grim harbinger of what awaited them.

The boat's sole weapon was a 'torpedo' - not the fast, lethal self-propelled robot we are familiar with but rather a mine at the end of a spar. The idea was that the boat, propelled by the exertions of its crews turning a crank, would ram the torpedo into the wooden flank of one of the ships that was blockading Charleston. The crew, now cranking frantically in the other direction, would fire the mine by lanyard once they were - hopefully - a safe distance away.

"...This will be handed you by...the inventors of a Submarine Boat? Nothing appears to be wanting but cool and determined men to manage it..."
GEN John E. Slaughter, CSA
Commander Alabama Military District
31 Jul 1863

Cool and determined men were in strong supply in Charleston in 1863, but even they were unable to deal with the wicked ways of the torpedo boat known informally as the Diver. One of her designers was a former lawyer; collector of customs, and planter from New Orleans named Horace L. Hunley. Hunley had apparently been fascinated by the idea of submersible torpedo boats for some time, and had already designed another one - the CSS Pioneer, a small iron dart that carried three men behind a hardened iron tip that was intended to punch holes in Union blockaders through brute force alone. Pioneer had been commissioned a privateer in CSN service but seems to have never sailed on an actual mission before the Big Easy was occupied by Federal forces. Hunley and his partners, James McClintock and Baxter Watson, scuttled Pioneer in the New Basin Canal just ahead of the Federals and took what blueprints and notes they could to Mobile, Alabama.

Hunley and Co. went back to work once they arrived in Mobile. Although Pioneer had never sunk a single Yankee ship, McClintock and Watson had racked up dozens of hours in her figuring out what worked and what didn't, and what needed improvement. They kept voluminous notes and when once they settled down in Mobile they went back to work.

They took their new blueprints and specifications to the Park and Lyons Machine Shop at Water and State Streets, accompanied by a young Artillery officer, LT William Alexander. The artisans at Park and Lyons went to work with gusto, overseen by the three inventors. They built one small boat, not much more than a slightly scaled up Pioneer, but this boat met the same end as its predecessor when it was realized that the waters of Mobile Bay were simply too shallow for it to be effective.

Once again back to the drawing board. This time, Hunley and his team outdid themselves. This boat was far bigger than the Pioneer - up to eight men inside plus a commander, and an explosive torpedo that was originally intended to be towed behind it. Like Pioneer it was to be built from a converted boiler, but it was far from just a sealed tube. Hunley had put streamlined ends on it, along with a surprisingly effective propeller and two hatches, one at either end of the hull. This was a solid, well-designed killing machine - the first of its kind. Once completed in 1863, the new ship was officially christened H.L. Hunley. No doubt Horace - now known as Captain Hunley - made the requisite modest protestations, but he did have every reason to be proud. The Hunley was loaded on a modified rail car and hauled to Charleston, where the blockade was threatening the largest and most strategic port of the Confederacy.

Charleston's commander, the redoubtable and flamboyant Cajun P.G.T. Beauregard, was skeptical of the boat's utility but followed his orders to give it every possible assistance. There had been one very successful test that had sunk a derelict coal barge, but after that, Hunley's crew never quite seemed to be able to get the hang of her. On top of that, the civilians in charge of the project were wringing her out the way they had the Pioneer, and General Beauregard simply did not have the time for a prolonged test program. By mid-August, Beauregard had ordered the Hunley brought directly under the control of the Confederate Army.

On August 29th, 1863, the Hunley got the hang of her crew.

Exactly what happened is still in question but it seems that her skipper, LT John Payne, somehow managed to entangle his feet in a hawser - and stepped on the diving plane controls while she was in Charleston Harbor. Hunley promptly sank where she was. Payne, in the forward hatch, was barely able to get out. One other crewmember, LT Charles Hasker, was able to struggle out when the sub hit bottom at forty-two feet. Five more drowned, one of them a nephew of Robert E. Lee.

