Dixon's and Queenie's Watch

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PHOTO COMPARISONS OF DIXON


A) Facial reconstruction of George E. Dixon, whose likeness was previously unknown.	B)Head shot from picture offered on Ebay. Could this be a younger Dixon?

C) Enhanced George E. Dixon, the man in the photo inside Queenie's pocket watch	D) First picture thought to be George E. Dixon, it has never been proven otherwise.

Regarding photo D Archaeologist believe the photo was post-war: the man's tie, the lapels on his coat, his boots - even the furniture and the draperies in the room - all indicate the tintype photograph was taken after 1870 - six years after the Hunley sank - and perhaps even as late as 1890 Sally Necessary in Virginia, owns the original print.

The mystery comes from a single picture, thought to be of Lt. George Dixon. the photo shows a man in his mid 20s, and was found tucked behind another picture in Queenie Bennett's photo album. Bennett was the woman who gave Dixon the famous gold coin which saved his life at the Battle of Shiloh.

Queenie Bennett's descendants believed this photo is of Lt. Dixon because it matches his description.

Enhanced Believed to be Dixon at one time

Some say that the lapels of the jacket in the picture, and the design of the cravat, or tie, suggest a later period than in the mid 1860s. One historian has suggested the tie was fashionable in England at the time, and perhaps Lt. Dixon was a little ahead of his time...12/20/02

QUEEN BENNETT POCKET WATCH

ABOVE PHOTO PROVIDED BY GEORGE BENNETT WALKER

Queen Bennett's great-grandchildren can't identify the man in the photo inside her pocket watch, but are convinced he's not a member of the family. Hunley scientists will attempt to overlay the face on an image of Dixon's skull to see if this could be the Hunley commander.

Enhanced by GWP

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Watch's connection to Hunley commander

Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 10:18:31 AM
Subject: [CSS H L HUNLEY] Watch's connection to Hunley commander still unclear By BRIAN HICKS
Sunday, November 26, 2006

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Gold, bejeweled and ornately inscribed, the old pocket watch just plain looks like something George Dixon would have bought.

But did he?

The watch may have been a Christmas present from the Hunley captain to Queen Bennett _ the girl, legend has it, was Dixon's Mobile, Ala., sweetheart. Now, her descendants are donating the family heirloom, and the mystery of its provenance, to the Hunley's eventual
museum.

The watch, along with a pistol that once belonged to Bennett's father, will soon be on the Hunley lab tour. But don't expect the mystery of the watch to be solved anytime soon. After all, it has been more than a century in the making.

George Dixon was a riverboat man, perhaps from the Midwest, who found himself in Mobile in the early days of the Civil War. There he most likely met Robert Bennett, a steamboat pilot who worked the same rivers and perhaps the same ships. Bennett may have even introduced
Dixon to his eldest daughter, a teenager everyone called Queenie.

Mobile historians say the two were involved in serious courtship by October 1861, when Dixon joined the 21st Alabama and marched off to war with a gold $20 piece in his pocket. The coin, according to legend, was a gift from Queenie.

Months later, in April of 1862, Dixon was shot in the leg as his company stormed the battlefield at Shiloh. But the coin deflected the bullet and probably saved his life.

Dixon returned to Mobile to convalesce. It was there that he began work on Horace Hunley's submarine project and spent the Christmas 1862. Within a year, he would be in Charleston, in command of the Hunley.

But what of the watch? Did he buy it, give it to Queenie? George Bennett Walker Jr. and Sally Necessary, Bennett's great-grandchildren, say the watch had been in the family for years. Family lore claimed it was Queenie's, but they had no proof.

Then a few years ago, they discovered a door in the back of the watch that opened and, inside it, this inscription: Queen Bennett, December 25th, 1862. As if it were a Christmas present.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh. She and Dixon were very close. He probably gave her that watch,' " Walker told The (Charleston) Post and Courier at the time.

The family says the watch is too ornate to have been a present from Queenie's father. The inscription suggests it was a gift, and the lettering is similar to the engraving on Dixon's lucky $20 gold coin, which reads "My life Preserver" along with his name.

The fancy watch also seems to match the taste of Dixon, who apparently liked very fine things. When he was found aboard the Hunley, he was carrying a nice pocket watch and several pieces of jewelry. The question is, did he have Bennett's watch inscribed when he got the coin inscribed? Or did he even give her the watch?

"It's a key part of the story _ a watch that Dixon could have possibly given her on the last Christmas they were together," said Randy Burbage, a member of the Hunley Commission. "It just looks like him."

The family donated the watch to make sure it will be preserved and protected. Now, alongside the Hunley, it will carry its own mystery.

Information from: The Post and Courier, http://www.charlest on.net

Another Eyewitness claims to have seen the Hunley

"I am one of the few persons, if not the only one now living, who saw that epoch making craft." "I was present at the raising of the Housatonic wreck...summer of 1872"

FIRST SUBMARINE TO SINK SHIP
THE WASHINGTON POST SUNDAY, AUGUST 29, 1915

PLAN OF FIRST UNDERSEA BOAT TO DESTROY WARSHIP
A HAND-PROPELLED "DAVID" HYDROPLANES SHOWN AT X

IT WAS LOST IN ACT OF TORPEDOING THE U.S.S. HOUSATONIC ON BLOCKADE DUTY OFF CHARLESTON

(NEW YORK WORLD)

The New York World was a newspaper published in New York from 1860 until 1931. It played a major role in the history of American newspapers.

On the night of February 17,1864 the United States steamship -of-war Housatonic, on blockade duty off Charleston, SC. was sunk by the first submarine successfully used in offensive effort. I am one of the few persons, if not the only one now living, who saw that epoch making craft.

