What was the name of the first submarine to sink a warship in combat?

H. L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink a warship in combat.

On 17 February 1864, the Confederate submarine attacked USS Housatonic outside Charleston Harbor during the American Civil War. Hunley carried a spar torpedo, a charge mounted on a long pole, rather than launching a torpedo through a tube. The explosion sank Housatonic, but Hunley also disappeared and all eight people aboard died.

The submarine was named for Horace Lawson Hunley, one of its principal financial backers and designers. It was a hand-powered vessel, with crewmen turning a crank connected to its propeller.

The wreck was located in 1995 and raised in 2000. Conservators continue studying it, while the crew’s remains were reburied in Charleston in 2004. Hunley is therefore both a combat milestone and an important archaeological discovery.