First of 20 Enfield rifles to be preserved emerges from wood treatment at Georgia lab. After 160 years in water, weapon made for South appears to be doing fine

Right side of treated rifle, bottom portion, nose cap at end of barrel, two rifles chosen for treatment (Georgia DNR)

Conservation in Georgia of 20 Enfield rifles has reached a significant milestone, with the first walnut stock emerging from treatment and appearing to be doing well outside a wet environment.

“I was thinking about it; this is the longest this rifle has been out of water in over 160 years,” said Josh Headlee, curator and historic preservation specialist with the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

“I want to give it a little time to monitor it closely and make sure nothing bad is going to happen to it. However, I think it’s going to work. The rifle seems pretty stable,” he said.

The British-made weapons – which went down with a Confederate blockade runner in Charleston Harbor -- 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.

The stack of Enfield rifles in lining and crate at Sweetwater Creek State Park.

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.

The state’s aim is to eventually exhibit the wooden remnants of the rifles.

Lab picked two rifles for initial treatment

Headlee in 2022 selected two rifles (left, Georgia DNR) 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.

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

Without immersion in a preserver, pieces of wood will shrink, warp and crack. “They could literally just fall apart,” Headlee previously told the Picket. (Treated rifle above, Georgia DNR. View shows were the lock and hammer would have been.)

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.

The curator said he is watching the preserved rifle to see if there is leaching, cracking or splitting of the wood as it continues to dry.

If this weapon remains stable, Headlee said, the second Enfield will undergo the treatment. “We’re slowly picking the hard crusty layer off of it before we put it in the wood preserver,” he added. (Left side of the rifle, above)

The items are being treated at a facility at Panola Mountain State Park east of Atlanta.

Divers pulled up prized weapons decades ago

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, in 1863 ran aground on a submerged sandbar off Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor while trying to evade Federal ships.

An archaeological diver pulled up the box carrying the 20 rifles in the late 1980s. One end was damaged, apparently when the ship sank. Some of the Enfields were damaged.

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. (At right, treated gun, Georgia DNR. It shows were the trigger guard and assembly would have been.)

The craftsmanship involved in the manufacture of the guns was very good, Headlee previously said. “Enfield was top quality.”

The Enfield 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.

Barrel plugs called tampions remarkably survived

 A tin and lead lining that sealed the cargo from salt air and ensured the rifles were not tampered with is in bad condition.

But there is a silver lining to all of this: Components made of brass withstood the onslaught of corrosive saltwater. Conservators are still trying to determine how to treat them.

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 (above, Georgia DNR) “in various states” of condition. Tampions are used on cannons and rifles to keep debris from falling into their barrels.

Headlee finds it remarkable much of the cork used for the Enfield tampions remains.

“They were just found in a grouping. We feel like they were in a box or bag in the crate.”

A closer look at chains and bayonet remnants

The Enfields featured a nipple protector, which kept the hammer away from the firing mechanism when not in use. A chain was attached to a plug placed over the weapon’s nipple.

Headlee last year sent me a photo of one chain from the Stono guns (above, Georgia DNR). “Some of them are still on the rifles.”

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 (remnant below, Georgia DNR) were in this crate I have no idea,” Headlee said. “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.

Eventually, if all goes as hoped, the 20 rifles will go on display somewhere in the state.

“Even up to the end of the (Civil War), the Enfield rifle was kind of the M16 rifle of the day,” said Headlee. “It had been used for years and years. Bang for the buck, it was as good as any standard weapon.”

Springfield and Enfield rifles were neck and neck in effectiveness, he added. “They were like a Ford and a Chevy.”

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. 

What may USS Monitor and Jimmy Fallon have in common? Saugerties, NY. This town morphed from industrial 'Inferno' to a cool tourist spot

Postcard of the Ulster Iron Works (I Like Saugerties Facebook page)

A lighthouse is a big draw today (Courtesy of Saugerties Lighthouse)

Saugerties, New York, has all the right visuals for a gift calendar: a quaint village, vibrant art studios, horse competitions, an army of mums that bloom in the fall and a welcoming lighthouse perched on the bank of the Hudson River.

