 |
| Recovered shell (NMB); type of fuse on shell (Tyrus Tingle); pipe and bulldozer (Dylan Burnell, USACE, Charleston District) |
When you’re
dredging and then dumping two million cubic yards of sand – equal to
200,000 dump truck loads – onto a 26-mile stretch of shore, small objects are bound
to make it through to the beach.
That appears
to have been the case when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Charleston
District conducted beach renourishment in North Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Days after
that portion of the massive Grand Strand project was completed, a metal
detector enthusiast found a 20-pound Civil War-era cannonball in the popular
tourist destination. A Horry County Police Department bomb squad deemed the
shell – which had a fuse and likely black powder inside -- to be dangerous and
neutralized it.
Desirae
Gostlin, a spokesperson for North Myrtle Beach police, told the Picket
“dredging is our best guess” for the reason the ordnance ended up about a foot
deep in front of a resort at 48th Avenue S. and S. Ocean Boulevard.
 |
| General vicinity of shell discovery, overlaid on USACE dredging zone map |
The Corps
said it could not confirm the shell went through a submerged pipeline and to
the beach, where other pipes dump sand and water onto the work area. Heavy
equipment then shape and grade the sand.
“Discoveries
of historic ordnance during beach renourishment in the Charleston District are
rare, said public affairs specialist Dylan
Burnell.
Artillery
shells have turned up elsewhere in the Palmetto State. For example, a Parrott round was found in 2004 at a residential construction site in Murrells Inlet, below
Myrtle Beach.
While news
reports focused on the metal detectorist and the fate of the cannonball, I
wanted to dig into (pardon the pun) the story of the shell, which clearly was
in the area of Union naval operations during the Civil War.
Jim Legg, public archaeologist for the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA), said the shell appears to be a 32-pounder that weighed between 21 and 25 pounds. The walls were thick and most likely had a U.S. Navy watercap time fuse with an adapter for a paper fuse.
Rick Simmons,
author of “Defending South Carolina's Coast: The Civil War from Georgetown to
Little River,” said there was no Confederate artillery in the vicinity of where
the shell was presumably dredged up a few miles off North Myrtle Beach. Back
then, the coastline was sparsely populated.
So it’s
almost certain the ordnance is tied to Federal forces.
Their
targets were the constant flow of blockade runners trying to bring desperately
needed supplies to Southern ports, notably Wilmington, N.C.
The Official
Records (OR) of the conflict include numerous accounts of ships capturing or
sinking blockade runners such as the Argyle, James Bailey, Florida, Nicolai I, Vesta, Scotia and the Sue.
“The
area from Wilmington to Charleston was quite active, and with no Confederate batteries for about 40 miles in the middle, the Union was
always patrolling” near what is now called Myrtle Beach, Simmons wrote in an
email.
“My guess is
that it was artillery dropped from or fired by … a Union ship,” without
the round exploding, he said.
Tourist can't take find back home with him
A metal
detecting hobbyist from Dudley, Mass., told News 13 in Myrtle Beach he heard an
unusual sound through his headset while walking near the North Beach and Beach
Cove resorts on Feb. 7. A North Myrtle Beach police officer helped uncover the
object and the county bomb squad was called in.
“HCPD Bomb Squad transported it to a secure, secondary location to
safely neutralize it,” Horry County director of public information Thomas Bell
told the Picket. “Best determination is that the
cannonball dates back to 1850-1860. It was 20 lbs. with a black powder core, so
it was determined to be potentially explosive.”
The finder
told the local TV station he believes the shell belongs to him because he found
it on public property and it has been rendered safe. (At left, authorities at the scene; photo NMB Police)
City and
county officials disagreed. People cannot possess explosive devices in South
Carolina without proper permits, said Gostlin.
“Although it
would definitely be a cool relic to own, the cannonball was not taken home by
anyone,” North Myrtle Beach Police said in a Facebook post. “Whether an item is
historic or not, if it’s suspected to be explosive, it must be treated as live
until professionals determine otherwise. Public safety always comes first.”
Bell said
county police cannot release military munitions to the public, even upon
demolition. The remains of the shell, he added, will be sent to Shaw Air Force
Base.
