Get the latest military news and headlines delivered to your
inbox every weekday morning. NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - Scientists
say the submarine that was the first in history to sink an enemy
warship was much closer than thought to a Union ship it sank in
1864. Scientists announced Monday that 135 pounds of gunpowder
was attached to a pole, or spar, at the front of the Confederate
submarine H.L. Hunley. It has been long thought the Hunley
attached a torpedo to the bottom of the blockade ship Housatonic
and then backed off. But new evidence indicates the Hunley was
only about 20 feet away, meaning the concussion from the
explosion could have knocked out the crew. The Housatonic sank,
while the Hunley, built in Mobile, Ala., never returned with its
eight-man crew. The sub was found off South Carolina in 1995 and
raised five years later.