CIVIL WAR MONITOR TECUMSE RECOVERY PLANNED

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe national armed forces Museum Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution is planning to recover and restore the Civil War Union Monitor TECUMSEH from the bottom of Mobile Bay. TECUMSEH was sunk in 1864 during a Union Naval Force attack on this, the last major Confederate seaport in the Gulf of Mexico. The Smithsonian Institution, with assistance from the U.S. Navy's Supervisor of Salvage Office, found the hull in 1967 in an inverted position, buried in mud. Analysis of metal and wood samples and artifacts removed in 1968 found the hull and its contents to be in remarkably good condition. The author, with volunteer a distance from various members of the Supervisor of Salvage Office and the Naval Ship Engineering Center, has developed a general recovery plan and has built models of TECUMSEH, the salvage site in Mobile Bay, and the salvage equipment to demonstrate the recovery plan.On the morning of the 5th of August 1864, a Union Naval Force with the monitor TECUMSEH in the lead, attacked the Confederate forts protecting Mobile Bay, While under heavy fire from Fort Morgan on Mobile Point, TECUMSEH sighted the Confederate ram TENNESSEE attempting to intercept Admiral David G. Farragut's flagship, HARTFORD. TECUMSEH's Commanding Officer, Commander T. A. Craven, changed course to attack the Confederate ship, disregarding the known torpedo