What happened to USS Keokuk’s Other Dahlgren?
The cannon at left is one of two 11-inch Dahlgrens salvaged by the Confederates and added to the defenses of Charleston harbor. However, this cannon is not the Dahlgren currently on display very near where this picture was taken. National Archives photo no. 165-C-799.
In the early 2010s Long Bay Salvage recovered at least six heavy cannon - I believe all 10-inch Confederate Columbiads from the wreck of the schooner Philadelphia. The Philadelphia sank in 1877 about 20 miles off of Cape Romain, South Carolina. Apparently this ship was laden with old railroad iron and 26 “Columbiads and seacoast guns” which had been purchased in Charleston and were being taken north for scrapping. The wreck was rediscovered in the 1990s. One of the recovered Columbiads, after preservation, was purchased for Fort Macon and is now on display there.
Photo from the Facebook page of the “Friends of Fort Macon” showing the recovered Columbiad being placed on a reproduction carriage at the Fort in 2017.
An article in the Spring/Summer 2017 newsletter “Fort Macon Ramparts” describes the story of how they acquired their Columbiad. Link to the article.
A YouTube video about the salvage efforts can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Qv45IpCTs
I have not been able to find reports of any additional guns being salvaged from the wreck. I am sure the expense to the salvor is high, and I can’t imagine there is a huge market for 13,000 to 16,000 pound cannon which must be sold at the price of a luxury car to recoup the costs of the salvage, but I wonder what else is down there? More Columbiads? Brookes? Something else?
This 11-inch Dahlgren from USS Keokuk was placed at Fort Sumter and then Battery Bee (near Fort Moultrie) during the war. It was only moved to its present location at White Point Garden in 1900. So, whatever happened to the other Keokuk gun mounted at White Point Garden during the war?
Model of USS Keokuk on display at Fort Sumter. Each of the two casemates held an 11-inch Dahlgren. One is on display at White Point Garden. The other is lost.
Finding out about this salvage effort made me wonder, is the Keokuk's other 11-inch Dahlgren 20 miles off the South Carolina Coast? Both of USS Keokuk's Dahlgrens were recovered by the Confederate defenders of Charleston after that ship sank in April of 1863 following damage sustained during the US Navy's attack on April 7th, 1863. One was initially mounted at Fort Sumter. Later in the war it was moved to the Battery at White Point Garden. According to Ripley's "Artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War", this Dahlgren was 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. Years later it was found and mounted in its present position" at White Point Garden (Ripley, pg. 97). I am interested in Dahlgrens generally, and that Keokuk/Battery Bee/White Point Garden Dahlgren is to me the most interesting of them. The likelihood that the other Dahlgren was scrapped seemed unfortunate but hardly unsurprising given the vast majority of Civil War artillery pieces were scrapped in the years after the war or in the scrap drives of the Second World War.
Another view of the same three guns at White Point Garden. The now lost Dahlgren from USS Keokuk is at left.
Library of Congress Photo LC-USZ62-90584
And that was what I thought until recently when I read about the story of the Fort Macon Columbiad, and I began to wonder if the second Dahlgren from Keokuk might possibly still exist and yet be able to be recovered, preserved, and put on display. Here’s to hoping!
