Recent news reminds us of the Civil War with the recent announcement of plans to raise the remains of the CSS Georgia.
The Ironclad ship was sunk 148 years ago and is now in the way of development of the Savanah River. There were actually two ships with this name. The one in question is Battery CSS Georgia, picture. The other was a commerce raider. Battery CSS Georgia was built with too weak an engine and had a very hard time manuevering. Unable to be mobile enough for offensive action she was anchored in the channels below the Savanah as a defensive measure. She remained there for 20 months until Union forces under Sherman showed up and she was scuttled without ever having fired a single shot.
She was known as “The Ladies Ram” – not because she never fired a shot but because the $115,000 raised to build her came from The Ladies Gunboat Association.
The Hunley was a rare example of where the antebellum South mustered its resources to achieve a major technological breakthrough. The Georgia, on the other hand, “has very clearly become a symbol for why things went wrong for the Confederate naval effort,”
Ken Johnston, executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Ga., tells the Associated Press.
