Replies

http://www.al.com/specialreport/mobileregister/index.ssf?finalresting.html

Tecumseh’s final resting place

By CASANDRA ANDREWS
Living Reporter
08/05/01

FORT MORGAN — An orange and white buoy floating atop murky seas serves as their headstone.

For the nearly 100 men who lie entombed in the Civil War ship the USS Tecumseh, the metal can-shaped marker is the only visible reminder of the Union soldiers presence in Mobile Bay.

On Aug. 5, 1864, the Tecumseh, a Union iron-hull, fired the first shot in the Battle of Mobile Bay, the bloodiest naval fight of the Civil War.

Within half an hour of shattering a cannon shell over Fort Morgan, the Tecumseh struck a mine — known then as a torpedo — lurched, rolled on its side and sank nearly 30 feet.

It took about two minutes.

Twenty-one men escaped, some swimming to shore and others using rafts to reach safety. Most historic accounts maintain that 93 others went down with the ship.

For 137 years, the pride of Rear Adm. David Farragut’s fleet during the Union attack has been stuck in the mud at the entrance of Mobile Bay.

“The Tecumseh is the only surviving, intact Civil War-era, Ericsson-design Union monitor,” said W. Wilson West, a maritime historian. “There are three others but they are all on the bottom and in various states of disrepair. Tecumseh, by far, is the jewel in the crown.”

Efforts to raise the ship — or at least protect it from scavengers and commercial boat anchors — have made little headway in recent years.

The boat that took 120 seconds to sink would take at least 10 years to pull up and restore, historians said.

“Here is a national treasure. It should not be just ignored,” said Jack Friend, a Mobile naval historian. “We have a responsibility not to let it rust away or be destroyed in some manner. Someday, it might be raised.”

He doesn’t imagine that day will come in his lifetime, though. Friend, who was commissioned to examine the feasibility of raising the ship in 1974, said then it would cost about $10 million to bring it up and restore it. He estimates that the cost would be much greater today.

A full recovery and restoration could take as long as 15 years and cost at least $80 million, said West, who wrote the “USS Tecumseh Shipwreck Management Plan” in 1997.

Among the plan’s recommendations:

Establish a regulated navigation area with a 100-yard radius around the wreck;

Set up a closed circuit surveillance system at Fort Morgan;

Create a heritage zone for sites important to the Battle of Mobile Bay.

An effort of that magnitude would require a fleet of historians, archaeologists, engineers, investors, fund-raisers, government officials and salvage crews, he said.

So far, none of his plan has been implemented.

“People consider the Tecum seh sort of safe at the moment, in the sense that it’s not going anywhere,” West said of why he thinks the government isn’t taking action. “It’s on the shelf at the Naval Historical Center. They have other priorities right now like the Hunley, and other naval wrecks. It’s a money issue and a priority issue for them.”

Bill Dudley, director of the Naval Historical Center in Washington, said the government is aware of Wilson’s management plan.

“We suggest leaving it as it is, which is called a ‘preservation in place option,’ which costs less money,” Dudley said. Tecumseh holds the “remains of 93 sailors. We feel we owe them the respect they have earned. We don’t feel like we should disturb it any more than it’s been.”

One reason the project would carry such a hefty price tag is because the Tecumseh was built of thick wood and massive iron. It weighs about 2,100 tons and measures 225 feet long.

The weight of the vessel and the soft bottom of the bay would work against recovery. Nearly 99 percent of the Tecumseh is buried in mud, according to numerous surveys. One-inch thick iron plates are bolted and riveted to the outside, with 10 plates stacked on each other.

By comparison, the USS Hunley weighs about 7 tons and is 40 feet long. The price of raising and restoring it is running into several million dollars, Friend said.

Other recoveries haven’t gone so well. The raising of the USS Cairo from the Yazoo River in Mississippi in the 1960s is an example of what can go wrong. Cables were used to pull the boat out of the river. The vessel was so heavy that the cables cut through the hull, severing a portion of the stern. Hundreds of artifacts plunged back into the river.

Historians estimate there are at least 50,000 artifacts lodged in the muck inside the Tecumseh, including the ships two 15-inch cannons. Divers for the Smithsonian Institute removed an anchor and dishes from the ships’ dining hall during a 1967 expedition.

West supports launching a new comprehensive study to determine the ironclad’s latest co ordinates and condition as well as changes in the surrounding sand, sediment and environment in the last three decades.

The last such survey was conducted by the Smithsonian Institution’s Tecumseh Project Team. Funds dried up and the project was suspended. He said the government isn’t likely to pay for a new survey any time soon.

West, who lives in Toronto, said keeping commercial barges and shrimp boats away from the area would help keep future damage of the wreckage to a minimum.

“Shrimp trawlers go up and down every season,” West said. “I’ve watched them go up and down each side of the buoy at will. And I think local divers might go out there every once in a while thinking they can get something off of it.”

Dudley, who is also director of naval history for the government, said one reason a navigation zone hasn’t already been created around the wreckage is because it’s in the middle of the Mobile ship channel.

“We feel it’s under careful observation from Fort Morgan,” Dudley said. “The Coast Guard and Marine Police are ready to report any folks who look like they are going to go down and do something.”

Friend, who is writing a book on the Battle of Mobile Bay, said he would like to see someone create a virtual reality tour that explores the Tecumseh, inside and out. He said Fort Morgan would be the perfect spot to show such a presentation.

The Mobile historian, who fought in a tank while serving in the Korean War, said he’s been ensconced in naval history since he came home more than three decades ago. Fishing off Fort Morgan also drew him to the Tecumseh.

“I would be out on the water.... on a late August day, all peaceful and serene,” Friend said. “The noise, the smoke, the men being wounded, it was difficult to imagine.”

Friend came to see the Tecumseh as a tank that floated on water.

“There was certainly a similarity that exists between people in ironclads during the Civil War and people who fought in tanks in later wars.”

Despite the passage of time, interest in restoring the ship continues.

“People are always asking me if I think it can be raised,” Friend said. “If it could be raised it would be wonderful. People from all over the world would come to see it.”