Two major artifacts from the Civil War have been discovered in the Pee Dee River. Archaeologists from the University of South Carolina and East Carolina University have discovered two large cannons from the sunken Confederate gunboat the C.S.S. Pee Dee that was launched in January 1865. USC Underwater Archaeologist Christopher Amer  says the guns were discovered in the area near to where the Mars Bluff Naval Yard once stood. Amer says Mars Bluff was one of about 20 Confederate naval yards that were located inland so that gunboats and other vessels could be built and protected from the much larger Union naval forces. Amer says the search for a third gun continues.”We have a number of magnetic anomalies in the water from our magnetometer survey which suggests a couple of places that third gun can be. The we’re missing is 15,000 pounds, that’s a lot of iron. The other two are around 9,000 pounds.”

Amer says two 7-inch and four 6.4 inch Brooke artillery shells were also discovered along with the guns. Amer says there were no worries that the shells were actually live. “When they dumped the guns off the Pee Dee they also dumped the shells off. The protocol was if they were going to battle they would fill the shells with powder and put the fuses in, but when they were carrying them in the magazine they didn’t have them all fused and powdered so they (the ones recently discovered) were empty.” [Read more...]