Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks

W. Craig Gaines0807132748, 978-0-8071-3274-6

On the evening of February 2, 1864, Confederate Commander John Taylor Wood led 250 sailors in two launches and twelve boats to capture the USS Underwriter, a side-wheel steam gunboat anchored on the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina. During the ensuing fifteen-minute battle, nine Union crewmen lost their lives, twenty were wounded, and twenty-six fell into enemy hands. Six Confederates were captured and several wounded as they stripped the vessel, set it ablaze, and blew it up while under fire from Union-held Fort Anderson. The thrilling story of USS Underwriter is one of many involving the numerous shipwrecks that occupy the waters of Civil War history. Many years in the making, W. Craig Gaines’s Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks is the definitive account of more than 2,000 of these American Civil War-period sunken ships. From Alabama’s USS Althea, a Union steam tug lost while removing a Confederate torpedo in the Blakely River, to Wisconsin’s Berlin City, a Union side-wheel steamer stranded in Oshkosh, Gaines provides detailed information about each vessel, including its final location, type, dimensions, tonnage, crew size, armament, origin, registry (Union, Confederate, United States, or other country), casualties, circumstances of loss, salvage operations, and the sources of his findings. Organized alphabetically by geographical location (state, country, or body of water), the book also includes a number of maps providing the approximate locations of many of the wrecks — ranging from the Americas to Europe, the Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Also noted are more than forty shipwrecks whose locations are in question.Since the 1960s, the underwater access afforded by SCUBA gear has allowed divers, historians, treasure hunters, and archaeologists to discover and explore many of the American Civil War-related shipwrecks. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Gaines scoured countless sources — from government and official records to sports diver and treasure-hunting magazines — and cross-indexes his compilation by each vessel’s various names and nicknames throughout its career.An essential reference work for Civil War scholars and buffs, archaeologists, divers, and aficionados of naval history, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks revives and preserves for posterity the little-known stories of these intriguing historical artifacts.

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Table of contents :
Contents……Page 8
Preface……Page 10
Abbreviations……Page 14
Alabama……Page 18
Arkansas……Page 25
Atlantic Ocean……Page 29
Azores……Page 34
Bahamas……Page 35
Bering Sea……Page 37
Bermuda……Page 38
Big Sandy River……Page 39
Brazil……Page 40
California……Page 41
Canada……Page 49
Caribbean Waters……Page 50
China……Page 51
East Indies……Page 52
European Waters……Page 53
Florida……Page 54
Georgia……Page 63
Gulf of Mexico……Page 69
Indiana……Page 70
Kentucky……Page 71
Lake Erie……Page 72
Lake Huron……Page 73
Louisiana……Page 74
Maine……Page 110
Maryland……Page 111
Massachusetts……Page 112
Mexico……Page 113
Minnesota……Page 114
Mississippi……Page 115
Mississippi River……Page 122
Missouri River and Tributaries……Page 138
New Jersey……Page 141
New York……Page 142
North Carolina……Page 143
Ohio River……Page 166
Oklahoma……Page 170
Oregon……Page 171
Pennsylvania……Page 172
Rhode Island……Page 173
South Carolina……Page 174
Tennessee……Page 191
Texas……Page 198
Virginia……Page 206
Washington……Page 227
Wisconsin……Page 228
Shipwrecks of Unknown Location……Page 229
Bibliography……Page 232
Index of Shipwrecks……Page 240
Illustrations……Page 94