"...For removing Five Corpses of men drownded in Torpedo Boat...300.00..."
To diver Angus Smith,
October 1, 1863

Once the Hunley was back topside Beauregard wanted to end the project but Captain Hunley apparently put his case so passionately that he was able to convince him to give them another chance. Hunley had no problems getting a new crew, and he went to work with a vengeance. Vengeance, however, would be the Hunley's.

"...Melancholy Occurrence - On Thursday morning an accident occurred to a small boat in Cooper river, containing eight persons, all of whom were drowned. Their names were: Captain Hunly, Brockbank, Park, Marshall, Beard, Patterson, McHugh, and Sprague. Their bodies, we believe, have all been recovered..."
The Charleston Mercury,
Friday, October 16th, 1863

Needless to say, General Beauregard was not happy if for no other reason than that manpower, in short supply to begin with, was now being lost to one of their own weapons. By November 7th the Hunley was back on the surface again, dragged ashore at the foot of Calhoun Street. While the crew was being partially dismembered in order to get them out more Confederates were volunteering for duty on the sub. Hunley and his crew were interred at Magnolia a few days later. The first crew - LT Payne's luckless men - was originally interred at the Mariner's Cemetery, where the Citadel's football stadium now sits. It seems some years later that the stones were moved to Magnolia, but the remains, well, remained. They finally found their way to Magnolia in the late 1990s.

"...SPECIAL REQUISITION: For Submarine Torpedo Boat H.L. Hunley: Five scrubbing brushes, One barrel of lime, One box of soap..."
LT George E. Dixon, CSA
Commanding Officer, CSS H.L. Hunley

Dixon, who had been part of the official military part of the program from almost the beginning, now put together one more crew that now included LT Alexander. Beauregard was dead set against any further attempts to use the Hunley, and told Dixon very plainly. Dixon, on the other hand, seems to have pulled off a combination of bureaucratic doubletalk and skillful midnight requisitions to get Hunley operational again and present Beauregard with very nearly a fait accompli. Beauregard, whose own regard for orders could often be less than rigid, seems to have taken it with reasonable grace and simply told Dixon that there had better be some results.

Dixon went at it with considerable thought and skill and through the early winter of 1863-64 trained his crew and got the boat refitted and rebuilt. They made several actual patrols and though there were no successes it was not for lack of trying. Hunley had several limitations that simply could not be worked around and these seem to have been the real problems. Other CSN torpedo boats - including the remarkable Davids, small high-speed steamboats with spar torpedoes like Hunley - had executed attacks, but they were unsuccessful.

Now based at Breach Inlet on Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbor, Hunley continued to make nightly patrols. After February 5th, 1864, those patrols went out without LT Alexander, who had been sent back to Mobile. Dixon wrote several letters to Alexander to keep him abreast of their work. Alexander wrote letters back, encouraging Dixon to keep it up.

It is unlikely Dixon ever read them.

"...The torpedo boat that has accomplished this glorious exploit was under the command of Lieutenant DIXON. We are glad to be able to assure our readers that the boat and crew are now safe..."
The Charleston Mercury,
Monday, February 29th, 1864

Of course, they weren't. We know now that from sometime after approximately 8:45 PM on the night of February 17th, the crew of the Hunley was dead, locked in a black iron mausoleum.

They had finally accomplished their mission, sinking the Federal cruiser USS Housatonic. Confederate States Ship H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat, a feat that would not be repeated for another fifty years. We know that the Hunley had been able to get away from its dying victim, not quite six miles out in the cold Atlantic from Fort Sumter. We are reasonably sure that the Hunley - and quite probably LT Dixon himself - signaled a Confederate artillery battery with a blue lantern.

What happened next only Dixon and his men know for sure, and they cannot tell us.

"...Head Quarters, Battery Marshall, Sullivan's Island. Feb. 19th, 1864. Lieutenant: I have the honor to report that the torpedo boat stationed at this post went out on the night of the 17th instant (Wednesday) and has not yet returned..."

