To write a proper acknowledgments section, one that genuinely gives credit to everyone who deserves it, would require an entire second book—a book that nobody would ever read. Instead, I will have to settle for briefly mentioning people here, and then groveling at their feet in profuse thanks for the rest of my natural life.
First, the more abstract credits: In the sixth grade, I told my mom that I was more interested in the woodworking and tinkering of the “industrial technologies” class than I was in the sewing and baking of “skills for living.” When I found out all of the other girls had signed up for sewing I tried to back out of my choice and give in to my peers. She wouldn’t let me, and that one lesson has dictated the entire course of my adult life. Thanks, Mom.
When my dad came home to find I had taken apart the hair dryer, instead of getting mad he got me the toaster and a screwdriver. I learned that dolls are boring, and I would much rather figure out how things work. Thanks, Pops.
Nobody in science ever accomplishes anything alone. Ever. A massive number of people were involved in this project, and every one of them was critical to its success. My coauthors on the final academic publication, Brad Wojtylak and Luke Stalcup, are why I still have a complete set of fingers and toes. I could write some nice things, but they’d never let me live it down. Instead, I will just have to buy them beer, which they will probably appreciate more anyway.
Many of my lab mates dedicated their time to the project even though they had massive piles of work of their own, and still others formed the critical support structure of student peers that enabled me to survive until graduation—Allen Yu, Courtney Cox, Hattie Cutcliffe, Maria Ortiz Paparoni, and Brian Bigler especially. The list of undergraduates who sacrificed their time and their physical comfort is also quite extensive: Science rock star Henry Warder, Matt Udelhofen, Edward Hsieh, Maddie Bernstein, Praruj Pant, Reed Cone le Beaumont, and honorary undergrad Charlie Bass were all involved. In addition, our lab tech, Jason Kait, was an important member of the team.
Then, of course, there’s the long list of people who had absolutely no need to help me, but did anyway. My parents and Nick Azan had the most transparent motivation of being my family, but they still went absolute galaxies beyond what would be considered normal dedication. My uncle Dave Pagnucco loaned me his generator and supplies literally for years, forgoing many tailgates for my science. My unofficial second mentor, Richard Moon of Duke Hyperbarics, spent many days and emails with me working through the details of oxygen consumption and carbon-dioxide production. Mike Natoli and Eric Schinazi, also of Duke Hyperbarics, helped me out with experimental setup and machined me parts when I physically had no way to do it myself. Although Eric demanded brownies, I suspect he’s secretly nice enough to have helped anyway even if I couldn’t provide them.
Ashleigh Swingler, Greg Murphy, and Ethan Hada trudged out to a freezing-cold pond to spend hours holding a string and a map while I swam around like an idiot measuring bottom topography. I couldn’t remember the real name of the employee at the hardware store who tried to help me with the foam tubing, so I renamed him in honor of my good friend Greg Murphy. Ashleigh will probably never forgive me for the mangled clumps of line she had to untangle—sorry!
The employees of Duke were also critically supportive. The staff of Duke’s Chilled Water Plant 2 (CHWP2) was unbelievable. They put a huge amount of care and maintenance into that pond, but they were still willing to advocate for us to use it for science. Darin Smith and Chris Silcott were especially influential and helpful. Similarly, I owe a lot of gratitude to Chip Bobbert and the staff of the Innovation Co-Lab. That group not only patiently showed me the ins and outs of laser cutters and 3-D printers, but when they knew I needed many hours more to laser cut enough membranes to feed the hungry shock-tube driver, they quietly locked up and let me stay behind in peace, without kicking me out. Having that resource and their help took months off the testing timeline and hundreds of dollars off my meager budget. Karl Bates of the Duke Office of News & Communications is the only reason I managed to keep my sanity during the release of the final paper, and was the first person to tell me that other people would care about this story too. Brad Murray of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment patiently answered every one of my numerous questions about the ocean, and I appreciated his help greatly.
