While searching for some Vicksburg-related images at the Naval History and Heritage Command website today, I came across this photo from salvage operations for the USS Cairo. The Cairo hit a mine in the Yazoo River on December 12, 1862, and went down in 12 minutes in 36 feet of water with no casualties.
In 1959, Ed Bearss, historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, along with colleagues Warren Grabau and Don Jacks, located the Cairo, and salvage efforts began the following year. The full ship came up in late 1964, but prior to that, archeologists salvaged a number of items. The naval cannon, photographed above, was salvaged in 1961. Ed Bearss, in the white shirt, kneels in the front row.
The photo, taken by Ed McHale for the Vicksburg Evening Post, was captioned: “
The series features several other images of various groups of men clustered around the same cannon.
My ECW colleague Dwight Hughes turned me on to the marvelous–and overlooked–collection at Naval History and Heritage Command. We tapped into it extensively for Civil War on the Water, part of the ECW 10th Anniversary Series. They have a ton of photos from the Cairo’s salvage operations, so if you want to see more, click here and search “Cairo + salvage operations.” (https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography.html)
For more on the story of the Cairo and its salvage, visit Vicksburg National Military Park’s Cairo page.
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