Workers Dredging the Savannah River Stumbled Upon 19 Cannons That Had Been Underwater Since the Revolutionary War
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/workers-dredging-the-savannah-river-stumbled-upon-19-cannons-that-had-been-underwater-since-the-revolutionary-war-180988928/
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From the article:
“As crews worked to deepen a section of the Savannah River, they used a clamshell dredger to scoop up mud. One day, when the machine rose from the water, it was dragging a centuries-old cannon covered in rust.
Two more cannons emerged from the riverbed soon after. By the following year, workers had recovered 19 of the weapons. Each weighed more than 1,000 pounds.
At first, archaeologists traced them to a Civil War-era ship that had sunk nearby. But they quickly realized the artifacts were even older. The guns date to the Revolutionary War, and they’d been underwater for more than two centuries.”
That’s pretty cool, especially them not finding the rest of a ship to go with them. Savannah would have basically been the southernmost point in the country at this point, so controlling it would be an advantage in that the enemy could only attack from the north.