11-Inch Dahlgren preserved at White Point Garden in Charleston, SC — 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 235 of USS Keokuk preserved at White Point Garden in Charleston, SC

On the morning of April 8th, 1863, USS Keokuk, battered and leaking badly from the many shot which had passed through her hull and turrets on the 7th, sank about 1,300 yards off of Morris Island. US Navy efforts to destroy the wreck failed, but she was thought to be unsalvageable.

The ship itself was unsalvageable, but Keokuk's two 11-Inch Dahlgrens would be a significant prize to the defenders of Charleston whose batteries mounted nothing larger than a 10-Inch Columbiad or 7-Inch Brooke. However, only the tops of the ship's turrets were visible, and then only at low tide. If the blockading ships noticed an attempt being made, the firepower of the Federal fleet would be directed at those making the attempt.

Civilian engineers Adolphus W. LaCoste and his brother James C. Lacoste were eventually chosen to lead the effort. All work had to be done at night in the two hours or so that the tide allowed. No light could be used or noise made which would give away their efforts.

John Johnson wrote the book "The Defense of Charleston Harbor" in the late 1880s and interviewed some of the participants in this salvage. Johnson wrote, "with slippery footing on the tops or roofing of the turrets, constantly awash with the swell of the ocean breaking over them, their scant clothing kept wet with salt spray, and no light allowed them, the mechanics bend themselves to the work. The first turret is attacked with sledge and chisel, wrench and crowbar, for nothing less than the removal of a large section of the roof with satisfy them, sufficient to allow the lifting and free passage of a gun thirteen feet five inches long, nearly three feet in diameter at the breech, and weighing sixteen thousand pounds."

"Two thicknesses of inch or inch and a half iron, held up by girders of the same material set close together, and ceiled on the underside with one thickness of iron plate, constituted the first obstacles to be overcome. Besides the upper and lower plating, three of the heavy girders had to be cut through, each in two places, and removed. Then the gun, seen below in its carriage, mostly under water, could not be made ready for lifting until two massive cap-squares of brass confining it to the carriage were cut and wrenched out of place. The elevating screw, removed from the cascabel, gives place to a strong rope or hawser passed through the cascabel and wrapped around the breech of the gun with lashing sufficient to sling it to the hoisting tackle."

As Johnson describes, the final effort involved bringing an hulk to the scene, heavy timbers protruding from its bows by which the cannons could be hoisted out of the turrets. The ironclad gunboat CSS Chicora was brought up to cover the effort, which nearly didn't succeed as the timbers on the bows of the hulk were not quite high enough above the water to pull the full thirteen feet of the tube out of the turret, even with ballast moved aft in the hulk - the tube finally emerging when "a friendly wave" lifted the vessel just high enough.

By May 6th the papers in Charleston could announce that both Dahlgrens had been recovered and would be added to the defenses. (For a far fuller account, please look for John Johnson's "The Defense of Charleston Harbor: Including Fort Sumter and the Adjacent Islands, 1863-1865". It is freely available digitally.)

The story is also very well told in P.C. Coker's "Charleston’s Maritime Heritage 1670-1865" - a favorite book from my father's collection which did much to spark my interest in maritime history. Mr. Coker commissioned noted maritime artist Tom Freeman to paint several scenes for his book, including the one included in the Facebook version of this post found here.

Once the two Dahlgrens were brought ashore, one was initially mounted at Fort Sumter. Later in the war it was moved to the Battery at White Point Garden on the tip of Charleston's peninsula. According to Ripley's "Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War", this Dahlgren is thought to have been sold for scrap after the war. The other was mounted at Battery Bee near Fort Moultrie. Again according to Ripley, the Battery Bee Dahlgren was "left in position on its carriage which eventually rotted, dumping the piece in the island sand which soon drifted over it." The Battery Bee Dahlgren was taken from the sands of Sullivan’s Island and placed in its present location at White Point Garden (Ripley, pg. 97).

The 11-Inch Dahlgren now at White Point Garden was manufactured by Cyrus Alger and Company in 1862. It is US Navy registry number 235, and as manufactured it weighed 15,960 pounds. Around 1899 it was brought to White Point Garden as the city sought to recreate, in symbolic form, the wartime battery there. It is mounted alongside two 10-Inch Columbiads, all mounted on carriages intended for 10-Inch Rodmans. Those carriages seem to have been taken from those at Fort Moultrie - where the Rodmans can still be seen - mounted now on concrete pedestals.

Generations of Charleston children, myself included, have climbed upon this cannon which was once part of the most powerful ironclad squadron that the world had ever seen - and which became one of the most powerful cannons defending Charleston from subsequent attack.

If you find yourself in Charleston, make your way to White Point Garden, it is not only a beautiful park surrounded by historic homes and overlooking the harbor, it is an exceptional outdoor museum.