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Monday, March 26, 2001

Well-preserved ribs were found less than an inch from a piece of wood, suggesting to scientists that, in the murky churn of seawater and sand, the sailor's body possibly came to rest atop the edge of a stool.

Even more chilling, a button emblazoned with an admiralty anchor is embedded between the ribs. The button presumably settled down into the ribs after the sailor's uniform deteriorated in 30 feet of water near the Charleston Harbor.

Smithsonian Institution forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley detected damage to a vertebra as he examined the bones. That's evidence, he said, of a herniated disc, presumably caused by the stress of turning the handcrank that powered the Hunley.

It's been a whirlwind week of discoveries into the mysteries of the first submarine to sink an enemy ship. Divers recovered the sub last August and transported it by barge to a North Charleston conservation lab.

During its excavation, the Hunley is considered a "war grave," said Capt. Andy Hall of the Naval Historical Center. The scientists are working with mixed emotions.

"It is an exciting moment in confirmation that we found the crew," project director Bob Neyland said. "But it is a very somber time, too, because they were young men who sacrificed their lives in combat, in a heroic action.

"They were also American military who had been lost, missing in action for 137 years," Neyland said, adding there will be no public display of the bones out of "dignity, respect and honor" for the sailors.

The remains will be buried, possibly on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, in Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery. The Hunley's two previous crews are already buried there.

"I want them to have a proper burial," said Mary Elizabeth McMahon of Sandy Springs in suburban Atlanta. She is the great-great-granddaughter of one of the crewmen, James Wicks.

McMahon, 56, grew up in Jacksonville, hearing about Wicks' death aboard the submarine. She took greater interest when TNT aired the movie "The Hunley" in 1999.

Judging by the relatively young age of the bones recovered this week, McMahon said she believes her great-great-grandfather's remains have yet to be found.

She said she believes her family members would be willing to undergo DNA testing to allow scientists to identify the remains.

Wicks, a Confederate seaman stationed in Charleston, was married and had four daughters, including Mary Eliza, after whom McMahon was named.

"I am very excited that they could possibly determine which one was my great-great-grandfather," she said.

Months of painstaking preparation led to this week's findings, which surprised scientists, who had not expected to unearth human remains so soon in an excavation that will go on for another month or two.

The discoveries come five years after divers first touched the Hunley, encrusted by barnacles and partly buried in sand four miles off Sullivan's Island.

On Tuesday, chief archaeologist Maria Jacobsen spotted yellowish bone as she used a wooden tongue depressor to scrape sediment from around a piece of wood inside the sub. The bone was the first of three ribs to be found that day, followed by Thursday's discovery of at least three more ribs, part of a backbone and an upper arm bone, all close together.

Rather than using conventional archaeologist tools, Jacobsen uses tongue depressors to make sure she doesn't destroy artifacts, including fragile bits of uniform and belts.

The bones were found near the front of the sub, slightly behind and just a foot below the front hatch that opens through the top of the sub.

"We had never expected to find human remains at this high level," said Jacobsen, who works inside the sub in a space so cramped she can barely move her head up and down. "That is a huge surprise."

Scientists had speculated the remains would have settled to the bottom.

The findings raised more questions: Did the remains of the other eight crewmen remain relatively intact, as the initial discovery suggests?

Or, in a scenario that would complicate the identification and possible reconstruction of some of the remains, are the bones of most of the sailors jumbled up, lying in the bottom of the sub?

"It raises more questions than it answers," said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, chairman of the Hunley Commission.

"But it does answer one question: They did not get out. Conclusively we can say now the crew is on board," he said.

Neyland said scientists don't know whether the crew tried to escape or why the Hunley sank the night of Feb. 17, 1864. The slender cast iron craft presumably went down as it backed away from the USS Housatonic.

The Hunley had used a long battering ram affixed with 90 pounds of black powder to sink the Housatonic.

The Confederacy wanted desperately to destroy the ship, which was enforcing a crippling blockade of Charleston Harbor in the final years of the Civil War.

Copyright 2001 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution