Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2016 - 49

also made raising most of the ship's structure, including the massive surviving portion of the western section consisting of iron and saturated wood, too difficult or time-consuming. As a wreck, Georgia is monstrously heavy, just as it was when it went down in 1864. That weight and several design flaws likely kept the ironclad from being anything more than just a gun battery sitting at the waterline. In July 2015, Navy divers helped raise one of Georgia's two propellers. Its partner was not found, but the single, screw-driven, three-blade propeller helps explain why the ironclad stayed put-the propeller may simply have been too small to move the ship, especially in the river's strong currents. There also probably wasn't a lot of oomph behind those propellers, as it 1986, five more were retrieved, including two Dahlgrens, the distinctive rounded type used in the Civil War. There were 170 projectiles, many of them still live and potentially dangerous. It took specialists two months to render the ammunition inert by placing them in special water tanks, using a remote drill, and then chemically neutralizing the powder inside. In addition, X-shaped metal pieces, known as "eyes for tackle" were found, and had been used for positioning a pivoting gun carriage. Customarily such items would have been made of brass, a stable metal, but the Georgia yielded one made from iron-prone to rust-indicating yet another suboptimal substitution. An especially rare type of lock mechanism and a fuse for a torpedo were also found, "like nothing any of us have ever seen," says Watts. This metal piece from Georgia, called an "eye for tackle," would have been used for positioning a gun carriage. Despite its limitations as a warship-as any kind of ship at all, actually-Confederate sailors manned Georgia consistently for the better part of two years. The excavation has begun to provide a picture of improvisatory wartime life aboard Georgia. Divers excavated the brass handle of a Union artillery short sword that found its way into Confederate hands. "They captured supplies, and used them as they saw fit," says Jim Jobling, a conservator at Texas A&M. There was also a brass key-with no chest to open-a tourniquet press from a surgeon's kit, and several buttons, including two likely dating to the Revolutionary War. During the last phase of the excavation, when silt was scooped up onto the barge, many personal items appeared, including a spoon, glass marbles, and intact glass bottles. "It really is amazing to me," Morgan says, to find so many small, personal items after decades of disturbance in an active estuary. W Many of the 170 projectiles raised from Georgia were still live and potentially dangerous. Specialists in unexploded ordnance stored them in water before rendering them inert. is known that one of Georgia's two steam engines was used exclusively to run a pump that kept it from taking on water and sinking. "The engine cylinders that we have identified so far have been small," says Watts. "We've not recovered everything we should have to fully reconstruct the steam machinery, but we can tell that it is small, geared for a slower-turning propeller. It may be that that was all that was available at the time." The recovery effort has also brought up all the cannons listed on the ship's manifest. In addition to the two raised in archaeology.org hile the 2015 season wasn't the first excavation of Georgia, it might be the last. The first phase of harbor deepening began in earnest in September 2015, and decisions about the remaining underwater sections of Georgia's armor will be made as the harbor project nears Georgia's resting place. "Until we have a full picture of the casemate remains, we don't know that much more about how it was constructed," says Morgan, who is cautious about making grand conclusions based on the portions raised so far. "We're getting large timbers, some railroad iron, but we're trying to keep it together and reconstruct the vessel. It will take recovery and seeing the pieces out of the water to do that." Some of the railroad iron is being stored in the river, and the conservation lab at Texas A&M has years of conservation and treatment ahead of it. "The more we find, the more questions we have," Morgan adds. "There's a lot that is still a mystery. Georgia is slowly revealing itself to us, but it will take a while to piece it all together." n Marion Blackburn is a writer based in Greenville, North Carolina. 49 http://www.archaeology.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2016