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Our Treasure
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George E. DixonGeorge Dixon will probably be remembered for two things: first, commanding the CSS Hunley, the first submarine to ever sink a warship, and second, a twenty dollar double eagle gold piece he carried in his pocket. But to understand his place in all this, we have to go back a little bit. A native of Kentucky, George Dixon joined Company E of the 21st Alabama Volunteers. His Company Commander, John Cothran described Dixon as "very handsome, fair, nearly six feet tall and of most attractive presence. I never knew a better man; and there never was a braver man in any service of any army". Early in the war, Dixon met Miss Queenie Bennet of Mobile, Alabama and fell in love. He proposed, and they agreed to marry after the war. Queenie gave Dixon a $20 gold piece for luck, which he always kept with him in his pants pocket. On April 6, 1862, at the battle of Shilo the 21st Alabama infantry took heavy casualties. Dixon was one of the first shot, but his leg, and probably his life (considering the state of medicine at the time), was saved when the minie ball was stopped by the gold coin in his pocket. He had the coin engraved:
Shilo The impact of the bullet left Dixon with a limp, and being an engineer, work through his convalescence in a Mobile machine shop. It was here that he met Horace Hunley and James McClintock. Their dream of building a submarine became his dream, and helped build and pilot two of these ships. It was the second, christened the H.L. Hunley, that Dixon piloted on the night of February 17, 1864 when he and his crew were lost after sinking the Housatonic. It was said that Lt. George E. Dixon faithfully carried his lucky coin everywhere. And indeed the coin has been found with Dixon's remains aboard the Hunley.
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