Civil War Shipwreck Blocking Route To Be Raised

[Jim J.]

I was at the Fort last week, and do not remember seeing any corroding / un-conserved shells.  Do you remember where they were located, and I could ask.  I was in their storeroom, and the have a very "nice" collection of shells, bolts, grape stand, etc., all very well conserved.  The local museum (I believe) did the conservation from the 1986/87 recovery.  We did the conservation on the artifacts recovered in 1982-84.  I should be honest here, and admit that I only arrived in 1984!  There are two corroding 32 pdr's lying on the SE side of the Fort, that date to the late 1700's and 1820 (?).  They could do with a spell in an electrolytic bath. 


 

[emike123]

They were in a room on the ground floor level of the fort on the river side.  Visitors could walk in, but there was some barricade and the projectiles were on the other side where they could be seen from a distance but not gotten at.  There were only a few and one was a flat top bolt with a Tennessee sabot for a rifled 32pdr

[CarlS]

As coincidence would have it, my wife and I were in Savannah back in October and (at her suggestion of all amazing things!) did a tour of Old Fort Jackson.  We saw two rooms with shells in them. One was on the western side north of the entrance gate and contained an enclosed display case with a variety of shells in it.  They seemed to be in reasonably good shape.  On the other hand, there was a room off a room on the eastern side that we could peer into that had what looked like a number of unconserved projectiles in it.  There was some cannon implements and other items there too. I recall remarking to Bev that "someone needed to run those" through electrolysis.   This is likely what Mike saw.

I especially like the giant plastic cannon on the upper parapet. 

[Jim J.]

Thanks for the replies.  I will ask the guys at the Fort about those shells.  I do know that they are on limited funding, and conservation may be low on the priority list.  Those rooms are not environmentally controlled, and are subject to the high humidity, etc., so they will corrode.  I did not go through the rooms and look at all the displays, as I was more interested in looking at the cannon, or rather the markings on the cannon.  The IX Inch Dahlgren on the parapet is #116, made at the Tredgar Foundry in 1857.  The one we have here at the Lab in #144, made by the Alger Company in Boston in 1858.  Only 1,201 IX Inch Dahlgrens were made, with 53 surviving examples.  #54 is on the CSS Georgia, and I have to wait until next year to see her!  Arrgh!

 

[CarlS]

I forgot to mention that the display cabinet the shells were housed in on the west side seemed to be climate controlled based on all the humming, etc. going on.  Not sure of the other room but it didn't appear to have any environmental protection. 

Too bad the state of Georgia doesn't help a bit more at the site with preservation.