In the mid-19^th century, Ulster Iron Works -- one of its burgeoning manufacturing sites – was lauded, too, for its setting.

“The mill is very picturesquely situated below the falls of the Esopus (Creek) and when in operation, especially in the evening, it presents a very attractive appearance,” notes the 1880 “History of Ulster County, New York.”

While Saugerties today is a tourist town (and the hometown of “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon), life was somewhat gritty during Ulster Iron Works’ heyday. There were occasional problems with intoxicated workers kicking up a bit too much excitement.

By the late 1800s, said Marjorie Block, president of the Saugerties Historical Society, the town had 49 taverns.

“They actually had to pass a law in the village … a lot of the guys mining the bluestone were using dynamite. The guys were coming through with the wagons, having a few drinks before going on.” A law forbade dynamite-carrying wagons from stopping.

Remains may be of later factory (Courtesy of Saugerties Historical Society)

In his volume, Nathaniel B. Sylvester defies the dry writing one might expect in a county history, imbuing the iron mill with virile might.

“Workmen, naked to the waist, running about with great red-hot bars of iron; the flames shooting out of those tall chimneys; the weird shadows falling grotesquely around; the sharp contract between the brilliant light and the dense darkness beyond – all unite to suggest the scenes of Dante’s ‘Inferno.’”

Saugerties’ population bloomed and industry employed thousands – at iron works, lead and paper production and the excavation of bluestone for New York City’s sidewalks. But times, and tastes, changed. Those industries today are long gone. Those who trace their lineage back to pre-Revolutionary War days rub shoulders with visitors and New York City expats who decided to retire in this bucolic location. It’s a tourist town.

So it may not be surprising that many townspeople were a bit surprised when word came this spring that a small part on the famous Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was found to have the mark “ULSTER.” Officials believe an aft diagonal support brace in the turret was produced by Ulster Iron Works in Saugerties. It was the first time a maker’s mark was found in the turret.

The company, which operated from about 1827 to 1888, took advantage of iron deposits in Ulster County or ore ferried through nearby canals. For a time, it was a U.S. Navy contractor.

Some local observers say residents have little knowledge of the important industrial history of Saugerties. “The collective memory is pretty weak,” said Chester Hartwell, who maintains the “I Like Saugerties” Facebook page.

But the Ulster discovery at a museum in Newport News, Va., has brought those days to the surface.

“This has spurred an interest in the historical society and we are going to take a look at it,” said Block.

Saugerties, N.Y.: The one and only

Dutch settlers were among the first Europeans to live in this region at the base of the Catskills, some 100 miles north of New York City. British forces burned homes, barns and sloops in Saugerties during the American Revolution.

The river town of Ulster was prospering by the early 19^th century. Its name was changed in 1855 to Saugerties, the only community by that name in the United States.

Saugerties Historical Society is based in 1727  Kiersted house

A volume in the early 20th century gave the story: “The Sawyer’s Creek, or Sawkill of local maps, was the scene of an unaccountable activity on the part of a man whose name, antecedents, residence, mode of life, and fate are all unknown, yet from whom a populous town drives its appellation. The ‘Little Sawyer,’ who established himself on the bank of a stream some ten miles above Kingston and antedated the earliest settlers whose names are recorded, has been referred to in old accounts as de Zaagertje and his mill as Zaargertje’s, of which Saugerties is a simple corruption.”

In the 1820s, entrepreneur Henry Barclay established Ulster Iron Works and later a paper mill. John Simmons, an Englishman, was brought in to run the iron mill.

Audrey Klinkenberg, Saugerties town historian, said Barclay wanted a family-friendly community. “He didn’t want his men to be drunk.” He sold land for three churches that would perhaps moderate behavior.

(Courtesy of Saugerties Historical Society)

Ulster Iron Works (above) sat on the lower side of Esopus Creek in Saugerties. A dam and a long raceway cut by Erie Canal builders through rock provided water power for the mill. The mill had an annual capacity of 6,700 net tons of iron products.

