Survey of the Civil War ships, USS PHILIPPI, C.S.S. GAINES,
blockade runner IVANHOE, USS MILWAUKEE, and USS OSAGE.
Also eighteenth century French merchant vessel, BELLONE.
September, 1989.
The interesting aspect the marine archaeology of Mobil
Bay is that so little has taken place. Except for a survey
of Civil War obstructions just below the main city dock
area, a few dives on the monitor Tecumseh, and the discovery
of two Confederate ironclad floating batteries, no one
bothered to confirm the location and dispositions of the
many ships lost in and around Mobile Bay beginning as
early as the sixteenth century.
After obtaining the necessary permits and working with
John Tyson, a former state senator and prominent attorney,
and state historical agencies, not to forget the Army
Corp of Engineers, the NUMA team consisting of Cussler,
Craig Dirgo and Allen Green set up a base at Fort Morgan
and began the survey.
The approximate locations of the vessels, with the
exceptions of the Bellone, Milwaukee and the Osage,
were well documented through old charts. Our primary
goal was to verify the existence of these wrecks and
determine condition if possible. Using the research
compiled by Jack Friend and the Baldwin County Historical
Commission, we set out for the first target, the Confederate
gunboat, Gaines. This was a hastily constructed sidewheel
steamer 202 feet in length with a 38 foot beam. Planned
by a crew of 130, it mounted one 8 inch rifled gun and
five 32 pounders. She fought a good fight against the
Union fleet before being run aground behind Fort Morgan
to avoid capture.
After a few passes using our EG&G sidescan sonar
and the Schoenstedt gradiometer, we received a very
heavy mag reading indicating the presence of boilers.
The sonar, however, recorded nothing of interest, except
a nearby sunken barge. We went over the side in only
five feet of water and immediately found several clusters
of coal. Then, using steel probes we struck iron plate
and other hard objects three feet below the bottom.
The Gaines site could prove an excellent excavation
project during low tide.
Next, we circled the Fort Morgan point and began sweeps
for the Ivanhoe, a Confederate blockade runner that
was run aground in June of 1864 and burned by a Union
force. After a land and water search over a square acre
grid to make sure no other anomalies were close by,
we quickly found the site by using chart overlays and
the gradiometer. Our readings showed scattered debris
with the heaviest hits about fifty yards south of the
end of the road and twenty yards from the shoreline.
Despite rumors of divers salvaging the ship in recent
years, we found the remains to be buried between 12
and 18 feet. This is consistent with other ships we've
surveyed that ran ashore over the course of a hundred
or more years and were slowly buried in the sand, particularly
under similar conditions in the Charleston area.
The following day, we set out early to search for the
Philippi. Formerly the blockade runner, Ella, a sidewheel
steamer 311 feet in length and a beam of 24 feet. She
was captured and commissioned as a Union navy gunboat.
During Farragut's entry into Mobile Bay, the Philippi
moved behind the fleet and ran aground. She was shelled
by the guns of Fort Morgan and eventually set on fire.
We set up a grid starting from the outer channel buoy
and worked along the west bank of the channel where
overlays of the 1864 chart put the ship on modern recordings.
Running the bank on the fathometer while probing with
the gradiometer and sonar, we worked for four hours
before striking a strong sidescan picture of a shipwreck
standing proud of the bottom. After mooring over the
site, our divers went down and returned with the announcement
that we had struck an old steamer. The visibility was
little more than three feet, but burnt hull beams, scattered
remains of boilers and coal indicated that in all probability
it was indeed the Philippi.
The search was continued for a distance of 300 yards
on each side of the vessel to determine if there were
any other ships or anomalies in the area. There were
none, the bottom was clean of all but small debris.
We had expected to find the remains the Philippi buried,
but because it lies on the bank and is scoured by the
action of the tides in and out of the channel much of
the wreck is exposed. The next morning we were out again
early to make an attempt to find the remains of the
Bellone, a French merchant vessel that mysteriously
sprang a leak and sank suddenly off Dauphin Island on
April 1, 1725. An interesting clue about the Bellone
is a map showiag its anchorage. Lining the marking up
with Alligator Lake and Oleander Pond, which still occupy
areas of Dauphin Island in the same approximate locations,
we obtained a quick and practical reference point to
center the search. In addition, because of the size
and the draft of the vessel and the little change in
depth over 350 years, we assumed the prime wreck site
to be in water exceeding 10 feet deep.
We began our search lanes, however, as close in shore
as the boat could run and ran all the way to Pelican
Island, extending from the east end of the island to
a hundred yards beyond a condominium complex to the
west. We spent the entire day, running east and west
lanes, and north and south lanes as insurance. The lanes
were run in widths of approximately forty feet and were
marked off with four buoys set in lines that were picked
up and repositioned after three runs on each side.
We found two targets. One suggested an old fishing
boat about 50 feet in length. The second seemed the
most promising as the Bellone. It covered a much larger
area and stretched between 100 to 130 feet. There was
considerable scattered debris but little of the vessel
was sticking up from the bottom. From past experience,
we found that shrimp trawlers running over the wreck
for a hundred years or more have leveled it with their
nets. We obtained several good readings and sent a diver
down, who reported wood, but didn't hang around too
long in the murky water due to a fear of sharks. Though
the depth was only twelve feet, visibility was down
to a foot or two.
From an archaeology standpoint, this would be an excellent
wreck to work. Interesting artifacts should abound at
the wreck site, and the shallow depth would enable divers
to work for long periods, providing some sort of cage
was built for protection against nasty sea creatures.
Late that afternoon, we also attempted to locate the
remains of the Hermes, a British warship that had blown
up near Mobile Point during the war of 1812, We covered
the entire water area by boat and recorded nothing.
A study of the movement of the shore around Fort Morgan
indicates the point has moved out somewhat and any remains
of the Hermes are covered over by the beach sand. A
land search that evening turned up little that would
incite an extensive excavation.
We then bid a fond farewell to our house at Fort Morgan
and moved the operation to the Blakely River to search
for any remains of the union monitors Milwaukee and
Osage, sunk by Confederate mines during the closing
months of the war.
The Milwaukee was an unusual ironclad with two different
types of turrets both mounting 11 inch Dahlren smoothbores.
She was 257 feet in length with a beam of 57 feet. Just
below Spanish Fort on March 28, 1865, she struck a Confederate
torpedo and sank in deep water until she was completely
submerged.
The Osage was a single-turreted river monitor that
measured 523 feet in length with a 45 foot beam. She
mounted two 11 inch Dahlgren cannon. She was also put
on the bottom by a Confederate torpedo only a day after
the Milwaukee.
Although it is recorded that the hulk of the Osage
was raised three years later and sold at auction in
New Orleans, and the Milwaukee was supposedly also salvaged,
we've found that quite often the salvors leave considerable
debris and wreckage behind. Then, there is the intriguing
map on an 1867 chart showing a historical site above
the Blakely River bar. We could not help but wonder
if it was the marked site of one of the ironclads. Unfortunately,
the flag when overlaid on modern charts sits in the
middle of an immense bog.
We imaged with both the mag and sonar from the causeway
to the site of the old bar and found no trace of a shipwreck.
There were some heavy mag reading further up the river
under the shore, but according to contemporary reports,
both ironclads were sunk not far above the bar which
was out from the mouth of the river in the bay.
Perhaps if we return, we'll drop a mag out of a helicopter
and check out the bog. Who knows, maybe one of salvaged
remains of an old monitor still lies alone and forgotten
in the mud.
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