Study begins on Confederate ironclad at Savannah River bottom

SAVANNAH - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began this week to investigate how to save the remains of the ironclad CSS Georgia from the depths of the Savannah River. <br> <br> What is left of the boat now lies in the path of a planned $200 million expansion of Savannah Harbor. The cost of excavating its remains, salvage artifacts and stabilize whatever archaeologists leave on the bottom could run as high as $13.4 million. <br> <br> The wreck lies in 35 feet of water downstream from Savannah. Sonar readings have shown that the ironclad is collapsing and might be slowly sliding into the ship channel. <br> <br> ``Basically, we want to have a plan for the CSS Georgia,&#39;&#39; said Col. Roger Gerber, the corps&#39; Savannah district commander. ``We want to know what we need to do to preserve her and how best to get it done.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Using sonar and other devices, archaeologists from the corps, the National Park Service and the U.S. Navy&#39;s Naval Historical Center hope in the next few months to piece together the first accurate picture of the wreckage. <br> <br> ``They won&#39;t be excavating, but there will be a lot of mapping and probing,&#39;&#39; corps archaeologist Judy Wood says. ``If the harbor-deepening project goes forward, we could be working on the Georgia for the next five or six years.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The Georgia effort follows the raising of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley two years ago from Charleston harbor. The turret of the USS Monitor was recovered off Cape Hatteras this summer. <br> <br> The Georgia was one of three Confederate ironclads built in Savannah after the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack, off Hampton Roads, Va., in 1862. <br> <br> The ship originally was a U.S. revenue cutter that had been seized at the start of the war. Local carpenters and railroad workers rebuilt it and armored it with 500 tons of iron. <br> <br> On its maiden voyage, it ran aground three miles downstream and remained there for the rest of the war. But its cannons were enough to deter a naval attack on the city. <br> <br> In 1864, the Georgia was scuttled by Confederate sailors when Sherman&#39;s troops entered the city. <br> <br> In 1968, it was struck by a dredge deepening the shipping channel. The dredge broke. The Georgia got a ``hazard&#39;&#39; icon on navigation maps and a listing in the National Register of Historic Places.