I also want to thank Bert Pitt, Mike Phillips, the entire Pitt family, and Chris Kelley. They were all motivated only by their own fascination with the stories found in history, and their desire to help me find some answers for this one. This paragraph is short because there is simply no thank-you that is sufficient to express how much I appreciate the help of the Pitt and Phillips families. I am genuinely lucky and honored to know them.
Artist Tripp Jarvis provided his extraordinary talent to build the CSS Tiny, and I have always suspected that he did so at a steep discount because he knew how limited my budget was. His metalworking skills know no bounds.
I also want to acknowledge Greg Harris and Kent Rye one more time. All the flattering things I wrote about them in this book were actually understatements, because in real life they are even more impressive and brilliant. I have appreciated their collaboration, wisdom, and friendship, and I hope it continues for a long time.
My funding sources also deserve acknowledgment: I returned to school as a student with the Department of Defense SMART Scholarship program. The bulk of the direct funding for the project was provided by the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation, a group at Duke dedicated to funding medical history projects. The Hagley Museum and Library also provided me with a travel scholarship, which enabled me to drive up to Delaware to dive deep into their mountains of black powder data.
And that’s just the list of people who helped with the science project! The book was an entire additional adventure.
Many people provided me help with this text and also deserve my undying gratitude. Tony Booth, author of the fantastic Thetis Down, was kind enough to send me copies of the primary source documents he digitized and worked through to write his compelling history of the doomed submarine HMS Thetis. Adam Jon Kronegh handed me a veritable gold mine of information about Johan F. Carlsen. Both men must have spent solid weeks if not months of time tracking this information down, and I appreciate their willingness to share.
History lecturer extraordinaire Freddie Kiger was kind enough to provide fact-checking for the historical storylines, and also to let me access his encyclopedic brain so that I could more easily provide references and citations for many of the key points of the Civil War. Michael Crisafulli, in addition to all of the massive favors he did that I discussed in the text, was also willing to provide me with figures from his beautiful model and fact-checking of the storylines related to the Hunley herself. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of the Duke sociology department was generous enough to review portions of the text for me to ensure I was respectfully conveying the stories of African Americans in the Civil War. Ron Carwardine provided much-appreciated translational services from German to English, without which I would have been far more confused about certain events during World War II.
A huge acknowledgment and thanks to my superhero agent, Laurie Abkemeier. Laurie has kindly and gently taken my hand and walked me into the world of publishing, despite some of my more introverted tendencies, and she has always, always been right. Her wisdom and insight are almost uncanny, at every turn. Thank you to Laurie for making me see that this story was worth telling, for fixing my inverted sentences, and for hammering it all into a coherent shape with me.
I owe many thanks to my editor, Stephen Morrow, his assistant, Hannah Feeney, and the entire staff at Dutton. My phone calls with Stephen are my favorite, and I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to effuse about both science and history with someone who obviously loves the subjects as much as I do. The Dutton crew has taken my thoughts and ramblings and molded them into this book.
I also want to acknowledge the hard work of all the archivists and librarians. There are too many to list by name, but they are the keepers of the books and documents that were the most critical part of piecing together the truth of February 17, 1864. Without carefully preserved documents like the Ruffin diary, the Shock letter, the Gillmore papers, and the information on black powder, none of this research would have ever happened. I included Lucas Clawson in the text as a representative of their profession and to show how, without them, researchers would be infinitely more lost and unproductive. When people say an old document was “unearthed” in an archive, they ignore the agency and labors of the quiet archivists who spend their days sorting, filing, and creating finding aids so that researchers like me can sweep in later and use their careful work. I want to acknowledge the efforts of the employees, librarians, and archivists of Duke’s libraries, the US National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Hagley Museum and Library, the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson, the Danish National Archives, and all the others that I am forgetting but that hold untold secrets of their own in identical gray filing boxes.
Finally, I owe so much credit to my now husband, Nick Azan. Thank you for understanding me, and more important, supporting me, even in my more zany goals and obsessions. Thank you for taking care of me and encouraging me throughout this entire project. I firmly believe that without you I would have died of scurvy.