Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1987 - 56

However, Riley described how he
first discovered the wreck four or five
years earlier when he lost a pair of
clam tongs on a "hang" in the James
River and how, in an effort to retrieve them, he recovered a brass sword
hilt and handle decorated with an
eagle and fish scale pattern, a design
emblematic of the U.S. Navy prior
to and including the Civil War years.
He had also tonged from the site a
large copper-alloy cylinder which bore
a notable resemblance to a section
of bilge pump pipe depicted in the
builder's plans of the Cumberland.
Furthermore, the clammer estimated
the depth of the wreckage to be
about 65 feet, very close to the figure
submitted by Loring Bates in 1862.
Riley's artifacts and his description of the location and depth of
the site clearly warranted a first-hand
investigation, the clammer offered
to help. Several days later he shortened
his dawn-to-dusk workday to transport a UAJV dive team to the site.
Without the benefit of instrumentation, Riley moored the clam boat over
a spot where his visual calculation
of land bearings indicated that the
wreck was lying. It mattered little
that the sun was setting as the archaeologists plunged into the water, since
daylight rarely penetrates more than
30 feet or so beneath the surface of the
James, even at high noon.
The divers soon appreciated the
waterman's accuracy in reckoning the
position of the site. When they
reached the bottom they discovered
bits of scattered wooden debris.
As they extended their search line to
begin a systematic sweep of the river
bed, they encountered an area of
concentrated wreckage dominated by
massive wooden timbers protruding
eerily out of the mud at odd angles in
the murky gloom. Groping amid the
debris, archaeologists searched for evidence that might help to establish
the ship's identity. Several of the artifacts gathered from the surface of
the site proved to be particularly significant. The bottom of a white ironstone plate fragment bearing the
manufacturer's name, John Alcock,
and his mark, a crowned shield
flanked by a lion on one side and a
unicorn on the other, established the
sherd as a product of the Staffordshire Potteries in England between
1853 and 1861. A remarkably wellpreserved pair of brass gunner's calipers, a device used to measure the
diameter of cannon bores and projec56

ARCHAEOLOGY

An assortment of armament-related items from the Pier C Site.
tiles, was practically identical to the
standard type listed in the U.S. Army
Ordnance Manual of 1862.
Another armament-related object that had survived in surprisingly
good condition was a sabot, a solid
cylinder composed of a single block of
wood with a flat lower surface and a
concave upper one. Its function was
to insure, through its use in conjunction with iron straps, that a ball would
be seated in the bottom of a cannon
bore with the fuse facing toward the
muzzle in order to prevent explosion
in the tube upon firing. Though the
iron straps had corroded completely,
their former presence was attested
to by iron concretions and rust stains
covering much of the wooden surface.
The sabot's most intriguing feature,
however, was its nine-inch diameter,
corresponding as it did to the bore
of the 22 smoothbore cannons that
constituted the greatest part of the
Cumberland's broadside battery on
March 8, 1862.
Though by no means definitive,
the evidence of the artifacts suggested that the wreck, which was designated the Pier C Site, represented
the remains of an American warship
dating to the third quarter of the
nineteenth century. Moreover, the location of the wreckage and the failure of documentary research to
indicate the presence of any other
sunken vessels in the immediate vicinity further reinforced the hypothesis
that the Pier C Site was, in fact, the
final resting place of the Cumberland. Considering the condition of the
non-ferrous metals and organic materials that had been recovered, UAJV

team members were optimistic that
further investigation would yield additional evidence regarding the
ship's identity. Also encouraged by
the implications of this preservation
for the survival of the Florida's
remains, the archaeologists decided
to take leave of the Pier C site temporarily to search for the lost commerce raider.
Working on the supposition that
the wreck just examined was actually that of the Union warship, UAJV
investigators further reduced the dimensions of the survey area to include
only the section upstream of Pier C,
since George West's account of the
post-war salvage operations indicated that the Florida was lying in
that direction relative to the Cumberland. By operating the recording
fathometer while crisscrossing the
search area with survey lanes parallel,
perpendicular and diagonal to the
shoreline, the crew detected only one
significant anomaly located approximately 500 yards upriver and
offshore of the Pier C Site. The series
of peaks that appeared on the fathometer paper were much less dramatic
than those recorded on the previous
site, but the location, almost directly
offshore of the Home Brothers Shipyard pier, closely corresponded to
the landmarks identified in West's
memoirs.
Investigators positioned the survey vessel over the center of the
anomaly and dropped a buoy where
the recording fathometer registered
its highest peak. A pair of divers
descended to examine the site, confirmed the presence of concentrated

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1987

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