Wanted: A Photo Of This Confederate Battleship

Have you seen this photo? That’s what archaeologists working on the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project want to know.

"This is believed to be one of the only existing photographs of the CSS Georgia,” Julie Morgan, lead archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Savannah District. She’s working to recover the remains of the Confederate Civil War ship. “It’s a photo of a photograph, so that kind of explains the poor quality.”

In 1864, Confederates abandoned and sank the ironclad ship near Fort Jackson as General William T. Sherman’s Union Army advanced on the city. It’s now at the bottom of the Savannah River.

The Army Corps of Engineers is removing the wreckage of the CSS Georgia as one of the first steps toward deepening the Savannah Harbor.

Morgan says the photo surfaced at a flea market in Waycross, Ga., about a decade ago. She says a naval historian spotted the photo and snapped a picture, but was unable to persuade the owner to sell it. Now, Corps officials want to track down the original photo to get a clearer idea of how the CSS Georgia looked in the 1860s.

“We don’t have any existing drawings or plans, so if this is the Georgia, this gives us the best idea of what she did look like,” Morgan says.

In addition to a grainy picture of what appears to be a battleship, the photo also includes a shadowy picture of an unknown person in the lower right corner.

Anyone with information is asked to email the Corps at cesas-cco@usace.army.mil or call (912)652-5777.

Tags: CSS Georgia, Army Corps of Engineers, wreckage of confederate ship, trying to find original photo of confederate ship