Georgia on My Mind

Today it is time to revisit the salvage operation raising the Confederate ironclad CSS Georgia. When we last wrote about the CSS Georgia divers from the United States Navy were working to recover unexploded ordinance. That work has been completed. Divers recovered 132 unexploded shells and four cannons which weighed between 1,000 and 10,000 pounds each. They have also recovered part of the ships boiler, pumps and the propeller with its drive shaft. The work has now moved to the recovery of the ship's casement which was made from railroad iron. The south lacked foundry capacity so Armour was made out of what was available. Since the ship builders were carpenters and not shipwrights all of the boats are constructed differently. The CSS Georgia was scuttled by her crew in December 1864 when General Sherman was approaching Savannah. It never fired a shot in combat and its engines were too weak to move it against the swift current of the Savannah River. It was set near Fort Jackson as a floating battery to protect the fort. Three sections of the armored casement are too heavy to be raised intact. The are being cut into sections about four feet by 24 feet and weighing about 5 tons. The work is slow and only one section is raised each day. The timber that underpinned the railroad iron has been lost due to the century and a half under water. The recovered wreckage is being sent to Texas to be conserved. No decision has been made as to where it will eventually be displayed.