COL O.M. Dantzler, CSA
Commanding Officer, Battery Marshall

It is like a classic Agatha Christie mystery: lots of suspects, each one with a motive and the opportunity, but only one right answer. There are indications that Hunley was unable to back far enough away from Housatonic to avoid damage when the torpedo was fired, and the shockwave may have popped the submarine's seams. In the forward hatch is a shattered porthole where a Marine sharpshooter in Housatonic's rigging got off a single, perfect shot. That hole might have been enough to flood Hunley beyond her already delicate buoyancy. We already know that it was possible to put one's foot in the wrong place and send her heading straight for the bottom. The ballast tank valves may have stuck open as they rode submerged, avoiding enraged USN blockaders eager to avenge Housatonic. Perhaps another blockader, racing to the stricken cruiser's aid, ran down the little sub without even knowing it. There are a dozen different possible causes, and the diligent technicians at the Lasch Restoration Facility at the old Charleston Navy Yard seem to find new mysteries every time they lay their hands on the Hunley.

However it happened, the only hope is that it would have been fast.

Time passed.

The Hunley passed into the realm of near myth over the years as her hull proceeded to fade further and further into the silt of Charleston Harbor. Based on studies done since her discovery, she was probably mostly buried within ninety days, and within thirty years there would have been no trace of her visible on the sea bottom. For years it was believed that she was dragged down by the sinking Housatonic, but when the cruiser's wreck was dredged decades later nothing was found. The story persisted though, if only because it seemed just that the two warriors should die together.

Time Passed.

Charleston herself fell, just a few weeks before the end of the war that had started there. It is unlikely that by that time, anyone there even thought much about the little submarine that lay outside the harbor somewhere. Others did, though: P.T. Barnum himself offered a reward of $100,000 for the hulk of the Hunley. It seems though that the master showman miscalculated the number of suckers available that particular day; no one ever collected. William Alexander lived to 1914, full of wisdom and years. His writings and interviews would be best source of first-hand information on his old boat for another eight decades.

Time Passed.

Every few years someone else would announce that he was going after the Hunley and every few years they would walk away in defeat. A man named Lee Spence claimed to have found her in 1970, but it is most doubtful; his records were fuzzy at best and he was never able to prove it to a salvage court's satisfaction. Just as well really when one considers the heartburn given to those who finally did locate her.

Author Clive Cussler, a buccaneer of the finest sort and devoted to finding her for the history instead of the glory, went after her twice - once in 1980-81 and in 1993-95. The last time was with a boat full of state-of-the-art equipment and a dedicated crew that was going to find Hunley once and for all. They located Housatonic's remains during the '81 expedition but had to wait another fourteen years for the big prize. In the meantime, since the discovery of the wreck of RMS Titanic in 1985, the Hunley had become the new Holy Grail of marine archeology and to the very end she would tease those who sought her. Between 1981 and 1993, several official expeditions came heartbreakingly close, but in the end she always eluded them. In '93 Cussler and his brigands started looking in earnest for Hunley, but the submarine fought them to the very end. Finally, on May 4th, 1995, Cussler's crew found her.

She was on one side, partially buried under roughly five feet of silt. One of the first things they found was that broken port in the forward hatch, and it took little examination to determine that the sub was packed solid with dirt and sediment. That was enough to send the salvors into transports of ecstasy; it meant that whatever was inside was going to be in an exquisite state of preservation. The forward hatch was seated and locked - from the inside. The snorkels had been broken off, but were in the up position.

Hunley rested in situ for another five years while money was raised and ownership debated. The United States Navy claimed her, as did the Smithsonian Institution. The state of South Carolina insisted she was their property, but Alabama - her birthplace - had an argument as well. In the end it was the legendary South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond who made very sure that Hunley would stay right where she served. The argument now is which of three sites in South Carolina will get her, but that is outside our scope for now. Cussler, whose shoestring operation had trumped that of the United States Navy, the Smithsonian, the University of South Carolina, and a flotilla of other well-funded, high-tech efforts, cannot resist leaving a note in the hulk for those who will actually raise her - "Veni, vidi, veci, dude!" In return his efforts are denigrated at best and ignored at worst, and he is threatened with at least one legal action. In the end, he has the satisfaction of knowing that it was his team that finally answered the blue lantern.

