Archaeologists to pluck 3 Civil War cannons from river site

Two were Confederate Brooke Rifle cannons and the other was a captured Union Dahlgren cannon.

They’re headed to a lab for a pair years of time of time of conservation &, eventually, show at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building in close by Florence.

Underwater archaeologists on Tuesday plan to lift three heavy Civil War-era cannons from the waters of a South Carolina river where they have lain hidden for 150 years.

Spirek said the cannons will be displayed in Florence. Confederate forces dumped the cannons into the river in 1865 and set the ship on fire to kee it out of the Union’s hands. The archaeologists said the cannons are in excellent condition, having been cocooned in the mud and silt of a fresh water environment.

“There’s a few sand stuck to them, but to our eyes, they are in brilliant, sterling condition”, Jonathan Leader, the state archaeologist, told AP.

Leader said the first to be lifted from the river was the 6.4-inch Brooke rifle cannon, which weighs around 10,600 pounds.

State underwater archaeologist James Spirek said the cannon range in length from 9 to 12 feet.

Now, the cannons are on their way to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, which is the same place where the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is undergoing refurbishment. They were built on inland waterways so they could construct gunboats, yet be protected from the forces of the Union blockade. 301 at the site of a former Confederate Naval Yard.

Their efforts were greatly facilitated by earlier work conducted at the site, particularly by a private research group, the CSS Pee Dee Research and Recovery Team, operating under an archaeological license issued by SCIAA in the late 1990s. Bruce and Lee Foundation in Florence.