A trip to the lab: It was a thrill to briefly hold a conserved Enfield rifle and see one going into a preservation tank at Georgia state park. These weapons and 18 others were found in a blockade runner wreck. The goal is to put them on exhibit

Josh Headlee prepares to place an Enfield in preservative dolution (top right); at bottom are a brass trigger guard and a piece of the wooden crate used to keep rifles in place during shipment from England (Civil War Picket photos)

There are fun days and then there are really, really fun days. Today was one of the latter.

I began my adventure by hopping into my old SUV for the leafy drive to Panola Mountain State Park near Stockbridge, Ga., below Atlanta. I was excited about finally meeting Josh Headlee, curator and historic preservation specialist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

We have stayed in touch by phone or email for nearly 13 years about a conservation project he calls “a labor of love.”

Of course, I was equally excited about seeing the fruits of that project: Two Civil War Enfield rifles that were part of a crate of 20 lost when a Confederate blockade runner ran aground in Charleston, S.C., in 1863. South Carolina divers brought them up in the late 1980s; the artifacts eventually came to Georgia, which had larger facilities to handle them.

The conservation of the rifles last year reached a significant milestone, with the first walnut stock emerging from treatment and appearing to be doing well outside a wet environment.

I had a chance to briefly hold the rifle stock this morning before we drove over to a laboratory housed in a former golf course building. Adrian Fox, interpretive ranger at Sweetwater Creek State Park, and I had the honor of watching Headlee dip the second gun into a preservation for a two-month bath (Picket video, above).

The British-made weapons have been displayed for nearly 15 years in a 300-gallon aquarium at Sweetwater Creek State Park in Douglas County as corrosive salts are removed. Headlee, who cleans the tank a couple times a year, chose guns 9 and 10 as the first to be treated with a preservative.

Visitors to Sweetwater Creek – about 50 miles from Panola Mountain - are a bit puzzled when they first see the aquarium, said Fox and Headlee. After all, shouldn’t it contain fish or turtles? And the mass of guns, a crate and lead lining appear to be a jumble.

Park employees tell them the gun cache is inherently interesting.

Rifles in aquarium at Sweetwater Creek State Park; below a replica used to provide context (Georgia DNR)

“It gives folks a rare glimpse to see historic preservation in action,” Fox told me. Staffers often hold a replica rifle near the tank to help them visualize what’s inside.

Conservation is a long process, so there is no timetable on when the weapons  – which have been in salt or freshwater for 163 years -- are completed. And there has been no decision on where they might be exhibited, finally free of a watery environment.

Headlee says Fort McAllister State Park below Savannah might be appropriate, given the Rebel blockade runner CSS Nashville was sunk there by the Union ironclad USS Montauk.

Blockade runner wreck served up a treasure

The Pattern 1853 Enfields were carried by the blockade runner CSS Stono and were bound for Charleston, S.C., in 1863. The rifles, stored in a wooden crate, were placed in an alternating butt-to-muzzle pattern, and blocks were used to prevent the weapons from shifting. 

The Stono, laden with precious arms, munitions and goods from Europe, ran aground on a submerged sandbar off Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor while trying to evade Federal ships.

The crate likely took a hard fall, breaking a few rifles, according to Headlee. (Picket video above and photo, right, of conserved rifle, piece of crate)

Saltwater destroyed most of the iron components, including barrels, locks and bayonets. The trigger guards, butt plates and nose caps at the end of the barrels are made of brass and are still intact.

Interestingly, the nose cap is the only metal piece still attached to the wooden stock of the treated rifle. It appears to be riveted in place and conservators don't want to risk breaking the fragile stock to remove it for treatment. 

Officials did not initially know how many of the highly prized Pattern 1853 rifles were inside, their position or condition. 

Each weapon originally weighed about 9 pounds and was approximately 53 inches long. The bore is .577-caliber. 

The treated rifle I hoisted weighed probably half of that, because much of the metal (iron) had corroded away.

The brass pieces survived. The iron, not so much

Adrian Fox and Josh Headlee with untreated rifle, gun parts and piece of crate (Picket photo)

The craftsmanship involved in the manufacture of the guns was very good, Headlee previously said. “Enfield was top quality.” It was the second-most widely used infantry weapon in the Civil War after the Springfield.

The 1851 and 1853 Enfields, made for the British army, were an important technological advance from smoothbore to rifled muskets, increasing the accuracy and distance.

At least one of the weapons bears the mark, “T. Turner,” a reference to well-known English gunmaker Thomas Turner, who turned out quality weapons in the mid-19^th century.

Iron in barrel (left) and ramrod area (right) of treated gun are gone; at center is the end of the stock where brass butt plate was attached (Picket photos; click to enlarge)

A tin and lead lining that sealed the cargo from salt air and ensured the rifles were not tampered with is in bad condition. Officials are not sure how much of that can be salvaged for display. The wooden lid to the box did survive and is resting in a freshwater tank with other components.

But there is a silver lining to all of this: Components made of brass withstood the onslaught of corrosive saltwater.

Iron or steel screws holding the butt plates in place deteriorated over the years and the plates just slid off, said Headlee.

Conservators years ago found in the crate a bullet mold, tools and tampions -- cork and brass plugs inserted into the muzzle to ward off moisture. The team counted 20 tampions “in various states” of condition. Tampions are used on cannons and rifles to keep debris from falling into their barrels. (Picket photo, left, of tampion and other items at Panola Mountain.)

He reached out to Enfield experts in England and elsewhere about the half dozen remnants of iron bayonets found stacked together. They told him bayonets normally would be shipped in a separate box.

“Why bayonets were in this crate I have no idea,” Headlee told the Picket last year. “They are all but gone. The fact we have this much is amazing.” The pieces are about an inch and a half long.

The Enfield fired a Minie ball. No ammunition was found in the crate.

A jug of preservative and a case of nerves

Headlee in 2022 selected two rifles  to be treated with a solution made by Preservation Solutions. Conservators previously used SP-11 to treat an intact coffin found in 2013 on the edge of the marsh at Fort McAllister, a Confederate river outpost below Savannah. Results on the coffin led to use on the Enfields.

Before the chemical treatment, the rifles are kept in water, which protects their cellular structure. 

Josh Headlee pours SP-11 preserver into tank with Enfield rifle (Picket photo)

The treatment takes about two months and the rifle is turned once.

Without immersion in a preserver, pieces of wood will shrink, warp and crack.

“They could literally just fall apart,” Headlee previously told the Picket.

SP-11 is designed to displace water in the wood with preservatives that help to solidify the wood so it can be permanently exposed to the air. (At left, butt plate and other components, Picket photo)

The curator has been watching the preserved rifle to see whether there is leaching, cracking or splitting of the wood. 

He has seen no problems; a white film appeared on some of the stock as it emerged from the tank, but it was successfully cleaned off, he added.

“So far, it looks good,” Headlee said during my visit.

If the second rifle does as well as the first, another two rifles will be selected for the preservation treatment, perhaps this summer. In the meantime, he will travel back to Sweetwater Creek in the coming weeks to clean the tank and inspect and care for its contents. Fox, the interpretive ranger, said the staff there is very interested in the progress of the work.

The curator concedes he was nervous when the first gun emerged from its bath, and he will probably want to babysit the second a bit, as well.

As for me, it was exciting to see the Enfield components up close, especially the wooden block (Picket video above) that held the rifles in place when they were crated more than 160 years ago. I just imagined a craftsman cutting the grooves in which the barrels rested.

Oh, what a day.