The submarine boat was designed by Horace L. Hundley and built under his supervision at Mobile, in 1863, by a man named McClintock. While much has been written about it in a general way, the most detailed and apparently accurate description, printed originally in the Houston (Texas) Telegraph, was recently discovered in an old scrapbook.

"She was built of boiler iron and impervious to water or air," says the writer. "Her extreme length was about 30 feet, with a five or six foot beam, and about six feet depth of hold. In general contour she resembled a cigar, sharp at both ends. She was propelled by a screw, the shaft of which ran horizontally along her hold, almost from stem to stern, and was turned by the manual force of eight men seated along it on either side.

"The only hatchway was circular, about two feet in diameter, with a low combing around it, which was placed well forward, and when desired could be closed by an iron cap working on hinges and made airtight. In the forward part of the cap was inserted a clear glass bull's eye, through which the pilot could see. She was provided with watertight compartments , by filling or emptying which she could sink or rise, and to enable her to rise instantly her ballasting of railroad bars was placed o n her bottom, outside of the hull, and, by means of keys accessible to her crew, could be detached in a moment so that she could rise quickly to the surface. Besides her rudder, which was of the usual form, she was equipped with side paddles or fins which like those of a fish, served to guide her up or down with reference to the surface of the water .

"To prepare for action, a floating torpedo was secured to her stern by a 1line more than 100 feet long, and, her crew embarked, the water tanks were filled till the boat was in equilibrium and almost submerged. The hatchway was closed, the men revolved the shaft; the Captain or the pilot, standing under the hatch, steered the boat, regulating at the same time, by the action of the fins, the depth at which she would move.

"She could remain submerged for half an hour or an hour without any great inconvenience to the crew, and on one occasion had been known to remain under water two hours without actual injury to them. although no means were provided for procuring fresh air, and from the moment the hatch was closed the men, thus fastened in their living tomb, inhaled and exhaled continually the atmosphere enclosed with them.

"The plan of attack proposed by the inventor was to dive beneath an enemy's ship, hauling the torpedo after her. Its triggers would thus press against the ship's bottom, explode the torpedo and inevitably sink the ship.

"Not anticipating an early opportunity of using the dangerous vessel against the fleet of Farragut, General Maury sent her by rail to General Beauregard, at Charleston. believing the waters of that harbor better suited to her peculiar construction. Beauregard changed the position of the torpedo by fastening it to the bow. Its front was terminated by a sharp and barbed lance, so that when the boat was driven against a ship's side the lance would be thrust deep into the hull below the water line and thus fasten the torpedo firmly. Then the boat could back off and explode it from a distance.

"General Beauregard's call for volunteers to man this dangerous craft was promptly answered by Lieutenant Payne, a Virginian and eight sailors. The evening set for the expedition the torpedo boat was lying alongside the steamer, from which the crew had embarked. She was submerged till the combing of her hatch alone was visible above the water. Her commander, Payne. was standing in the hatchway in the act of ordering her to be cast off, when the swell of a passing steamer rolled her over and sunk her instantly, with her eight men, in several fathoms of water. Lieutenant Payne sprang out of the hatchway as the boat sank from under him, and he alone was left alive.

"In the course of a few days she was raised and again made ready for action. Again Payne volunteered and eight men with him.

"The embarkation for their second attempt was made from Ft. Sumter, and, as before, all having been made ready, Payne, standing at his post in the hatchway, ordered the hawser to be cast off, when the boat careened and sank instantly. Payne sprang out, two of the men following him; the other six went down in the boat and perished.

"Again the boat was raised and made ready for action, and her owner, Captain Hundley, took her for an experimental trip into Stono River, where, after going through her usual evolution, she dived in deep water. For days the return of Hundley and her crew was watched for in vain. After a week's search she was found inclining at an angle of 40 degrees, her nozzle driven deep into the soft mud of the bottom. Hundley was standing, dead, at his post, a candle in one hand, the other stiff, in a vain effort to unclamp the hatch. Lieutenant George E. Dixon, of the twenty-first Alabama Volunteers, finally essayed, with eight men, to take her against the Housatonic."

The fate of the warship was plain, but the fate of the submarine remained a mystery until the wreck of the former was raised, more than eight years later, in the summer of 1872. Then she was found hanging to the rudder chains of the hulk. It was made plain, therefore, that she had not carried the torpedo in front, as Beauregard suggested, but had towed it astern, as Hundley originally devised. She had actually passed under the Housatonic and was making her way aft to safety when her upper works caught in the rudder chains of the victim.

By invitation of the contractor, a man named Maillefert, who had done Government work in Hell Gate, I was present at the raising of the Housatonic wreck, and saw the submarine in the position above described. The torpedo exploded under the mainmast of the ship and blew a great hole in her hull.

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ARE WE REALLY WITHIN A YEAR OF SOLVING THE HUNLEY SINKING MYSTERY?

"Sharing some trivia!"

Sir,

Thanks' to Michael's heads-up back in September on Mark Ragan's new book about the Hunley, I pre-ordered it and received it the other day. The Hunley is an engaging story, and like previous works by Ragan, he tells it well.

For the serious researcher as well as anyone only casually interested in the Hunley, I feel this is the book to ha

THE HUNLEY STORE PRESENTS Civil War in Charleston Harbor Harbor_Battle_Map online shipwreck sites and history map...in progress

THE HUNLEY STORE
PRESENTS

Civil War in Charleston Harbor
Harbor_Battle_Map online
shipwreck sites and history map...in progress