Talk:Sinking of USS Housatonic

Article

It is late, I plan on finishing this page tomorrow.--Az81964444 (talk) 05:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The different section are there because I plan on making the sections sometime togay, maybe I will start now. I began this page last night and as it states above, planned on finishing it today. Therefore it will cease having too many sections for such a small article in its current state.--Az81964444 (talk) 20:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Article name

I suggest that a more recognizable title be found for this article. I doubt that even serious Civil War buffs would know what is meant by the present title. A couple of alternatives come to mind:

1. Encounter between CSS H. L. Hunley and USS Housatonic, or

2. Sinking of USS Housatonic by CSS H. L. Hunley.

PKKloeppel (talk) 00:33, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The "Action of..." format is consistent with our other similarly-themed articles, although I agree it's not immediately obvious what the article is about. Can we retain the existing title and put in place redirects for the other suggested titles? (assuming that's not already been done!) EyeSerene^talk 14:52, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Some events are known by their dates (e.g. The Glorious First of June), but I can't think of any American battles in any war that are identified that way. And any other Wikipedia articles named in this fashion should be renamed, on the general principle that the title should be whatever most readers would use for searches (consistent, of course, with accuracy). PKKloeppel (talk) 16:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but renaming all of the "Action of..." articles will not work because most naval battles were not named, so what would you suggest calling them?. --$1LENCE D00600D (talk) 20:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Rename

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move to Sinking of USS Housatonic, I think we've finally reached a decision! Fences&Windows 20:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

---

Action of 17 February 1864 → Sinking of USS Housatonic by CSS H. L. Hunley —

My comment suggesting a name change (previous section) has been up for two weeks and has received only one comment, and I don't know whether that one is in favor or opposed to the change. Anyway, I am now making it official, although I am not sure that the title I have chosen is actually the best.Relisted. Fences&Windows 13:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC) PKKloeppel (talk) 23:54, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment how about CSS Hunley sinking USS Husatonic ? 70.29.212.131 (talk) 03:49, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I agree that the name has to be changed, "Action of 17 February 1864" is not used anywhere else about this event, and it isn't a very precise title, there may have happened a lot of other stuff on that day. But isn't "Sinking of USS Housatonic by CSS H. L. Hunley" a rather long name. How about just calling it Sinking of USS Housatonic. I know that it's historically crucial that it was sunk by CSS Hunley, but this isn't a newspaper headline, people can read the article to find out about that.TheFreeloader (talk) 09:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I tend to agree with TheFreeloader, for once. It would be better to move to Sinking of USS Housatonic. Skinsmoke (talk) 05:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Virtually all of the other submarine action articles are named in the current manner. Unnamed naval battles generally have articles named by the date of the action. See Action of 22 September 1914 for a good example.XavierGreen (talk) 21:53, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
• Comment If that is the case, perhaps it's time to look at how those other articles are titled. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

As more than the mandatory week has been allowed for comments since I made the request, I am going to close the issue right now. We seem to have a strong consensus in favor of a change, but just what change to make is not so clear. I am going with my original, on the ground that most readers will be looking for information about CSS Hunley, so its name must appear; that does make the title long, as Freeloader has pointed out, but Housatonic was mostly passive in the incident, and could have been replaced by any other ship in the blockade.

Concerning other submarine articles: Many of them deal with German U-boat actions, and because their boats have no names, they have to be identified by date. (All right, they had hull numbers, but how many of us recognize any number except U-505, and that only by Chicagoans?) That is obviously not the case here. Further, the incident is not only in the category of submarine combat, but is also in the category of Civil War battles, none of which are identified by date.

PKKloeppel (talk) 01:58, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure that this qualifies for non-admin closure under WP:RMCI, as there weren't a unanimous consensus for what to call the article. Also it goes against the instructions to perform the move as someone who have participated in the discussion. But in any event, there seems to have been made a mistake when this article was moved, as there has been added an extra period to end of the new title. Also, the move request tag needs to be removed when the discussion is closed.TheFreeloader (talk) 03:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

• Relisted. I've corrected the typo and moved the page back to its original title as there was no consensus and the move was done by the move proposer. I've relisted this to see if a consensus on a new title can be reached, but please do not move it if you are a participant in the discussion: leave it for an admin to close. Fences&Windows 13:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