The decision is made early on that the crew will be identified and buried with their comrades at Magnolia, and in the end that is what leads us to this not-quite time warp, where C-17 transports whine by on gas turbine wings headed for Bosnia, Iraq, and parts unknown, where bright orange Coast Guard helicopters and gaudy TV news choppers whirr overhead - and the Confederate States Army wheels into formation for what may be its final pass-in-review.

It is said that LT Dixon had a keepsake - a $20 gold piece given to him by his fiancee, Miss Queenie Bennett of Mobile. At the battle of Shiloh Dixon took a round in the hip; the ball struck the gold piece squarely in its center, forming it into the shape of a bell. There were witnesses to this minor miracle, so we know it happened. Dixon, for his part, kept the deformed coin with him for the rest of his life. Even with the eyewitness accounts, there was skepticism for years over the matter, but that was laid to rest one day in 2002, when a set of skeletal remains were delicately removed from where they had settled inside the Hunley.

Nestled inside them was a $20 gold piece, deformed into the shape of a bell.

One story that stays with us is that gold piece, given to a departing warrior by his love in a time when bravery and courage were watchwords of a life well lived, and how the honorable love of a Lady could urge a man on to feats of legend. We laugh now at such things. For all of our sophistication and knowledge, they are seemingly beyond us. We fight our wars in a cross between a science fiction movie and a reality television show that allows us no time for diversions. Yet on this Saturday morning, you hear those words in the crowd...the gold piece...the gold piece.. And when a tall, dignified woman in black strides in with the crew families - all identified and confirmed by DNA - the words focus on her.

Her name is known, but it shall not be revealed here. She is Queenie Bennett's great-granddaughter, who has tried to stay out of the spotlight - for that matter, as have all the families. They do not look in any way noteworthy or distinctive - just the kind of people you would see at a family funeral. Only one stands out; an elderly lady of petite stature wearing a sash that indicates her as a member of a Confederate historical organization and is lined with a perfectly aligned row of pins showing her service. She is one of several crew family members who are at graveside when the service is done. A few inches behind me, someone asks her what ceremonies are next. She smiles and says, "What's next is that I intend to change into a comfortable pair of shoes."

South Carolina's politicians - enough of whom rest here at Magnolia, finally sans phrase - are of mixed emotions regarding the seven men and the thousands who have come to see them to their rest. The Confederate spirit died hard in the Palmetto state and one can make a strong case that it has never died at all. Unfortunately for politicians who crave votes, the Confederacy is considered a very touchy subject. The matter of the Confederate naval flag - it was never the flag of the Confederacy itself - that flew over the State House in Columbia wiped out the career of one Governor and ignited a boycott by the NAACP. A Columbia restaurateur puts booklets in his business extolling the Confederacy, and is publicly pilloried for his efforts. Most try and avoid it, one notable exception being state Senator Glenn McConnell, who is to a great deal responsible for there even being a service this day and who is very nearly a guest of honor here.

But in the end the politicians have pretty much run for cover on this one. Protests from black legislators scuttled plans for a lying-in-state at the State House, and there is no official delegation from Columbia here this morning. It is remarked upon by the crowd, but more on that later.

Magnolia is such a green oasis in the normally sere South Carolina landscape that anything black - expected though it may be here - catches the eye. At first it registers on the conscious as the ubiquitous ravens that wheel and caw in ragged flocks throughout the countryside, but then you realize that these ebony harbingers move with a smooth precision that no avian can match.

They are the Widows - easily two hundred women and more, in full 1860s black mourning garb. They range from little girls not far removed from being toddlers to fresh-faced blonde teenagers to stolid Charleston matrons and silver-trimmed grandmothers, each of them in the black laces and silks that were once a de rigueur display of mourning and sadness. They are not dressed simply to play a part here or gain attention - each and every one is there because they feel a deep and solid connection with the men in the varnished pine coffins and the women they left behind. They are here to bid a farewell for those who cannot, Confederate valkyries escorting the last of the faithful to Valhalla.

