Confederate gunboat located by underwater archaeologists

Past Horizons -

In June 2009, archaeologists from the University of South Carolina and East Carolina University located two large cannon each weighing five tons, from a sunken Confederate gunboat C.S.S. Pee Dee in the Pee Dee river and went on to identify where the Mars Bluff  naval yard once stood on the east side of the river in Marion County.

Now, underwater archaeologist Christopher Amer has uncovered the wreck of the C.S.S. Pee Dee in an area of the Great Pee Dee river located in the north-eastern corner of the state.

Amer had previously told local media that the discovery of two of the C.S.S. Pee Dee’s three guns – a Confederate Brooke rifled cannon and a nine-inch Union Dahlgren – suggested that discovery of the wreckage of the ship “couldn’t be far behind”.

Last Tuesday Amer announced that the University of South Carolina team had located the mostly salvaged wreckage of the ship, which lay a few feet below the river bottom and half covered in felled timbers – remnants of past logging operations.

Amer and his field crew gained valuable information from records of past salvage operations. One in particular was a key piece of evidence according to North Carolina archaeologist Michael Hartley.  In 1954 a boiler and other parts were salvaged where the Mars Bluff water was low, making it possible for Hartley to construct a detailed map of the gun ship’s location. Based upon Hartley’s research and magnetic readings the rest was relatively easy.

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