Archaeologists find Civil War cannons in Pee Dee River
- On 06/06/2009
- In Underwater Archeology
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By Nicole E. Smith - Independent Mail
State archaeologists working in the Pee Dee River on Friday found two cannons used in the Civil War.
Chris Amer, deputy state archaeologist and head of the Underwater Archaeology Division at the University of South Carolina, teamed up with the Pee Dee Research and Recovery Team, state archaeologist and USC research associate professor Jon Leader, representatives from Francis Marion and East Carolina universities and students plan to raise the five-ton cannons used aboard the C.S.S. Pee Dee. They expect to raise a third.
They have also found the site where Mars Bluff once stood in Marion County. Mars Bluff was a Confederate naval yard from 1862 to 1865, built inland because of its wealth of natural resources and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.
The site is “indicative of the Confederate spirit,” Amer said.
“All the way through the war, the Union side had the advantage,” he said. The Union had “quite a big navy that could block 3,5000 miles of the coast, and it was industrial while the South was agrarian. When the war started the South had very few industrial ports.”
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