It was a bold maneuver. The Hunley was on her first assignment and the odds were stacked against her. The USS Housatonic had a crew of 160 men and it came complete with rifles and 12 cannons, while she only had a crew of eight men and one torpedo to launch. It was risky at best but the Union barricade had to be run-over- no matter what.
For the Southern States, it was a matter of survival-but could she do it?
A Drastic Situation
The Hunley had to succeed or succeed,-the economy suffered, and the Southern states lacked vehicles needed to distribute food which was rotting in storerooms. An angry, starving crowd already started looting stores in Virginia. The Confederate President Jefferson Davis gave the crowd his own money and gave them five minutes to leave or be shot. Something like that could not happen again, and if ships from the North were to enter Southern territory things would go from desperate to worse-and they were already attacking Fort Sumter-the South’s last line of defense. Ready or not, the time to act was now.
