The 130-foot long CSS Chattahoochee was intended to be both a river boat and an ocean-going one. It was Confederate hopes to sail it down the river and reopen the port of Apalachicola, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico.
However, the Chattahoochee turned out to be an unlucky ship. One mishap after another befell her.
By far the worst took place on May 27, 1863, when her boilers exploded through crew error and inexperience. Several were killed and others badly scalded. This knocked the ship out of the rest of the war.
One of the guns on the ship was a IX-inch Dahlgren pivot gun. The gun was lost and never recovered, even after the ship's hull was recovered near Fort Benning in 1963.
The Chattahoochee's hull is a part of a part of the Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus. A replica was made of the IX-inch Dahlgren and has been loaned to the Early County Museum for display.
--Old B-R'er
No comments:
Post a Comment