2026 · GMT Games
The time: late evening
The date: 17 February 1864
The Place: Breach Inlet, South Carolina
Standing in the submarine’s forward hatch, Lieutenant George E. Dixon pulled his cap down and tightened up his oilskin watch coat. The February sea cut through to his bones. This was the third night he ventured from behind Battery Marshall on Sullivan’s Island, and his seven-man crew was grumpy from having had no luck spotting, let alone attacking even one of the Yankee warships blockading Charleston harbor.
Dixon fingered the dented $20 gold piece in his trouser pocket. It was a gift from Queenie, his sweetheart, a keepsake that already earned its place aboard ship. A few months earlier at a wooded tangle of a place called Shiloh, the coin stopped a minie ball from shattering his leg. The dent reminded him how fickle fate and fortune are in this war, and it reminded him of home. He had that coin engraved “Shiloh April 6th, 1862. My life Preserver” and added his initials “G.E.D.”, so sure was he of the coin’s power.
Well, tonight that power was napping. Frustrated and cold, Dixon took one last look to the southeast through his telescope. The weather wasn’t likely to improve and he hoped that this would be the night he and the crew of the “CSS Hunley” would strike a blow against the Yankee blockade.
