H. L. Hunley .)'' Spence first reported the discovery of the
Civil War submarine Hunley in 1970. He mapped and reported its location to numerous government agencies. The July 2007 cover story in
U.S. News & World Report noted that the
Hunley "disappeared without a trace" until 1970 when it was supposedly found by "underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence." On September 13, 1976, the
National Park Service submitted Sea Research Society's (Spence's) location for
H.L. Hunley for inclusion on the
National Register of Historic Places. Spence's location for
Hunley became a matter of public record when ''H.L. Hunley's'' placement on that list was officially approved on December 29, 1978, though many dives were made on that site, and the sub was never found. Spence's book
Treasures of the Confederate Coast, which had a chapter on his supposed discovery of
Hunley and included a map complete with an
"X" showing the wreck's location was published in January 1995. In 1995, the discovery was independently verified by a combined
South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (
SCIAA) and
National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) expedition directed by SCIAA underwater archaeologist
Mark M. Newell funded, in part, by novelist
Clive Cussler. Later the same year, at the official request of
Senator Glenn F. McConnell (
chairman), of the State of South Carolina
Hunley Commission, Spence donated all of his rights to the
shipwreck to the State. The
Hunley discovery was described by William Dudley, Director of Naval History at the
Naval Historical Center, as probably the most important (underwater archaeological) find of the (20th) century." The tiny
submarine and its contents have been valued at over $40,000,000 making the
discovery and
donation one of the most significant and valuable contributions ever made to the State of South Carolina. After a seven-year legal battle, in August 2008 novelist
Clive Cussler's organization dropped a lawsuit that had been filed in
federal district court against Spence in which it had claimed that they, and not Spence, had discovered the wreck in 1995. Both sides still claim that they, and not the other, discovered the wreck. In 2016, the
Naval History and Heritage Command published a detailed report on the history, discovery, and restoration of the
Hunley entitled
H. L. Hunley: Recovery Operations suggesting that it is most likely Spence found a nearby buried navigation buoy rather than the
Hunley.
Other discoveries In addition to the
Hunley, Spence has discovered several historically significant shipwrecks, including the (said to have been the most powerful
cruiser built by the
Confederate States of America). South Carolina's law protecting both the state's and the salvors' interests in shipwrecks was passed following Spence's discovery of the
Georgiana and his company Shipwrecks Inc. was granted South Carolina State Salvage License #1. Spence claims to have salvaged over $50,000,000 in valuable artifacts and has been responsible, through his
archival research, for the locating of the wrecks of the side-paddle-wheel steamers
Republic and
Central America from which over one billion dollars in treasure has been recovered. On April 4, 1989, Spence announced his discovery that
Margaret Mitchell, who had claimed her
Pulitzer Prize winning novel
Gone with the Wind was pure
fiction, had actually taken much of her compelling story of love, greed and war from real life. He claimed that Mitchell had actually based the character
Rhett Butler on the life of
George Alfred Trenholm, a shipping
magnate from Charleston, South Carolina who had made millions of dollars from
blockade running and was thrown in prison after the
Civil War after being accused of making off with much of the Confederate
treasury. Spence's literary discovery, that had its roots in his prior discoveries of some of Trenholm's wrecked blockade runners, made international news. The
Encyclopedia Of Civil War Shipwrecks by W. Craig Gaines additionally credits Spence with the discoveries of the following Civil War wrecks: the
Constance (lost 1864, found 1967); (lost 1864, found 1970);
Keokuk (lost 1863, found 1971);
Minho (lost 1862, found 1965);
Presto (lost 1864, found 1967);
Ruby (lost 1863, found 1966);
Stonewall Jackson (lost 1863, found 1965). Spence's own books, as well as numerous third-party books, newspaper and magazine accounts, and archaeological reports detail his discoveries of the blockade runners
Mary Bowers and
Norseman and dozens of other ships of all types and nations in waters all over the world spanning a time period of over two thousand years. In June 2013, Spence announced his discovery of the wreck of the
SS Ozama, a steamer with a history of
smuggling that wrecked off the South Carolina coast in 1894. == Cartography ==