On Tuesday, Sept. 29, a crew of USC archaeologists and students, with help from volunteers, completed a six-year investigation and recovery project of three Civil War cannons when the pieces of artillery were raised from the Great Pee Dee River in Florence County.
The cannons were used aboard the CSS Pee Dee, a Confederate gunship, but were heaved overboard into the river when the vessel carrying them was burned and scuttled on March 18, 1865 after Confederate troops heard news of U.S. Gen. William T. Sherman’s famous march through South Carolina.
After years of research by local citizens and other various research groups the whereabouts of these historic items were still unknown. By 2012, the USC scientists finally pinpointed the locations of the remains of the boat, the trio of cannons and the inland Mars Bluff Navy Yard where the CSS Pee Dee was built. The USC team began its work in Florence County in 2009.
The recovery project, led by USC and state underwater archaeologist Dr. James Spirek and USC state archaeologist Dr. Jonathan Leader, took its final step as the cannons were raised from the river and transported to be conserved in North Charleston where they will remain for about two years.
As State archaeologist, Dr. Leader talked with The Daily Gamecock about his involvement in the project one day after the cannons were recovered.
“I have been involved with that since I came here in a couple of different categories of assistance,” Leader said. “The most current involvement would have started about 2009 although we were doing work long before that. 2009 is when we had the funding from the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation, which made it possible for us to continue and ratchet up the event.”
A press release from the team on Tuesday mentioned that this effort was helped along by instrumental research from the CSS Pee Dee Research and Recovery Team that did work in the area in the 90s. Leader said that while that particular group was important to the discovery and recovery, there were many other individuals and groups that made the project possible.
“We can’t be everywhere, we’re a small group, so using volunteers, core people and local advocationalists is something we like to do...and they were very successful,” Leader said. “They weren’t the only group that assisted us, but they were one of the more important groups that assisted us. Actually the group that really pointed the location (of the ship's resting place) was a series of researchers in North Carolina. What you’re looking at here is teamwork...this is not Atlas carrying the world on his back.”
The archaeologist stressed that involvement in the investigation and recovery efforts by numerous research groups, researchers and volunteers goes back for years.
“What you really have here is a long tale of local and regional involvement of volunteers, professionals and others all providing their bits of information,” Leader said.
Leader emphasized that, without appropriate funding from the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation of Florence County and work from everyone involved, finding and recovering all of the cannons would not have been possible.
“A lot of people were involved with this, LOTS of people,” Leader said. “And I think it’s very important that everyone get the credit that’s due them and I feel very strongly about that.”
Student involvement in the entire process was also a big factor in the successful investigation and recovery.
“We had interns involved with conservation, we had interns involved with archival research, we had interns involved in the field, we ran a field school...and we went out and we did the shipyard,” Leader said. “We actually came up with a great deal of information. Students are absolutely essential for everything that we do, again we’re a small group.”
Projects like this, according to Leader, emphasize the close ties felt between people in South Carolina and South Carolina history.
“(It’s so great) to be in a state where people still have a serious and direct connection to their histories,” Leader said. “There are lots of places we know in the United States where people...have no connection, they have no understanding, they could really care less. It just kind of shows up and they pave it over- not South Carolina.”
Because the purpose of the gunship was to sail downstream to break through the Union blockade and facilitate international trade on behalf of the Confederacy, there is more significance for the boat and its artillery. Leader made sure to emphasize that the recovery of the guns means more than just adding a few more historical artifacts to go in a museum or, as he says, ‘telescoping down’ the significance of these items to make it understandable- it gives insight into history and how things worked during that era.
“You see when you see these guns is a technology, a place and a people who were globally interactive on a geopolitical scale that we tend to forget existed at those times,” Leader said.