O.K. My bad. I thought that I was following procedure. Now, since the proposal has been in place for more than the canonical week, will an administrator please look at it?PKKloeppel (talk) 13:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I am an admin, and I have looked at it. I've relisted it in order for a consensus to be reached on a new title; at present, I cannot discern any consensus so if I closed it now the name would stay as it is now. So you need to discuss this further. Tedious, but necessary. Fences&Windows 00:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose long winded title by the proposer and unilateral mover. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 06:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying. My computer has been in the shop for a few days. I am not wedded to the title that I have proposed, but I am not willing to accept the present one. "Action of 17 February 1864" is not consistent with the naming of any Civil War incidents, nor is it typical of any used by the US Navy. Battles are usually named for a nearby geographic feature or for the vessels involved. Also consider that the title is not only vague, it is ambiguous. There is no indication that it even involves the Civil War. Once you get past that, you find that there was another "action of 17 February 1864," a minor skirmish in Mississippi. Probably no one would care to write an article about that, but it is there and should be considered. Arguing from the general principles that the title should (a) reflect the content of the article and (b) be the words that a casual interested reader would be likely to use to search for information about that content, the title of this article should certainly contain the name of the submarine H. L. Hunley. To distinguish it from a general history of the boat, it should also state what it did. With these constraints, the beginning title should be something like "Sinking of a Union warship by the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley," which gives the content of the article and also is about the way a beginner would seek it. The most concise title I have been able to come up with consistent with this argument is the one I have proposed. If anyone has an alternative, I can listen to reason. PKKloeppel (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

• Propose Sinking of USS Housatonic as recommended above. Existing title is meaningless, and for anyone who doesn't know the subject matter, the title is specific. (from someone who is looking at it from title clarity, and not subject knowledge). billinghurst sDrewth 05:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC) (Relisting)
  • Support a move to Sinking of USS Housatonic. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Lest my preference (I hope it is understandable) for my own proposed title be used as an excuse for further inaction, I will support this move. It obviously is not everything I wanted, but that's the price of democracy. PKKloeppel (talk) 15:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Housatonic's Crew

In an unsourced paragraph, the article states the crew was 400 men. DANFS, however, lists her complement as only 160 men. 67.187.136.140 (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

As a follow-up, I noted the article also includes this unsourced passgae: "Some accounts say Housatonic was able to fire a broadside at Hunley, but failed to hit the target. Others say the Hunley destroyed Housatonic before any defense was attempted." I suggest it would be better scholarship to include the findings on the Board of Inquiry, which stated that several shots from small arms (only) were taken while the Hunley was alongside, but with no apparent effect. 67.187.136.140 (talk) 22:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Captain Green, U.S. Navy, commanding USS Canandaigua, stated in his official report that he rescued 21 officers and 129 men of the Housatonic, with 5 missing and presumed dead. Unless someone can provide a source stating the Housatonic's crew really was 400 strong, I'll change this article in the next couple days. 67.187.136.140 (talk) 22:35, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

Article had Confederate-apologist term "War Between the States," replaced with NPOV "Civil War." UberMitch (talk) 03:18, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"Confederate victory"?

How precisely does one count a naval sortie in which you lose MORE men and MORE money than your opponent (despite already having a numerical inferiority in both) to be a victory?

Yes, Hunley sunk the Housatonic via the first manned subsurface attack, so I guess if the Wright Flyer had flown only once and ended in the utter destruction of the plane and the death of both Wright Brothers, somebody would have called it a "victory"; but a victory for who? Humanity? Postbellum historians? Surely not the Confederacy.

The Housatonic was a generic war sloop, a light timberclad patrol vessel of which the US Navy had nearly 50 in service. There was only one combat submarine in the world, against which no counter-strategy had yet been created, and that was the advantage the CSA Navy had. Yet rather than safeguard this unusual asset, they squandered it by throwing it into service long before it was sound, killing its inventor and three full crews (save 2 men) by demanding more from the new technology than it was capable of. The expense to the Confederacy (in desperately needed hard currency, metal and man-hours) in designing it, building it, outfitting it, training the crews and (most of all) dredging it off the bottom of the ocean and completely restoring it the first two times it failed surely amounted to a sum well beyond the cost of the 11-gun timberclad Housatonic, especially when you consider the gross inequity in naval power between the Union and the CSA. Perhaps worst of all, the loss of the Hunley meant the concept was abandoned as unworkable for half a century, when another year's worth of design might have resulted in a proven and standardized design, potentially enough to really put some fear into the Union's vast blockade of the South and eventually put the restored USA at the forefront of submarine research.

Instead, it sat at the bottom of the ocean while the Union blockade choked the Confederacy to its knees, then stayed there for another century while Lost Causers posthumously extolled her technological brilliance, the crew's bravery and her resounding success against a "bigger" ship. Doesn't seem much like a "victory" to me; more like a Pyrrhic victory. Vintovka Dragunova (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I know this is 10 years after this was originally posted but I agree. Was it a victory? Per infobox rules you can only put X Vicotyr of Inconclusive, because of this I see a few different ways this can be in the infobox:

Inconclusive

• USS Housatonic sunk
• H. L. Hunley sunk, crew killed

It would also be:

Inconclusive

• Confederacy strategic victory,
• American tactical victory

LuxembourgLover (talk) 17:48, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

misprint?

"all eight" is a misprint of "all nine"? pietro 2A00:1620:C0:64:21C:61FF:FE03:A4C (talk) 09:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC) in view of the confuse statements for the hunley, it is perhaps interesting to say if/when the housatonic was scrapped. I have third-hand references that the vessel masts were out-of-water and thus the starting point for the hunley search had to be well known. pietro2A00:1620:C0:64:21C:61FF:FE03:A4C (talk) 10:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)