Lieutenant Dixon's Lucky Coin.

Lieutenant Dixon's Lucky Coin.

Terry Foenander.

The following report appeared in the Weekend Australian (the country's national weekend newspaper) of May 26-27, 2001.

Lieutenant George E. Dixon, commander of the submarine, H.L. Hunley during it's final expedition against the USS Housatonic, was never commissioned in the Confederate Navy, and remained a member of company E of the 21st Alabama Volunteers. He was a Kentuckian by birth (although a resident of Mobile), and an engineer by profession. This engineering knowledge served him well when he volunteered for command of the Hunley. Although one source indicates that his crew in the final expedition of the Hunley were also members of his company, the Naval Official Records indicates that five of these men were actually sailors from the Confederate States Navy, and one from Confederate artillery service.[1] Their names were:

Arnold Becker, seaman, CSN

C. Simkins, seaman, CSN

James A. Wicks, boatswain's mate, CSN

Frank J. Collins, CSN

Joseph Ridgeway, seaman, CSN

C.F. Carlson, corporal, Captain Wagener's (South Carolina) company of artillery.[2]

Images of both the obverse and reverse of the coin can be viewed at the Naval Historical Center's web site.

References:

[1] See the volume, Brief Historical Sketches of Military Organizations Raised in Alabama During the Civil War, reproduced from WIllis Brewer's Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men from 1540 to 1872, by the Alabama State Department of Archives and History, 1966, page 623; also the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, volume 15, pages 335 - 338.

[2] Mark K. Ragan, Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, page 150.

August, 2001