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Charleston, S.C. --- One of the Civil War's most celebrated mysteries --- what really happened to the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley and its crew --- has snared another curious mind.
Best-selling author Patricia Cornwell, whose novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta have elevated crime scene experts to the ranks of scientific superstars, caught the Hunley bug --- an affliction familiar to many naval historians --- about a month ago during a tour of the Charleston laboratory where the 40-foot submarine is being studied.
This week, she donated $500,000 to help scientists on the Hunley Project determine what happened to the hand-cranked mini-sub and its eight-man crew that night of Feb. 17, 1864, when they vanished beneath the waters of Charleston Harbor.
"We have learned a lot about the Hunley and its crew in the last few years, but we still don't know why it sank and how those eight men died," said Cornwell, a Florida native raised in the South. "There are important questions to be answered. We owe it to these brave men to find out."
Officials of the Hunley Project, which has been devoting most of its $1.2 million annual budget to caring for the submarine and artifacts excavated from it since it was raised from the harbor in 2000, were overjoyed by Cornwell's unexpected largesse.
Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist for the project, said Cornwell's gift, which will be earmarked for specialized equipment and forensic expertise to study the Hunley, will help answer some of the questions that have only deepened since the Hunley's recovery.
"Archaeologists and forensic scientists are really interested in the same things," she said. "Law enforcement officials might think of the Hunley as a cold case, but to an archaeologist this was just yesterday."
The broad outlines of the Hunley's demise have always been known. After planting an explosive charge on the one of the Union frigates blockading Charleston harbor, the Hunley failed to return to shore. It was the first successful submarine attack in naval history.
But was the sub damaged by the explosion? Was it sunk by Union gunfire? Did the hull spring a leak? Did the crew drown? Or did they suffocate?
Some of the answers may lie inside the 40-foot submarine, and some may be preserved in the sample of brain and bone tissue taken from the remains of the crew before they were buried in Charleston in 2004.
"There are important questions left to be answered," Cornwell said. "We need to do a detailed autopsy of the submarine. The Hunley is a 19th century crime scene, a time capsule where the evidence has been corrupted by its underwater environment. If we find out what happened to the submarine, I think we will learn what happened to the crew."
In true Kay Scarpetta fashion, Cornwell is taking a hands-on approach to make sure no promising new technology goes unused in the search for the truth.
In addition to cash, Cornwell is tapping her connections in the world of forensic science to see that the most modern methods as well as the best and brightest minds are brought to bear on the Hunley mystery.
Early plans call for prominent neuroscientists from Harvard University to examine the brain tissue from the crew to see if the exact cause of death can be determined. Metallurgists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory will look for signs of metal fatigue in the Hunley's hull and DNA studies of the crew's remains will help track down any living descendants or their relatives.
"Some of what we will be using is space-age stuff," Cornwell said. "But the Hunley was really the space shuttle of its time, so it makes perfect sense to our latest technology to answer these questions."
Cornwell has not been reticent about putting her money where her interests lie. She gave $2 million to help establish an institute of forensic sciences in Virginia, where her fictional Kay Scarpetta served as the state medical examiner. In recent years she also has made $1 million-plus donations to support literacy, guide horses and a nature preserve.
Although Cornwell was aware of the Hunley Project, it wasn't until last month that she developed a personal interest, prompted by a visit to what she calls "one of her favorite places to hang out": the Georgia Bureau of Investigations' coastal regions morgue in Savannah, presided over by friend and colleague GBI medical examiner Jamie Downs.
Downs, who got hooked on the Hunley story decades ago growing up in Charleston, has been the project's forensic consultant for several years. He invited Cornwell to join him on a tour of the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, the refurbished building at the Charleston Navy Yard where the Hunley has been kept since it was raised from the harbor.
"Knowing of Patricia's interest in solving mysteries, I thought she might be interested," Downs recalled. "In fact, she was so interested that she went back the next day on her own."
A few weeks later, Cornwell called project officials to tell them she wanted to back a state-of-the-art forensic investigation.
And she made it clear this week that she isn't putting limits on her commitment. "If we get into this and find a hot trail that will help answer some of these questions, we are not going to stop," she vowed.
Cornwell isn't the first best-selling author to develop a compelling interest in the Hunley story. The discovery of the sub in 1995 and the impetus to raise it in 2000 were due in large part to the efforts of Clive Cussler, whose tales of legendary adventurer Dirk Pitt and the National Underwater Marine Agency, occupy at least as much shelf space as Cornwell's novels.
Cornwell isn't saying whether the final chapter of the real-life Hunley mystery will provide the raw material for a literary endeavor.
"That's not part of the plan right now, but I've learned never to say never," she said. But she made it clear she intends to be as dogged in her pursuit of the truth as her own Kay Scarpetta is.
"The dead can speak to us," she said. "We just don't know what these eight men have to tell us yet. But they would want us to know what happened to them. I want to know. This will be a great and worthy challenge."
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
