Video Funeral for Confederate crew of submarine HL Hunley

1. Pallbearers in Confederate uniforms standing by caskets

2. Men singing "Amazing Grace"

3. Pallbearers loading casket (coffin) onto caisson (horse-drawn gun carriage)

4. Horsemen in Confederate uniforms leading caisson carrying casket

5. Men dressed as Confederate soldiers marching

6. Women wearing black Civil War-era dresses marching

7. Pallbearers carrying casket into cemetery

8. Pallbearers carrying caskets into cemetery

9. Men in Confederate uniforms saluting

10. Pallbearers lowering casket into mass grave

11. Priest leading prayer

12. Men in Confederate uniforms firing volley

13. Bugler playing bugle call

14. Men in Confederate uniforms standing with heads bowed as bugler plays "Taps"

15. Descendants of submarine H.L. Hunley crew members tossing roses into mass grave


STORYLINE:


The remains of the crew of the American civil war era submarine the H.L. Hunley were laid to rest on Saturday.


The sub was the first in history to sink an enemy warship.


Thousands of men in the colours of the civil war, Confederate gray and Union blue and women in black hoop skirts and veils escorted the remains.


The coffins of the crew members, draped in Confederate flags, were first taken to Charleston's Battery and placed in a semicircle with a wreath set in front of each.


Then, a column of the uniformed re-enactors stretching a mile and half (two and a half kilometres) took the crew of the Hunley to their final resting place in Magnolia Cemetery, about five miles (eight kilometres) north. It took the column more than an hour to file into the cemetery.


After horse-drawn caissons (gun carriages) brought the coffins to the breezy, oak-shrouded plot, rifles crackled and cannons rumbled across the marsh.


Fourteen governors from southern states were invited to the ceremony, but declined to attend. Most cited scheduling conflicts, but some observers speculated they may be wary of the political implications of attending an event with thousands of Confederate re-enactors.


The Confederate side of the American civil war opposed the abolition of slavery.


The hand-cranked Hunley made history on February 17, 1864, when it rammed a spar with a black powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic outside Charleston Harbour. Another 50 years would pass before another sub sank an enemy warship.


Despite its success in sinking the Housatonic, the Hunley never returned from the mission. The reason why the Hunley sank remains unknown.


The Hunley was found off the South Carolina coast nine years ago and was raised in 2000 and brought to a conservation lab at the old Charleston Naval Base.


The remains of crew were not buried immediately because authorities wanted to positively identify each man - a lengthy process that included exhuming the bodies of crew members' relatives in order to match DNA samples.


About 40 relatives of Hunley crew members were in Charleston on Saturday.


The crew were buried in a common grave, lined up in the order in which they sat inside the sub.


Crew members' descendants filed past the grave and threw roses onto the caskets.




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