Here comes the CSS Georgia

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Mike,
    I agree with your comment.  Whatever company did the salvage I believe, cut it in  half by the straps rigged to cradle it.  EOD finished their job after the ordnance and the cannon were salvaged.  Whoever, I did know and chatted with one of the divers at length after I saw his photos and he told me they never did entered into the magazine where they could have recovered boxes of mint fuses, grape and shell. Just too dangerous to the diver I would guess even in Mk. 5 hard hat.  Unless they did an airlift search of the resting site a lot more relics would still be there.  When I visited Vicksburg several years ago there was hardly any projectiles.
Kind Regards,
John

[CarlS]

I'd say 30% is rather conservative by my estimation.  During the recovery lots of the ship's contents fell from the ships insides when the cables cut it into three pieces while being lifted from the water.  For big stuff such as engines, cannons, etc. they were able to go back down and retrieve but the small stuff washed away.  Then the ship's pieces sat on a barge for a while before being taken to the shipyards in Pascagoula, MS where it sat in the elements for years.  Even after it was put on display in Vicksburg in the '70's it was only protected under an overhead cover that allowed lots of birds to roost and drop their acidic signature on the wood.  Also blowing rain got on it since there was no sides.  It was continually exposed to the Mississippi humidity.  I understand they've removed the original cannon carriages and replaced them with reproductions as they feel they can no longer support the gun's weight.  For a little more overview see:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cairo
but if you really want to hear the whole story, read "Hardluck Ironclad" by Edwin Bearss, the guy who found the USS Cairo and was there during its recovery.  It is a very good read and shows you how not to do things.  It also shows how governments can really make things much harder than they should be and slow everything down to a crawl.  You can get his book on eBay for just a few dollars and I highly recommend it.

As a side note, if you ever get a chance to go on a battlefield tour with Ed Bearrs, who is 92, do so.  It is incredibly interesting, informative and entertaining.

[Jim J.]

I have been offline for a number of weeks, taking a breather, and then going to a week long archaeological conference - I now need another break!
Thank you for all of the above comments, and for not taking me to task - too much.  I will try and fill you in, and try and give you some of the background information as to why various decisions were made.
First off, we did not have unlimited funding and whatever time we needed to do the work.  To put it bluntly, we had $3 and four days to get everything out of the water.  Well, that is an exaggeration, but time and money were limited and had to be Justified. 
We had to rebury some 135 tons of material, which really sounds like a major crime.  However, you have to realize that nothing we reburied could offer anything unique to the database of knowledge that we have accumulated on the vessel.  We kept the following artifacts - ALL ordnance (cannon & ammunition), all artifacts made of brass, all ceramics & glass, pewter, personal items, machinery, tools, organics, etc., etc.  We also kept anything that was unique.  We recovered representative samples of the iron rail casemate (each 24' rail weighs ~ 400 lbs.), and the fasteners used on the rail.  We will be conserving a section of the casemate amor, that then has to be built into a display. 
What we did not keep, was all of the twisted and torn sections of wood, broken & twisted casemate rail, broken fragments of fasteners, concretion spallings, etc.  I like to think that I know my material culture, and can sort out all of the relevant artifacts for conservation and display.  If we could not identify in the field, we kept the artifact so that we could do the necessary and identify it in the Lab.  Rest assured folks, I do not like the idea of reburial, but we had to be practical here and face up to reality.  Think of a pile of wooden pallets that have been torn up by "something" in antiquity.  I kept the complete ones, and kept a representative sample of the complete wooden planks and fasteners, and I recorded the details from the material I reburied.  We have a completed database of all of the artifacts that were reburied, and know what container it is located in in the river.  I know that some of you have a dream of finding an interesting relic, but I did keep all of the good "stuff".  The man with the most toys wins, and I know I came out ahead in this one!
We are not finished, and have to go back again this year and recover the two main sections of casemate.  Yes, there is still another ~ 100 tons of iron down there!
I have ~ 142 tons of material in the Lab, more than 13,000 artifacts.  I will most likely be working hard for the next 8 to 10 years - a good challenge.  Just think of one aspect of the project, I have five cannon weighing a total of ~ 19,000 lbs. (Edit 1/13/16 - should read 18 tons), with an additional ~ 230 rounds of Dahlgren and Brooke shells to clean and conserve. 
The "For Sale" sign will not go up on any of the artifacts, as they all belong to the US Navy.  The Navy History and Heritage Command are not going to start a precedent here by selling artifacts, as that would really complicate things down the line.
Thank you for all of your interest.  I am a very fortunate individual, who has a wonderful job - Preserving our Past, for our Future!
Jim J.

[scottfromgeorgia]

Thanks, Jim! That is fascinating! We appreciate your work very much.

I do think that there is plenty of precedent to sell some of the unwanted artifacts to benefit the restoration, but you need a good green light lawyer to explain how to do it, rather than a horde of red light lawyers who explain why it is impossible.

 

[John D. Bartleson Jr.]

Another thank you Jim.  I hope you will find time to post some of the projectile images.
Kind Regards,
John

[CarlS]

Great post Jim.  Thanks for sharing it with us.  And thanks to you and your team for the conservation work you do to save these relics.  It sure sounds like a lot of work!