Where did the raw materials come from?

Some came from ore deposits in the region. Saugerties and Kingston, downstream on the Hudson, also were transportation hubs and produced goods from coal and ore brought by canal from Pennsylvania.

The iron manufacturer was known for using European technology. A process called “double puddling” could produce appreciable amounts of high-grade bar, rod and hoop iron. Two giant wheels powered by the creek powered 13 furnaces and a hammer at Ulster Iron Works by the time it closed.

When Barclay died in 1851, a paper mill near Ulster Iron Works was taken over by the Sheffield Co., manufacturers of writing paper.

Penchant for government contracts

1875 map shows factory at tip, paper mill below (Saug. Public Library)

Ulster Iron Works records kept at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor include this summary:

“Among the factors that contributed to the success of the Ulster Iron Works was the ability of the owners of the corporation to arrange for government contracts, especially contracts with the Navy, for providing iron products for use in rockets, ships, and other materials.”

Sylvester, who wrote the county history, details the manufacture of a chain with small links for the military. It passed a series of stress tests at the Navy yard in Washington. Lore has it that the chain was so strong the machine used to test its strength broke.

Brace in USS Monitor turret (Mariners' Museum and Park)

Officials believe an aft diagonal support brace in the USS Monitor turret was produced by Ulster Iron Works. The brace is between two guns and is separate from the large turret "ring."

“While this firm was never mentioned as a supplier during the Monitor’s construction at Continental Iron Works, it is now believed that Ulster provided materials for modifications to the ship while it was undergoing sea trials at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” said the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, which houses the USS Monitor Center.

Will Hoffman, USS Monitor project manager, told the Picket his team is hypothesizing that when the ironclad was turned over to the Navy and the turret was tested, “they used Ulster to make modified parts. This makes sense, too, because the company was located just up the Hudson River.”  

The New York Times details Ulster Iron Works (Courtesy of SHS)

Klinkenberg said she had previously heard of a connection. “We’ve always had in our literature that Ulster Iron Works had made … plates for the Monitor.” Block and Hartwell said they had been unaware of Saugerties’ contribution to the ironclad.

“But it makes sense, a small industry in which everyone knows everybody,” Hartwell said.

A multicultural workforce

The Clements Library also makes this notation about Ulster Iron Works:

“In civilian applications, Ulster was an important purveyor of iron products for railroads and shipping. Also contributing to the success of the works was the unusual diligence of the owners in importing foreign technologies for use at Ulster, and in soliciting the emigration of highly skilled workmen from Welsh and English foundries to fill their employment demands, particularly during the 1830s when skilled labor was at a premium. The owners appear to have been quite successful at using high wages as a lure to skilled workers during such periods, but they were equally ruthless at cutting wages when labor was abundant.”

Remains of wall on Cantine's Island (Courtesy of SHS)

The workforce of 300-400 was a panoply of diverse European ancestry: English, Welsh, Dutch, Italian and Scots, among others. For a few decades, business was generally good, even through ownership changes.

The Saugerties Public Library's holdings on this era includes a pamphlet, “Focus on Saugerties,” mentions the demise of the company after steel, which was stronger, began to surpass iron in demand.

According to local artist Michael Sullivan Smith, author of “A Brief History of Saugerties,” the iron works was replaced in 1887 by an early experimental mill producing paper pulp from wood fiber run by William Parsons. “This, too, was replaced by a crepe paper manufacturing operation in 1914, and then by storage sheds for clay used for the paper coating operations of the Martin Cantine Co.

“We are fortunate to have Civil War era photographs of the iron works when it was in operation or there would be nothing remaining, even archaeologically, of it besides the slag used to even out the rugged terrain of the village over the years,” Smith told the Picket. He is involved with the Friends of Historic Saugerties group.

Courtesy of I Like Saugerties Facebook page

An 1891 newspaper letter to the edit about the Ulster Iron Works’ demise is both funny and sad.

