Confederate forces had dumped the cannons in the river and set the gunboat CSS Pee Dee on fire in 1865 so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of advancing Union forces under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
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The three Confederate cannons “will help raise questions about the Civil War”, said Steve Smith, director of USC’s Institute of Archeology and Anthropology.
Archaeologists from the University of South Carolina have pulled three cast iron Civil War cannons from the waters of a South Carolina river where they were hidden for 150 years.
Spirek said the cannons will be displayed in Florence.
James Spirek is the state underwater archaeologist in charge of recovering the cannons from the river.
The third cannon, a Brooke rifle, is raised from the Great Pee Dee River.
In 2009, the university team began its search for the 150-foot Confederate gunboat and the cannons, which were scuttled when Sherman’s Union troops advanced northward.
Archaeologists say the three cannons weigh anywhere from 9,000 to 15,000 pounds each. Bruce and Lee Foundation in Florence. Part of the organization’s mission is to support programs dedicated to historic preservation. “This closed the book on a lot of history”. It’s three state-of-the-art artillery pieces that were attached to a ship with a global history. The cannons aren’t just old guns, Leader said – they’re the “the quilt, the fabric and the thread” that hold people together. They were built on inland waterways so they could construct gunboats, yet be protected from the forces of the Union blockade.
“Remember, the Confederacy had no navy, so these sites are pretty rare”, Leader said.
A crowd of scientists, Civil War buffs and other onlookers cheered when the cannons were raised by a large yellow backhoe from the bank of the river.
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The cannons will be treated and preserved at Clemson University’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston before they are returned to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building in Florence for permanent display, The State reported.
