H.L. Hunley: Skipper's gold pocket watch goes on display. What does it tell us about the night the famed submarine disappeared?

Of the myriad personal belongings discovered among the remains of the crew of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, it seemed one piece in particular could help establish or affirm a timeline for the vessel’s disappearance.

That hope thus far hasn’t panned out.

The hands of the gold watch belonging to Capt. George Dixon, commander of the eight-man crew, stopped at 8:23 – at least 20 minutes before survivors of the USS Housatonic, the Union ship sunk by the Hunley, say the moonlight attack occurred.

For the first time, beginning this weekend, the public will get its first look at the meticulously conserved watch and chain.

They are in a display case at Clemson University’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, S.C. “Treasures of the Past” includes jewelry Dixon kept in his pockets and a disfigured gold coin that absorbed a bullet during the April 1862 fighting at Shiloh and saved his leg.

A Friends of the Hunley news release on the exhibit outlines questions surrounding the watch.

“The watch could help answer a lingering mystery: How long did the crew survive after the sinking of the USS Housatonic? If Dixon set his timepiece accurately before entering the submarine, the watch represents the first opportunity to place a timeline on events that transpired the night of the attack.”

Watch hands are at 8:23 (Photos courtesy of Friends of the Hunley)

On Feb. 17, 1864, Hunley made history by becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy warship. The 40-foot iron vessel -- bullets pinging off its iron exterior -- planted a torpedo in the hull of the USS Housatonic, setting off a charge that sent the warship and five crew members to the sandy bottom within minutes.

The Hunley then disappeared beneath the waves and entered the realm of legend. To this day, historians, scientists and others debate what caused it to end up on the ocean floor. While one researcher says the crew died from torpedo blast injuries, others say the sinking may have been caused by other factors.

Discovered a few miles off Charleston in 1995, and raised in 2000, the Hunley is being conserved at the Lasch Center. The interior of the vessel was a time capsule, and conservators recovered items and human remains from mud and silt.

Dixon’s watch would have helped the crew time their mission to ride the tide out and back to land without having to propel the hand-cranked vessel against the currents, the Friends of the Hunley say. It would have stopped working if it was wet or suffered a hard blow from the explosion that night.

Union records show that those on board the Housatonic said the attack occurred between 8:45 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The Friends of the Hunley said that raises three questions:

-- Did Dixon’s watch work properly?

-- Did Federal forces use the same time as Confederates on shore? If not, and if the Union forces kept time about 20 minutes ahead, perhaps the times will line up. Standard time was not instituted in the United States until about 20 years after the Civil War.

-- Will the watch help solve the mystery of what happened to the Hunley?

Kellen Butler, president and executive director of the Friends of the Hunley, told the Picket there is no current active research on the artifact. But that could change if evidence points to possible conclusions.

Watch with brooch, ring and gold coin in background (Friends of the Hunley)

Dixon’s watch is now in a case with other items he carried during the mission: The coin, a ring featuring nine diamonds totaling one carat and a 15-carat brooch with 37 small diamonds. The jewelry was meant to be worn by a man as a statement of wealth and success.

Experts told the Post and Courier in Charleston that the internal mechanism of the watch was made in England in the 1830s or 1840s. The case may have been fashioned shortly before the Civil War.

Archaeologist Nicholas DeLong told the newspaper the watch was in pristine condition and its main spring intact, indicating it was working the evening of the attack.

The watch was found in Dixon's clothing (Friends of the Hunley)