Friday, August 9, 2019

Charleston Lab Restores CSS Pee Dee Cannons-- Part 1


From the May 28, 2018, Charleston (SC) Post and Courier  "Charleston lab restores Civil War cannons pulled from the Pee Dee River in SC" Bo Peterson.

A punderwater arhoto accompanies the article showing Nate Fulmer, an underwater archaeologist with the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, who helped recover the three cannons in 2015.  Also in the photo, Stephanie Crette, executive director of the Warren Lasch Conservation Center  in North Charleston.  They reveal the findings and all three cannons are restored and preserved for the future.

The CSS Pee Dee was ready to fight before being scuttled in 1865 in its namesake river near Florence as Union troops closed in.  Before being scuttled, the ship's three cannons were tossed overboard.  Those cannons will now be put on display outside the Veterans Affairs Office next to the Florence National Cemetery.

They were recovered in 2015 and since then there has been a four year effort by the Lasch Center to restore and preserve them.

The ship never saw action, but they found that her guns were all primed and powdered and ready to be fired.

--Old B-Runner


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