And of all the people there, they are the loudest and most vocal regarding the absence of a State delegation. One lady looks at me with a seriousness that belies her soccer-mom looks and says, quietly but firmly, "The Governor will be receiving a lot of letters about this." The rest nod in agreement and murmured assent, angry black angels among the emotionless white marble ones of Magnolia Cemetery.

The reenactors have arrived from all over the country and for that matter from outside the country as well; at least one British Confederate is across a still, quiet pond, helping prepare the artillery salute. It is probably not hyperbole to say that there have not been this many Confederate uniforms in one place in Charleston since the city was evacuated in early spring of 1865 - easily a regiment's worth, carrying flags and guidons that identify them as Georgian, North Carolinian, Virginian, Tennesseean, Texan, Mississippian, South Carolinian, Floridian, Louisianan, Alabaman. And these are the organized units, each one with 'Volunteer Infantry' or 'Volunteer Artillery' in its name, reminding you that most Southerners fought because they wanted to, not because they had to in a hated draft. There was a Confederate draft, but this does not seem to be the place to bring that point up.

There are hundreds more individuals in uniforms that reflect everything from the most humble Confederate militiaman to Generals and Admirals, with a smattering of sailors, Marines, and engineers thrown in. There are hundreds of civilian reenactors as well, dressed in flawlessly recreated period clothing. One - a university librarian - points out that there's really no way one can ever wear the real thing; it's simply not made for modern homo sapiens and if it does fit it's more an accident of nature than anything else. One other thing we must remember, she says - if you make your own, use cotton instead of polyester.

"It breathes," she smiles, pointing out that even in the eighty-degree temperature and almost physical humidity of Magnolia Cemetery, she's still holding up quite nicely, thank you.

And as the first units march into position around that little island in Magnolia Cemetery, she looks up at the sound of leather creaking and gear rattling, of hobnail boots tramping through hardpacked South Carolina dirt, of commands given and acknowledged, and a band a few hundred yards away playing 'Dixie' in notes that fade in and out as if on a radio that's not quite tuned into another reality. In a mixture of awe and sadness, she whispers, "The Confederacy has come back for a day."

It has. In these few square miles of South Carolina it is not 2004 today - it is 1864, and I defy anyone to say otherwise. When I left home this morning, I was watching stories of 21st century technology being brought to bear on 12th century fanatics in a land whose civilization is tens of centuries old, but right here, right now, this is Somewhere Else. There is literally almost nothing to indicate that we are in the United States of America in 2004. There is not a single Star-Spangled Banner in sight but there are battalions of the Stainless Banner, the true flag of the CSA - a white banner with the Saint Andrew's Cross in the upper left corner. On some of the more modern marble stones for CSA Civil War dead there is no US seal but rather the cross device of the Sons Of Confederate Veterans. And of course, the voices - my own Ohio twang submerged beneath tens of thousands of Southern drawls.

Perhaps more disturbing though than the Twilight Zone aspects of this day are the snatches of conversation I hear through the crowd. The vast, overwhelming majority of people here today are here to honor seven brave men, to be a small part of a great history that will to a great extent wind up here today - not on a battlefield among the smoke and noise and cries of the wounded and dying, but instead in this quiet oasis where one can hide from the years. These are people who are truly touched today - they will remember it forever as did those who watched that first artillery round arc up in the air over Fort Sumter almost 143 years ago. It will be something remembered always and in awe, in whispers and hushed, reverent tones.

But there are some voices in the crowd that seem less interested in forgiving the differences than in celebrating them. One gentleman behind me - wearing a pin that proclaims his former leadership of a well-known Confederate organization - is literally snarling as he points out to another man that he is damned glad there are no Yankee uniforms present this day.

