The moonlit sea was unusually calm on the bitterly cold night of Feb. 17, 1864, when a watchman spotted a strange, partially submerged shape gliding steadily toward the side of the Union sloop-of-war Housatonic. The steam-powered warship was serving blockade duty outside Charleston Harbor, and was one of the Union's biggest, best-armed vessels. Its men had heard reports of a new Confederate weapon, a "sub-torpedo"; still, it took a few minutes for the officer of the deck, John Crosby, to comprehend what he was seeing. By the time he did, it was too late.
The swiftly moving craft had passed under the Housatonic's guns, and the small-arms fire now directed at it by the men on deck bounced harmlessly off its iron hull. The men onboard heard a muffled thud as the vessel planted an explosive charge in the Housatonic's wooden side, below the waterline. Moments later, the charge detonated, lighting up the sky and sending the Yankee warship to the bottom, along with five of its sailors. The Housatonic had achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the first ship to be sunk by a submarine in combat – and the only vessel destined to be destroyed by the H.L. Hunley.
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Over the years, the lost Hunley and its crew had become the subject of numerous stories, not the least of which was the tale of its commander and the gold coin –reportedly given him as a keepsake by a lady friend – that had saved his life during the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh. According to legend, Dixon was carrying the gold piece in his pocket when he was hit in his upper thigh. But this was George Dixon's lucky day. Had the bullet run its course and damaged a femoral artery, he would have died; at the least, the wound would have cost him a limb. Remarkably, the gold coin absorbed the brunt of the bullet's force, and saved his leg – and quite possibly, his life. At least, so went the legend.
In May 2001, after months of painstakingly excavating objects and human remains from the dense mud that filled the Hunley, the senior archaeologist Maria Jacobsen made a stunning discovery. Alongside Dixon's remains at the command station beneath the forward conning tower, she found an 1860 $20 USD gold piece, badly indented. "I was very blasé about the coin – until I found it," Jacobsen said. "Dixon carried it in exactly the same location as he had when he was wounded. Once I removed the mud, my eyes caught the faint inscription, ‘Shiloh.' I was dazed; it had quite an emotional impact on me."
The coin was cleaned, and on one side shone the image of Lady Liberty; on the other, hand-etched in cursive script, was an inscription that no one had known existed:
"Shiloh
April 6, 1862
My life Preserver
G.E.D."
Subsequent examination bore out the coin's inscription. "We found a healed gunshot wound in Dixon's left upper thigh, with minute lead fragments embedded in the bone," Jacobsen said. These lead particles were also present in the indented portion of the coin. All the pieces of the puzzle fit; the coin had indeed deflected a bullet, and in all likelihood, saved its owner's life. Remarkably, after nearly a century and a half, the legend of Lieutenant Dixon's coin was proved true.
