CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- Archaeologists digging beneath a college football stadium have found the remains of 27 Confederate soldiers, including four believed to be crew members on the first submarine to sink an enemy ship.
The H.L. Hunley, a hand-cranked submarine made of old locomotive boilers, made history in February 1864, when it sank the Union blockade ship Housatonic. It never returned, sinking with its nine-man crew.The previous year, two other crews were lost, one when the sub sank at its moorings. Five members of that first Hunley crew were buried in a sailors' cemetery over which Johnson Hagood Stadium was later built at The Citadel.
When the stadium was built in the 1940s, a clerical error resulted in headstones being removed but the remains being left behind.
Last month, archaeologists and volunteers began working to recover the remains from 5 feet under the stands and a room used by a booster club for the state military college. At times they had to dig by hand, out of fear that tools would damage the brittle remains.