"They had their ceremony," he growls. "This one is ours."

There are other rumblings of a similar nature that float in and out of hearing, some from the Distinguished Guests who line up before us for photos. They are right, insofar as it goes. This is theirs. It will probably be the last Civil War funeral and to that extent some will be able to claim that they were the Last Men Standing. It is difficult to believe that this far downrange it makes any difference, but to some it does.

The crew of CSS H.L. Hunley enters by stately procession into the road that circles the little island. Seven men, representing all the Confederate services, carry crimson cushions ahead of them, each with a medal draped across it - the SCV's Medal Of Honor. The standards for its award are as high and stringent as those of the Congressional Medal Of Honor, and it is more than fitting that these seven have earned it.

Seven men - six pallbearers and one detail commander, escort each crewman. The first thing that strikes you is that the coffins are so small, perhaps no more than about four and a half feet long. They are beautifully made from polished yellow pine, fitted together and finished so well that they appear almost as of a piece. The second thing that strikes you is the trim, impassive presence of a South Carolina Highway Patrolman at the left rear of each detail. They and the fatigue-and-flak-vest clad State Law Enforcement Division troops scattered around the cemetery are jarring reminders of where we really are. There is a genuine concern that someone will try and disrupt the ceremony - understandable enough given some of the passions that have run high in this state. On the other hand, there are a thousand or more reenactors here, most carrying a long rifle with a bayonet, a sword, or both. Anyone foolish enough to start something here could probably count on being carved up like an Easter ham live on South Carolina Public TV, which is broadcasting the ceremonies. That, however, does not always deter those who consider themselves Chosen, so the State has erred today on the side of caution.

Nevertheless, the State Troopers stay in position until each coffin is taken, gently and reverently, by the burial detail and laid in the long common grave that will be its resting place. One trooper stands at rigid attention as the coffin he escorts is taken for the last few feet of its journey. He is an example of the precision and professionalism that the State Troopers here show, and I think that in the heat and humidity it must be a challenge to keep looking that sharp, but he does it.

I also wonder what he is thinking right now; for his is the only black face I have seen here all day.

A clergyman, resplendent in formal robes and flanked by two very serious young altar boys, reads the burial service. It is the words we have come to know so very well through other, sadder, more personal experiences - a reminder that in the end we all return to the Earth the Lord made us from, and that then we but sleep; confident in resurrection. A group of Masons, almost incongruous in tuxedos, bow ties, and aprons, appears momentarily as LT Dixon is laid to his rest - Dixon was a Mason, and his friends, known for their fraternity, are determined to give their brother a proper farewell.

The others approach, halt, and are guided into the grave. There is a silence that one does not associate with crowds this large. The only sounds are distorted echoes of a news helicopter and the footsteps of a few more companies of troops moving into position. Even the cameras are muffled, their whirrs and beeps curiously missing at this final moment. Perhaps the technology that enables us to preserve moments like this for all time is, in the end, not as good as the pictures we will keep in our memories until the day we die. We will take the boundless pictures of our mind, with every color and sound and smell not only there forever, but enhanced, over the cold, brittle feel of a CD with a computer program on it.

It is done now, almost without warning. A bugler steps up and plays a quick tattoo. He stumbles slightly over some of the notes, but no one chastises him, for his effort comes from the heart. Then, after a heartbeat's pause comes the melody written by a Civil War general , one we have come to associate with sacrifice, tragedy, and lost causes.

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

We know what to expect now - first a fifty-gun salute by the troops gathered around the gravesite. I am used to the flat, sharp crack of M-16s from twenty years in the Air Force but I am not prepared for the deep, growling bark from fifty muzzle-loading rifles, and I know now why grown men quailed at that sound. Flame lances out literally three feet in front of them and Spanish moss is shredded into streamers and confetti, drifting down onto the stones that mark LT Payne's crew and Captain Hunley's lost souls.