The second or third owner, William Mulligan, sold it in 1886 below value to William R. Sheffield. George R. Matthews, who was involved in the transaction, wrote in the Daily Post: “I have not said that William R. Sheffield made Mr. Mulligan drunk, but I do say that Mr. Mulligan was taken to Sheffield’s house sober, and he came away from there very drunk, and during that time the mill was sold.”

Within two years, the mill was closed and 300 people were without a job. Many had worked in the mills for as long as 50 years. “They were nearly all compelled to seek homes elsewhere,” wrote Matthews, describing the whole business as “a great wrong.”

Hospitality rules roost today

By the early to mid-20^th century, other businesses were taking hold in Ulster County. IBM’s plants were mainstays in the region, but a major financial loss in 1992 led to numerous layoffs.

The Ulster County Office of Economic Development today touts a strategic location to population centers in the Northeast, an educated workforce, “four-season living” and aggressive business incentive programs.

Manufacturing accounts for only 8 percent of a diversified business sector. That’s well behind leisure and hospitality (16 percent), which reflects Saugerties, a town of about 20,000, being a tourist mecca.

Block, of the historical society, said Saugerties has a strong tie to the Hudson River.

“I think it is a way of life. The river in the past brought us industry and helped build the town. Now it is used recreationally,” she said. “It seems everything leads to the river.”

Opus 40 is made of bluestone (Courtesy of SHS)

Officials point to a host of attractions, among them: Opus 40, a large bluestone sculpture that artist Harvey Fite spent decades building; Seamon Park; Horses in the Sun, part of a large circuit that includes show jumping; a garlic festival; Esopus Bend Nature Preserve; and the Saugerties Lighthouse.

(National Archives)

The lighthouse can be reached by a 1/2-mile trail. “The other lighthouses in the mid-Hudson Valley remain isolated islands in the river, while ours is unique with land access,” said keeper Patrick Landewe.

The nonprofit Saugerties Lighthouse Conservancy restored the lighthouse and a bed and breakfast helps fund preservation efforts.

Hartwell, who grew up on Long Island and has lived in Saugerties for 15 years, touts the arts scene in a network of area cities. Years ago, he worked at the famous Woodstock Playhouse. Woodstock is about 12 miles west of Saugerties. “A lot of bohemians in the ‘20s would make hippies seem tame,” he said.

Jimmy Fallon at a local event (Saugerties Historical Society)

Fallon, of “The Tonight Show,” attended Saugerties High School and earlier this year donated $100,000 to the school. He has made numerous fond references to the town during his career.

In 2016, Fallon interviewed musician Robbie Robertson of the Band, and Saugerties got a mention. A home dubbed “Big Pink” in West Saugerties was the setting for Bob Dylan’s and the Band’s “Basement Tapes” sessions in 1967. Robertson said the house is where the group found its sound.

‘A rich, rich history’

Hartwell said the well-preserved main street, other venues and events have expanded Saugerties’ reach beyond weekenders. Retirees and others, many from New York City, have moved to this corner of Upstate New York.

Block, of the historical society, said her family has been in the area since 1680. She describes Saugerties as eclectic. “This community has a rich, rich history.”

Cantine's Island Cohousing (Courtesy of SHS)

Ulster Iron Works is long gone. Across Esopus Creek is the Diamond Mills Hotel. On the site of the iron and paper mill are The Mill at Saugerties, a housing complex, and Cantine’s Island Cohousing, which promotes a collective lifestyle.

Eighteen private households live on Cantine’s Island’s 10 acres, sharing management and work needed for the property’s upkeep.

“By design, folks must walk by their neighbor’s homes when they leave or return. There is a parking lot located outside of the green. In cohousing tradition, this arrangement encourages interaction with neighbors.”

