H. L. Hundley, her builder in Mobile, now believed that the crews did not understand how to manage the "_Fish_," and came on to Charleston to see if he could not show how it should be done. A Lieutenant Dixon, of Alabama, had made several successful experiments with the boat in Mobile Bay, and he also came on, and was put in charge, with a volunteer crew, and made several successful dives in the harbor. But one day, the day on which I saw the boat, Hundley himself took it into Stono River to practice her crew. She went down all right, but did not come up, and when she was searched for, found and raised to the surface, all of her crew were dead, asphyxiated as others had been. After the boat was brought up to Charleston, several successful experiments were made with her, until she attempted to dive under the Confederate receiving ship _Indian Chief_, when she got entangled with an anchor chain and went to the bottom, and remained there until she was raised with every one of her crew dead, as were their predecessors. No sooner had she been raised than a number of men begged to be allowed to give her another trial, and Lieutenant Dixon was given permission to use her in an attack on the U. S. S. _Housatonic_, a new gunboat that lay off Beach Inlet on the bar, on the condition that she should not be used as a submarine vessel, but only on the surface with a spar torpedo. On February 17, 1864, Lieutenant Dixon, with a crew of six men, made their way with the boat through the creeks behind Sullivan's Island to the inlet. The night was not very dark, and the _Housatonic_ easily could be perceived lying at anchor, unmindful of danger. The "_Fish_" went direct for her victim, and her torpedo striking the side tore a tremendous hole in the _Housatonic_, which sank to the bottom in about four minutes. But as the water was not very deep her masts remained above water, and all of the crew, except four or five saved themselves by climbing and clinging to them. But the "_Fish_" was not seen again. From some unknown cause she again sank, and all her crew perished. Several years after the war, when the government was clearing the wrecks and obstructions out of Charleston harbor, the divers visited the scene of this attack, and on the sandy bottom of the sea found the hulk of the _Housatonic_, and alongside of her the shell of the "_Fish_." Within the latter were the skeletons of her devoted crew. This submarine torpedo boat must not be confused with the surface ones, called "Davids," that were first built and used at Charleston in the fall of 1863. These "Davids" were cigar-shaped crafts about 30 feet long, and propelled by miniature steam engines; and they each carried a torpedo at the end of a spar in the bow. There were several of them at Charleston and points along the coast.