Then the finale - fifty cannon, lined up wheel to wheel on the other side of the pond that sits to our right. The guns - at least one an actual Civil War veteran from the Battle of Sharpsburg - thunder loose with a chest-thumping thud, and curiously there is little echo before two and one half seconds later the next one lets go, and so on and so on. As the guns fire down the line, the sound grows more and more distant and oddly higher pitched until the last few seem to be coming from somewhere else entirely - the far end of the cemetery, perhaps, or another time entirely.

With the last cannon shot fading away, it is done. Our friend the librarian is here with one of the Artillery companies, and with a gentle smile tells us that she has to return to her unit to help them limber up the guns. She is thrilled to have seen something like this, but just a little disappointed - "Normally," she says, "I'm on one of the gun crews." We say our goodbyes and nice-to-have-met-yous, and she disappears into the crowd, hoop skirt swaying, one hand holding a high-tech digital camera and an antique lace folding fan.

In a very calm, dignified wave, the thousands edge close to the gravesite. They part to allow the families another quick glimpse, then close up again. In a few short minutes, I am at the graveside.

Hunley's crew is in their final military formation, one it shall maintain until the Last Trump releases them along with the other faithful of Magnolia Cemetery. The coffins are lined up with precision, brass plates on each lid identifying the man who rests inside. Each one has a stunningly pink Confederate Rose atop it, odd in the martial tone of this day but a thankfully human touch. There are a few grains of South Carolina sand atop each coffin, as if reminding its resident that in a few minutes the darkness shall return.

My attention is drawn to a hollow thump and I see dirt cascading down onto a coffin. For a moment I think that someone has slipped and is falling down into the grave, but instead it is one man - then two, then others - quietly picking up a handful of soil and almost reverently tossing it into the grave. The State Troopers on the other side of the grave simply nod, and everyone on either side of me begins to do it as well. I bend down and grasp a small handful, rough and dry in my hand. Just a flick of the wrist - and it sprays out and down, a roostertail suspended in the air for a moment before the faint breeze blows it away. In a way I cannot explain, I have connected with these seven, dead almost a century before my own birth. To me, they have never been merely Confederate or Federal, but rather Americans who took their beliefs and abilities to that final limit that we rarely see any more. I have read their story over and over again; I have seen their ship in its berth within a high-tech lab, I have followed the debate over their honor, but nothing has closed that gulf between us as much as the act of helping - in a very, very small way - to lay them to their rest. I dust my hands off and look for my partner to begin the walk back to Meeting Street.

Fifteen minutes and one hundred and forty years later, we start the long drive home.

[Belushi TD]

That was magnificent.

Belushi TD

[Wolfman]

That was magnificent.

Belushi TD

Seconded, Belushi.

[Johnnie Lyle]

They are our brothers. They erred, they and too damn many others paid for the error with life, limb, sanity or soul. We are fortunate that schoolboy rules writ large ruled, and such we by and large purged the bitterness as a schoolboy fistfight settles the dispute without rancor. Woe be upon those who reopen an old would mostly healed.

Now let them rest, and may their sons and nephews, and increasingly daughters and nieces, show the same devotion and bravery to the Stars and Stripes, or other flags as appropriate, should submariners fly such things.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

There's an phrase used over on Reddit, which I deploy here with due deference...
"Attack of the Onion Ninjas..."

[Johnnie Lyle]

There's an phrase used over on Reddit, which I deploy here with due deference...
"Attack of the Onion Ninjas..."

The American equivalent is “its mighty dusty in here.”

[Wolfman]

There's an phrase used over on Reddit, which I deploy here with due deference...
"Attack of the Onion Ninjas..."

The American equivalent is “its mighty dusty in here.”

Both phrases have been used on sites such as Spacebattles.com and Archive of Our Own…

[Johnnie Lyle]

There's an phrase used over on Reddit, which I deploy here with due deference...
"Attack of the Onion Ninjas..."

The American equivalent is “its mighty dusty in here.”

Both phrases have been used on sites such as Spacebattles.com and Archive of Our Own…

Yeah, but onion ninjas don’t really have as much penetration over here.