history, its world history. its culture history. it is the story of the crew and the struggles. slaves. a whole bunch of different angles of not only civil war history but world history as well. >> next friday night, c-span examines the history of the civil rights movement with a tour of the met gregor's house house inzger evers mississippi.

next friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. in 1864, the confederate summary hr hartley became the first sub -- hr hunley became the first an enemy waters. c-span spoke with an archaeologist about the recovery and restoration of the submarine. >> the submarine is the first to sink an enemy vessel in combat. that is the significance. it is not the first submarine. it was not the most advance summering, even of its day in the 1860's, but it was the first one to do something. it was proof of concept that submarine technology could work.

it was brought to charleston in a number ofter months of preparation, they went out at night in 1864. siege atn was under the time. they had been strangled by land and by sea. they picked one of the ships blockading the harbor. they went out and made the , sunk it, solidifying its place in history, but then it disappeared. it never returns to the dock. it became a mystery. for 136 years, it was undiscovered, nobody knew where it was. in 1995, the discovery began the process and preparation for the recovery. it involved preparing the getting the conservation facility outfitted, and getting experts in who could

do a good job for not only the recovery, but the follow-up treatment. that began in the year 2000. it is foreign a half feet long, three and a half feet wide, four feet tall. allowed access for the crew. there was a crew of eight on board the submarine. the captain we knew before hand. he was in charge of navigating, steering the sub, directing it toward its target. the other members of the crew were primarily tasked with powering the submarine. had a handmoved, it crank. each crewman would turn the crank, and that would turn the propeller and that is how they would power the submarine. it was a simple device designed to be practical and accomplish its task, which was to attack.

a lower portion of the bow went out maybe 18-20 feet, and it was an explosive device. they called it a torpedo, but it was a bomb. they would back away and returned to shore, the id being that the next night they could andut and get another bomb hit another ship. it disappeared and was a mystery for many years. when it was discovered, it was 1000 deep. starting with the recovery operation, its location, taking that information, what we knew , bringing it back into the lab. and then our scientists began a detailed investigation into the summer rain. we recovered the summering in

the year 2000. 2001 was the interior excavation. was full ofubmarine mud which was excellent for us. as archaeologist, it signaled we were going to have good preservation, and we did. looking at the artifacts, including human remains and associated artifacts and trying to put those into contacts to context,happened, that to seethose into context what happened, how the crew died, for example. this will hopefully point us to a conclusion as to what happened that night. the crew is a fascinating part of the story of the hunley. if you look at the submarine, it is a long, narrow tube. out,ng and it, going making an attack, several hours

out, several hours back, putting your life at risk, knowing that if anything goes wrong at all you will meet certain death. the first two crews of a submarine died in accidents in training in charleston. you can imagine the third crew knew full well that everybody else who had worked on a , on a submarine, had died, but they were still willing to join the third crew and take the summary noun and try to do something. the third crew were from all different parts of the south. a fourth of the crew were probably born in europe. there was not a common thread that tied these guys together except for volunteering. crew in was to bury the 2004, to lay them to rest. the work leading up

to them, we wanted to get a face associated with the names we had come up with. the identities of the crew we knew. we knew information about the artifacts associated with them, but one of the things we wanted was to see what they look like. so all eight of the crew men usedcasts of their skulls to make facial reconstruction, and that is what we see here. they were presented to the public to for they were buried in april, 2004. to recoveroing anything, especially in marine artifact, you have to have a proper place to take care of it. you have to have a lab. you cannot just pull it out of the ocean and put it on a dock somewhere. it will fall apart. what happens to artifacts that have been in a marine environment for an extended time? they absorb chlorides from the seawater. fine if thedes are

object remains wet, but if you let it dry out, the salt will crystallize and destroyer object from the inside out. is one of the primary tasks to remove these chlorides, which is why 10 years on the summer rain is still sitting in a tank of -- the submarine is still sitting in a tank of water. beginning last week, we began the rotation of the submarine. the submarine was found 45 degrees starboard. it was recovered in the same position. archaeologically, we did not submarine.turb the we wanted to lift the entire site off the seafloor and bring it to our lab to study. years, it has0 been sitting in slayings that have cradled it from underneath. it was an excellent way -- in ings that have cradled it

from underneath. it was an excellent way to support it, but the next phase inl involve submerging it chemicals, in caustics, and we have to minimize other materials because of with it their reaction to those chemicals. we have to remove the slings and come up with another way to support the submarine. up bright and be set down on its keel. this is the first time it will since it sank. i have done all of my work on it in amarine with certain position, 45 degrees starboard. it in its sameed orientation as it was found. now, for the first time, we are .urning it up right

not only was it amazing to see it sitting again as it was designed to sit, it turned from being an artifact of iron, keeled over on its side. when we turned it up, it looked again like a weapon of war. it looked again like a submarine. in addition to that, the whole was largelyard side of scared. we could not get a good look at it. one quarter of the whole surface was blocked. we had never gotten a continuous look at the part of the summering. there were things there we had not seen before. the rotation, i spent 20 minutes walking around it. it was like a new submarine for me. it gets your excitement going again, even more so. we are now chomping at the bit.

once the rotation is complete -- they are still fine tuning it -- we are going to get in there and begin looking at these parts we have not seen. the alt met goal is to get it and associated artifacts back in 1864. >> the history of the civil .ights movement with a twour martin luther king's letter from birmingham jail. the bombing of the 16th street baptist church. next write a 8:00 eastern on c-span. month, debates on what makes america great. evolution, genetically modified foods. spotlight