Marine Engineer. He received his fame, during the American Civil War, for being a pioneer in building submarines. Besides his interest in submarines, he was a wealthy plantation owner, lawyer, and merchant. Born Horace Lawson Hunley into a wealthy family, his family moved from Tennessee to New Orleans, Louisiana when he was a young child. He had only one sibling, a sister Volumnia. When he was eleven years old, Hunley's father died. After studying law at the University of Louisiana, he was admitted to the bar in 1849 and practiced law in New Orleans. From 1848 to 1849, he served in the Louisiana State Legislature. As a work-driven bachelor, he purchased a sugar plantation in Assumption Parish, which his slaves worked, and land in Texas. Besides shipping his sugar through the port of New Orleans to various destinations, he made a yearly salary of $1,500 as an assistant at the New Orleans Customs House. In April of 1861 when the American Civil War began, he would become a patriot of the Confederate States of America. If the Confederacy lost this war, his way of life would be forever changed. In the early months of the war, as a judicious entrepreneur, he was acutely aware of the importance of keeping the supply lines with Europe open in addition to what was happening on the frontlines of the battle. The northern part of the United States, being far more industrial than the South, had a larger, more modern fleet to block shipments to the Confederate states from Europe. Hunley knew that if the Confederacy was to succeed against such a strong United States Navy, they would need to be calculating, cunning and innovating. In an attempt to do this, he would join with James McClintock and Baxter Watson, two mechanical engineers, to design and finance a submarine. McClintock had the true talent of designing and building. These two men had a successful New Orleans business, McClintock & Watson, manufacturing and shipping steam valves and other mechanisms for industries. Later, their facility would make ammunition for the Confederate Army until New Orleans was invaded by Union Forces in 1862. Hunley and his mechanical engineers were not the first to build submarines. The first submarine was conceived by British mathematician William Bourne in 1578, but the first actually built was that of Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel, which dove under the River Thames in London in 1620. Even the American Revolution had a submarine, the "Turtle," in the battle against the British, but not successful. Hunley and his colleague's initial prototype hand-powered submarine was the "CSS Pioneer," which was intentionally sunk to prevent capture by the Union Forces as they invaded New Orleans. At that point, the project of building a submarine was relocated to Messrs. Park & Lyons in Mobile, Alabama. Their second submarine, "The American Diver," sank in Mobile Bay during a maneuver in January of 1863; though no lives were lost, the vessel was never recovered. Their third submarine, a vessel of 40 feet of hammered iron, was eventually named "H.L. Hunley" in honor of Hunley. Using most of his wealth, Hunley had been personally financing the building of these submarines, but for this vessel, he required investors. On August 29, 1863, the first maneuver with the "Hunley" resulted in the death of five crew members when the submarine sank after gaining water from a passing vessel's wave. On October 15, 1863, during a second test run, the 39-year-old Captain Hunley died with his seven-man crew when the "H.L. Hunley" was accidentally trapped on the bottom of Charleston Harbor off the coast of South Carolina. At the time of his death Hunley was not actually a member of the Confederate military. After the submarine was raised from the harbor, refurbished, and given a new crew, the "H.L. Hunley" is credited with being the first submarine to successfully attack an enemy's ship during war: on February 17, 1864 the "USS Housatonic" was sunk off the coastline of Charleston with the death of 5 of the vessel's 155 crewmen. Some sources claim the "Hunley" was not completely submerged during the encounter. Although the details are not clearly documented, the "Hunley" may have received damaged during the explosion of the "USS Housatonic" as the submarine eventually sank with the loss of the entire eight-member crew shortly after the maneuver. The TBS made-for-television film "CSS H.L. Hunley" aired in 1999, bringing more recognition to this man's life. Little is known about James McClintock and Baxter Watson's later lives, except McClintock was killed, according to his grandson, in "Boston Harbor when he was experimenting with his newly invented submarine mine" on October 13, 1879. Rediscovered in 1995 and the eventual salvage in 2000, the "CSS H.L. Hunley" is exhibited at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center at the Charleston Navy Yard. In 1960 a plaque with a relief of Captain Hunley's face was erected at the Submarine Library, Groton, Connecticut, by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in his honor, who was one of the designers of the Confederate submarine "H.L. Hunley."