The Patriot Files Forums  

Go Back   The Patriot Files Forums > Conflict posts > Revolutionary War

Post New Thread  Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 04-29-2022, 05:10 AM
Boats's Avatar
Boats Boats is offline
Senior Member
 

Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Sauk Village, IL
Posts: 21,784
Thumbs up Revolutionary Find: 19 Cannons in River Likely Sunk in 1779

Revolutionary Find: 19 Cannons in River Likely Sunk in 1779
By: Russ Bynum - Associated Press & Military.com News - 04-29-22
Re: https://www.military.com/daily-news/...sunk-1779.html

Photo link: https://images04.military.com/sites/...?itok=KCgEcSBX
Commodore Philip Nash, left, of the British Royal Navy, gets a briefing from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers archaeologist Andrea Farmer on Thursday, April 28, 2022, in Savannah, Ga., about 19 cannons recovered from the Savannah River, that experts suspect came from one or more British ships scuttled in the river during the American Revolution in 1779. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum)

SAVANNAH, Ga. — A warehouse along the Savannah River is holding historical treasures that evidence suggests remained lost for more than 240 years — a cache of 19 cannons that researchers suspect came from British ships scuttled to the river bottom during the American Revolution.

The mud- and rust-encrusted guns were discovered by accident. A dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed last year as part of a $973 million deepening of Savannah's busy shipping channel surfaced with one the cannons clasped in its metal jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.

Archaeologists guessed they were possibly leftover relics from a sunken Confederate gunship excavated a few years earlier in the same area, said Andrea Farmer, an archaeologist for the Army Corps of Engineers. But experts for the U.S. Navy found they didn't match any known cannons used in the Civil War. Further research indicates they're likely almost a century older and sank during the buildup to the Revolutionary War's bloody siege of Savannah in 1779.

In a timeframe of just over a year, 19 cannons were hoisted from the same area of the river a few miles downstream from Savannah, where Georgia was founded as the last of Britain's 13 American colonies in 1733.

“They’re in remarkably good shape," Farmer said. “Many were buried in clay and covered by silt and debris that kind of protected them.”

Now officials with the U.S. and British governments, as well as the state of Georgia, are working together on an agreement to preserve the newly found guns before putting them on display. Commodore Philip Nash of the British Royal Navy, a military attache based in Washington, viewed the artifacts submerged in metal tubs of water during a visit Thursday.

“Some of these pieces are in amazing condition and I’m sure could tell some stories,” Nash said.

The cannons are being kept in water to prevent further deterioration until experts can carefully clean them. Meanwhile, researchers are looking for more definitive proof linking the cannons to British ships from the American Revolution.

Farmer said researchers are very confident of the connection. Savannah had been under British occupation for about a year by the fall of 1779, when colonists planned an attack to retake the city with help from French and Haitian allies.

When French ships carrying troops were spotted off the Georgia coast, the British hurried to scuttle at least six ships in the Savannah River downstream from the city to block the French vessels. The land battle that followed was one of the bloodiest of the war. British forces killed nearly 300 colonial fighters and their allies, while wounding hundreds more.

Farmer said researchers suspect the cannons found in the river came from the British ship HMS Savannah and possibly a second ship scuttled at the same time, the HMS Venus. The longer guns appear to match cannons manufactured in France during the mid-1700s, she said. Researchers are looking for ship logs and manifests in hopes of confirming the armaments aboard those ships.

It's also possible the cannons themselves and other artifacts found at the site — pieces of anchors and a portion of a ship's bell — once cleaned might bear markings or other clues to which ship they belonged to. The wood from those ships, Farmer said, decayed long ago or got destroyed by prior dredging projects over a series of decades.

The question of who owns the artifacts gets a little murky. They were found in state waters of Georgia during a dredging project headed by the Army Corps, a U.S. government agency. The British government could make an ownership claim if there's strong evidence the artifacts came from British ships.

Farmer said all of those parties are working on an agreement to preserve the cannons and ultimately have them displayed at the Savannah History Museum, which incorporates the battlefield where the bloodiest fighting occurred during the 1779 siege.

“Everybody wants to keep the artifacts in Savannah," Farmer said, "because that makes the most sense.”

Related Topics: Military Headlines - Military History - Cannons
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personal note: It's amazing the things we still find centuries later.
Just another piece of history for the records.
__________________
Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
sendpm.gif Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

All times are GMT -7. The time now is 06:59 PM.


Powered by vBulletin, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.