Shipwrecks frequently get lost, but a search for four missing Civil War blockade runners off South Carolina has come to the unusual conclusion that at least three are now buried on land. The fourth one is still unaccounted for off Fort Moultrie, but it’s also likely buried, according to the S.C. Maritime Research Division.
“Historical records indicate that several American Civil War blockade runners wrecked in the shallow waters around the fort, but their exact locations were forgotten,” the division reported in a social media post. “Because Sullivan’s Island has been marching steadily southward … since the construction of the Charleston Harbor jetties, what once was water for ships to wreck in is now dry land. The remains of these vessels are now buried deep below the beach and adjacent woodlot.”
magnetic anomalies” were found with the help of drones fitted with magnetometers, S.C. underwater archaeologist James D. Spirek told McClatchy News in an email. “We launched aerial drone magnetometry over the suspected locations of the four wrecks. After a bit of adjusting to the magnetics, we believe we have located at least two or three of them: the Celt and either the Beatrice or Flora … or both of them, as they lay close together,” Spirek said. “I’m not sure why we didn’t locate the other one: Presto, as I know that it isn’t in the water. Back in 2001 and again in 2009, we had undertaken marine remote-sensing operations to locate these four and other blockade runners in the water. While detecting several adjacent to Bowman’s Jetty, we did not appear to locate the four. Which gave us the idea that they were now buried under the accreted beach.”
An analysis of their depth hasn’t yet been completed, but it’s estimated the three wrecks are “five feet or more” deep, he said. “At high tide, most of the Celt would be underwater, but the Beatrice/Flora would still be dry,” he said.
The Celt was a sidewheel paddle steamer that ran ashore while trying to leave the harbor, historians say. Union troops boarded the vessel and “found the back or keel of the hull broken and full of water, decks ripped apart, and the boilers below water along with the machinery, and deemed it worthless to recover,” Civil War Traveler reports. A cargo of cotton was also found and salvaged to be taken North, the site says.
The survey was intended to find the wrecks so they can be protected, officials said. No further archaeological work is planned to find out exactly what survives in the ground. However, additional drone surveys are planned to determine whether both the Beatrice and Flora were found, Spirek said. The island in Charleston Harbor was the “first line of defense” for Charleston during the Civil War, and is now part of the National Park System, along with nearby Fort Sumter.
The harbor played host to “a protracted struggle from 1861 to 1865 between Confederate defenders and Federal attackers,” the University of South Carolina reports. Blockade runners were private vessels that worked to sneak cargo through Union blockades of southern ports like Charleston. Wrecks of the ships are today considered “nationally significant cultural resources,” historians say.
–thestate.com
