CHARLESTON, S.C.
After more than eight years of work, scientists say that two cannons from the Confederate raider CSS Alabama have been preserved at the same lab conserving another Civil War artifact, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.
Workers scraped away hardened sediment on the 32-pound, smooth bore cannons each weighing about 5 tons.
The cannons were also soaked in chemicals to leach out sea salts.
In appreciation for the work, the Navy, which owns the cannons, may allow one to be displayed at a museum that will one day display the hand-cranked Hunley, the Charleston Post and Courier reported yesterday.
"It will be a great addition to the Hunley museum because we want it to be a full Southern Maritime museum," said Randy Burbage, a member of the South Carolina Hunley Commission.
The Alabama was built in Liverpool, England, for the Confederacy.
During the 22 months it sailed, its crew boarded 447 vessels, including 65 Union merchant vessels, and took 2,000 prisoners, according to the CSS Alabama Association.
The Alabama was finally captured by the USS Kearsage and sank June 11, 1864, after a battle in the English Channel off Cherbourg, France, where the Alabama was awaiting repairs.
The wreck of the Alabama was found in 1984, and the two cannons were raised in 2000. On one cannon scientists found fragments of human jawbone, thought to be from a crewman.
The sinking of the Alabama came a few months after the Hunley sank off Charleston. The Hunley became the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship when it sank the USS blockade ship Housatonic in February 1864.
The Hunley and its eight-man crew never returned from the mission. It was raised in 2000 and is being conserved in the same North Charleston lab where scientists worked on the Alabama cannons.
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