Inside the CSS Georgia's armor: Without preferred rolled plate, railroad iron had to do

(USACE, Savannah District)

I’ve researched and written about the Confederacy’s CSS Georgia for years, noting that the vessel had armor made of railroad iron. But I never really pictured what the outer layer of its casemates might have looked like – until recently.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Savannah office, in charge of removing the wreckage in the Savannah River as part of a massive harbor deepening project, released a photograph of a cross section of one of the three casemate chunks remaining on the river bottom.

There they are. Five sliced pieces of T-shaped railroad track wedged in an iron box, corrosion and river sediment filling the gaps. Wow.

It seems almost everything about the CSS Georgia -- which lacked the locomotion to fight the enemy in open water, and instead became a floating battery defending the city – is currently up for study: Exactly how long was the ironclad? How did its propulsion system work? How was the casemate, which housed the Georgia’s guns, put together?

The CSS Georgia was believed to have about 24 inches of pine and oak beneath her iron cladding. Historians and archaeologists are eager to see how all of that was held together. They don’t have blueprints from which to work.

(USACE)

Alvin N. Miller’s machine and shipbuilding business in Savannah produced the “one-off” CSS Georgia in 1862. Estimates on the vessel's length range from 150 to 250 feet.

Bob Holcombe, a naval historian living in Columbus, Ga., said the builders relied on railroad iron for armor because that’s what was available.

Most Confederate ironclads were armored with rolled plate.

“Rolled plate was considered stronger than railroad iron. Railroad iron was used as an expedient,” Holcombe told the Picket. “It was readily available and it did not have to go through the process of being heated and rolled flat; indeed, there were only a couple of rolling mills in the Confederacy capable of rolling 2-inch plate: Tredegar in Richmond and Schofield & Markham in Atlanta.”

What does that mean in battle?

The CSS Georgia, with its casemates at a nearly 45-degree pitch, likely would have stood up to smaller artillery pieces. But, the 11-inch 15-inch Dahlgren might be another matter.

Commenters on the Legacy of the USS Monitor Facebook page have been discussing the photograph of the railroad iron, asserting that the CSS Georgia would have been vulnerable to the Passaic class of Union monitors.

One cites the testing by Texas A&M University on a section of casemate brought up from the CSS Georgia in late 2013. An 8-inch section of rail featured “relatively large impurity inclusions,” an indication of some weakness in the iron.

Holcombe said the Arkansas, Manassas and Louisiana were among the Confederate ironclads fitted with railroad iron armor.

“After the (CSS) Atlanta was pounded by the monitors off Savannah the Confederate States Navy started adding additional plate, which seems to have better resisted the 15-inch guns.”

Cross-section of CSS Georgia rail (USACE)

While some material from the CSS Georgia was recovered after the war, four artillery pieces, parts of the propeller and propulsion system, a boiler and three casemates remain in the swift, dark waters, according to a CNN article. One of the casemates is huge: 68 feet by 24 feet.

Divers have begun preliminary work and recovery; the larger pieces are expected to be brought up in the spring and summer.

The Corps of Engineers said previous recovery efforts, the absence of the lower hull and extensive damage from dredging many years ago will hinder their effort to give a full picture of the CSS Georgia’s operations, which ended in December 1864 when her crew scuttled her as Federal forces rushed to the city.

Still, archaeologists and others want to glean as much as they can during and after the $15 million recovery.

“A detailed examination of the surviving elements of the casemate might support the hypothesis that it was designed to accommodate standard lengths of available iron,” the Corps says on its new website on the CSS Georgia. “Documentation of the rails … could provide evidence that would identify different types of rail used and provide insight into the companies that supplied that material.”

The Corps is not sure all of the casemate can be brought up intact, given most of the wood that held it the vessel is long gone. The wreck site includes disjointed pieces of railroad near the casemates.

Holcombe, who has studied the CSS Georgia and followed developments, said the reason for vessel’s lack of motive power “is the $64,000 question and one I don't think can be fully answered until the machinery comes up and, hopefully, some sections of the hull.

“My gut feeling is that it has more to do with machinery issues and/or hull design than weight of armor, but until everything comes up and is examined it's just a guess.”

Wreck site in the Savannah River (USACE)