IT'S A CASE OF PRESERVATION before shipping: the proposed deepening of Savannah harbor won’t only require attention to the project’s possible environmental impacts. It would mean completion of a multimillion-dollar archaeological project — salvaging the historically significant remains of an ironclad Confederate gunship — before dredges could get too near the wreckage.
     The CSS Georgia, built in 1862, proved leaky and underpowered but earned its keep as a floating battery, moored near Fort Jackson downriver of Savannah. The ship’s artillery helped prevent a Union invasion of Savannah by sea. But in 1864, it was scuttled, or deliberately sunk, to keep it out of the hands of conquering general William T. Sherman.
     “The Georgia, resting at the bottom of the Savannah River, is a time capsule for a society and a way of life that has been gone for over 140 years,” declared a 2007 archival report on the ship by the consulting firm New South Associates, calling it “possibly one of the 10 most significant wreck sites in U.S. waters.”
    
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
     Archaeological work at the site could “answer some basic questions about life aboard a Confederate ironclad,” the report said. Unlike other Rebel ships in the so-called Savannah Squadron, the vessel was not blown up or burned prior to sinking, so “material possessions” could still be aboard.
     The Georgia’s wooden hull is long gone, officials say, but its mostly iron remnants include one of the ship’s propellers, engine and boiler parts, and pieces of the “casemate,” or metal armor, plus cannons and some artillery shells that could still be live.
     “They were live when they went down, and that’s how we’re going to treat (them),” said Judy Wood, archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees harbor maintenance. 
     No verified photographs of the ship are known to exist, and estimates of its length vary from 150 to 260 feet.
     A separate “archaeological evaluation” of the wreckage, based on investigations by scientific divers, reported in 2007 that previous dredging work has already heavily damaged it, and that remnants will need to be salvaged to avoid their complete destruction in any future harbor deepening.
    
THE NEXT MAJOR STEP
      The corps is considering deepening the Savannah River shipping channel from 42 to 48 feet as a way to accommodate the worldwide trend toward building larger freighters. An “environmental impact statement” due out this fall is the “next major step” in the deepening study, Corps spokesman Billy Birdwell said over the summer. If the deepening does occur, Birdwell said, late 2010 is the earliest that dredging work could start.
     There’s no danger that dredging would further damage the Georgia’s wreckage. A federal law, the National Historic Preservation Act, requires that the salvage of the ship’s remains — for which up to $9.5 million has been budgeted — precede dredging work because of that deepening’s effect on such “historic properties. We have to have the vessel out of there before the (dredge) cutter head comes through,” Wood said.
     If the Corps makes a final decision to deepen the harbor, she said, “It would probably take at least eight months to get the first diver in the water” as part of salvage and recovery. 
      “A lot of in-house things have to be taken care of first,” not least of which is finalizing a plan for identifying and safely removing any “unexploded ordinance.”
     

IT CAN WORK LIKE CLOCKWORK
     Should the Corps decide against deepening, the ship’s wreckage would still be salvaged, though that work’s scheduling then goes into “limbo,” Wood said.
     Once divers do hit the water, she said, “We’re looking at possibly eight months of field work.” Coordination of the salvage project with the U.S. Coast Guard and harbor pilots is a “biggie” in terms of logistical concerns. “We’re going to have a dive platform up there,” Wood said, and ships will have to steer around it safely.
     During the last harbor deepening in 1994, archaeological teams and dredging crews used good schedule coordination to stay out of each other’s way. 
     “The last one worked just like clockwork,” Wood said. “We try to work with the dredging crews.” In ’94, Wood and other archaeologists found pieces of about 20 old wooden ships lodged in channel mud. They documented their finds and took wood samples, but there was “not really anything to display.”
     This time, of course, the haul is guaranteed to include some big metal ship parts. There’s been no formal decision on who would display such artifacts, Wood said, but “the Coastal Heritage Society is the most logical choice. They have other exhibits on the Savannah harbor and the Confederate Navy.” 
     The wreckage lies in waters straddling the state line with South Carolina. Interestingly, it used to be mostly in Georgia, Wood said, but a resolution of a 1990s boundary dispute that ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court moved the state line so as to coincidentally put most of the wreckage in South Carolina. 
     But don’t expect any custody disputes. Wood said Palmetto State preservation officials are letting their neighbor take the lead in salvage and recovery because “it’s Georgia’s resource. We still want South Carolina involved because they have some expertise in underwater archaeology and conservators.”  

Editor’s note: This story has been condensed for online viewing. For the full story, pick up a copy of the November/December 2008 SavannahMagazine.