Archaeologists pull three Civil War cannons from South Carolina river

That isolation stopped Tues. when a team of College of South Carolina archaeologists used heavy equipment to raise 35,000 pounds of iron weaponry from the Pee Dee River.

Archaeologists from the University of South Carolina headed the effort to have the cannons pulled up from the bottom of the river.

“These guns are in remarkable, pristine condition”, state archaeologist Jonathan Leader said in a telephone interview after the recovery operation. Confederate forces pushed the cannons into the river from a gunboat to keep Union forces from seizing them in 1865.

The cannons came from the C.S.S. Pee Dee.

It is the same facility that is working on restoring the Hunley Confederate submarine.

The cannons will go on permanent outdoor display at the new U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building in Florence. Once that two-year process is complete, the cannons will be displayed in the Florence area.

Spirek said the smoothbore Dahlgren was forged in Pennsylvania in 1862.

“Even back in the 90’s people have been looking for these cannons”, Spirek said.

The other two weapons are known as Brooke rifled cannons and they were forged in Selma, Alabama, he said.

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.

But the cannons recovered Tuesday would spark curiosity about the Civil War in the Pee Dee, said Steve Smith, director of USC’s archaeology institute. Bruce and Lee Foundation in Florence.