State underwater archaeologist Jim Spirek said,
unfortunately, bomb squads typically destroy ordnance if a fuse is found. “CW ordnance is quite
harmless and when proper techniques are applied (they) can be ‘inerted’ safely
and saved for study, display, etc.” He mentioned the conservation of scores of
fused artillery shells found in the wreckage of the CSS Georgia in Savannah,
Ga.
I
asked Bell whether the county considered doing the same with this artillery
round.
“HCPD places public safety as the highest priority when it
comes to such incidents. Due to the nature of the cannonball, HCPD made the
determination that disposal was the safest route,” he replied.
There weren't beachgoers back in the day
Now, back to
informed speculation about the cannonball.
Spirek, who
has conducted numerous studies of Civil War shipwrecks, echoed Simmons’
assertion there were no Yankee or Rebel batteries erected along this specific stretch
of the South Carolina coastline.
“Perhaps a small sailing vessel
was coming/in out when spotted by a Union warship on patrol that took a pot
shot or two at the vessel, or even at a Confederate cavalry patrol. If dredged
farther off the coast, then perhaps a shell from one of the running chases
between Union blockaders and Confederate blockade runners,” the archaeologist
wrote in an email.
 |
| Locations of two Rebel forts overlaid on current U.S. Geological Survey map; click to enlarge |
Simmons, who has written numerous books and teaches writing
and history at the Georgetown (S.C.) School of Arts and Sciences, described the
wartime scenario in the region.
The Union navy shelled
Fort Ward at Murrells Inlet relentlessly in late 1862 and early 1863. Above
that, Fort Randall was positioned at Little River right near the North Carolina
border. (Below, the Union's USS Monticello)
“In between
you had a long 40-mile stretch of.....nothing. Technically, that whole area from above
Georgetown to the North Carolina line is a big island, and if you think
about it there are bridges that access the Grand Strand now in Georgetown,
leading into Myrtle, and up at OD/North Myrtle. But at the time, it was
difficult to get across as there were no real bridges.”
Only Murrells
Inlet and Little River were ports, hence the two small, three-gun batteries at
those locations.
“There were a
few light artillery companies that floated around the district such as the
Waccamaw Light Artillery and Santee Light Artillery and others, but while they
did engage Union ships on occasion once they entered the rivers (such as the
Black, Sampit, Pee Dee, Waccamaw), I don't recall ever seeing anything
about them trying to engage Union ships along the coast,” Simmons wrote.
So that puts
Federal gunfire on a blockade runner as the most likely scenario for the
artifact.
Simmons first
thought perhaps it was related to the long chase of the blockade runner
Margaret and Jesse in 1863. The USS Nansemond and other vessels captured the
vessel in the vicinity and likely opened fire. The author now says they may
have nabbed the prize farther out to sea.
How the dredge may have sent round to shore
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced one day before
the discovery of the artillery shell it had completed the North Myrtle Beach
phase of the beach renourishment. Work on Myrtle Beach follows. (You can follow
the project at this tracker)
“The $72 million project is fully funded
by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is designed to reduce the risk to life
and protect critical infrastructure behind the dunes along the Grand Strand,”
the agency said.
I asked Burnell, the spokesperson for the Charleston
District, to describe the process, given my curiosity about how the cannonball
may have made its way ashore.
Basically, a
dredge loosens sand and pumps it through a pipeline to the beach. The system
transports dredged material (a mixture of sand and water) from the offshore
borrow area to the shoreline.
“If an object
is within the borrow area and small enough to pass through the system, it could
be transported with the sand. However, we cannot confirm that this occurred in
this instance,” Burnell said. (At left, another view of the shell; North Myrtle Beach Police)
At the end of
the pipeline, a deflector directs the material into a temporary containment
dike. Within the dike, the sand-water slurry spreads out, allowing the sand to
settle while the excess water gradually drains back toward the ocean.
After
sufficient dewatering occurs, bulldozers and other heavy equipment shape and
grade the sand in accordance with the project’s engineered template, restoring
the beach to its designed elevation and profile.
 |
| Pipelines used to distribute sand on the shore at North Myrtle Beach (Dylan Burnell, USACE) |
Burnell said
the USACE wasn’t involved with the discovery of the cannonball or
investigation.
Still, it has
some advice.
“We
appreciate the public’s vigilance and encourage anyone who encounters a
suspicious object on the beach to avoid handling it and notify local
authorities.”
 |
| Artillery shell after bomb squad set off small explosion to disarm (North Myrtle Beach Police) |
