What Happened To 'Em Part II
Congress and Cumberland
I know what everyone's thinking...we know what happened to 'em, Rob...they got sunk!
Yeah, but what happened to the wrecks? Are they still on the bottom of Hampton Roads? Is anything left of 'em?
USS Congress: We'll start with the easiest of the two to deal with...U.S.S. Congress.
After sinking USS Cumberland on March 8, 1862, Virginia engaged USS Congress, ultimately setting her on fire with hot shot. Congress burned for hours before the flames reached her magazines sometime around midnight, give or take an hour or so. That's when she exploded...spectacularly, I might add. Then her still burning hulk, which had burned to the waters edge, slid off of the sand bar stern first and went to the bottom. But the question is, what happened to the wreck?
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| Virginia leaves U S S Congress burning after lighting her off with hot shot. |
This ones an easy one. Congress sat on the bottom until September 1865, when her guns and fittings were salvaged. Most of her hull was then raised and towed up the Elizabeth River to Norfolk Navy Yard, right past the wreck of her nemesis CSS Virginia. Her burned out hulk was sold for scrap and she was broken up for the valuable undamaged timbers below her water line, the metal supports for her masts, and any other valuable components left undamaged. Also, some of her sails were apparently stored below, far enough below decks to be undamaged by the fire as they were used to make a memorial flag.
Because Congress sank in shallower water than Cumberland, salvage crews were able to build a cofferdam around the wreck and pump the water out in order to examine it in further detail. They determined that when her magazienes exploded it damaged her hull far too badly to even think about tryig to raise her in one piece Therefore she was only partially salvaged, with part of her hull left on the bottom
Ok, some of her was still at the wreck site after the salvage operation. You have to keep in mind, though, the fact that she was raised almost 150 years ago so even though they left part of her hull on the bottom when they raised her there's likely very little if anything left at her wreck site today. With all the dredging that goes on in Hampton Roads, not to mention the constriction of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel right next to the wreck site, what little bit of her that may have been left on the bottom is very likely long-gone.
Ok, some of her was still at the wreck site after the salvage operation. You have to keep in mind, though, the fact that she was raised almost 150 years ago so even though they left part of her hull on the bottom when they raised her there's likely very little if anything left at her wreck site today. With all the dredging that goes on in Hampton Roads, not to mention the constriction of the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel right next to the wreck site, what little bit of her that may have been left on the bottom is very likely long-gone.
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| Satellite image of the wreck sites straddling the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel. The Congress site was marked on the image...I had to guestimate Cumberland';s location, which might be a further out |
USS Cumberland: Cumberland, of course, also met her demise at the hands of CSS Virginia on March 8th, 1862, going down with all flags flying. According to a report made about 10 days after her sinking, she ended up about 2400 feet off of and perpendicular to the shoreline in about 65 feet of water with her masts visible and tilted at about 45 degrees. It was even suggested strongly at the time that she could not only be salvaged, but raised and repaired as her hull really wasn't damaged that badly.
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| Cumberland as she appeared a few days after her sinking |
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| The wreck site today, from just about the same angle and location. If this was taken from where I think it was taken from, it's the only small...and I'm talking tiny... area near the wreck site that looks this rural and secluded. The huge expanse of the Norfolk International Terminal is just to the right, and a long pier is just hidden behind the trees on the right side of the picture. |
I have a feeling that her masts were removed fairly soon after her sinking as a hazard to navigation. I couldn't find anything that confirmed it, but removing obstructions that could be put another ship on the bottom at the same spot would just make sense.
Cumberland hasn't been lonely in her watery grave. In fact she's had pretty high class company for the past century and a half or so but her wreck had nothing to do with the sunken ship that's been keeping her company. Politics and possible shenanigans, however, very definitely did. The Commerce Raider CSS Florida sank almost right next to her in November 1864 after being captured by the U.S. Navy and taken to Hampton Roads. Florida was at anchor and sank after a collision with a troop ferry that occurred under very questionable circumstances. Hell, the very fact that she was in Hampton Roads in the first place was more than a little questionable. Yeah, I think we'll take a more detailed look at CSS Florida and her fate in a later article! But I digress...Back to USS Cumberland!
Cumberland hasn't been lonely in her watery grave. In fact she's had pretty high class company for the past century and a half or so but her wreck had nothing to do with the sunken ship that's been keeping her company. Politics and possible shenanigans, however, very definitely did. The Commerce Raider CSS Florida sank almost right next to her in November 1864 after being captured by the U.S. Navy and taken to Hampton Roads. Florida was at anchor and sank after a collision with a troop ferry that occurred under very questionable circumstances. Hell, the very fact that she was in Hampton Roads in the first place was more than a little questionable. Yeah, I think we'll take a more detailed look at CSS Florida and her fate in a later article! But I digress...Back to USS Cumberland!
Salvage work started on Cumberland as soon as the war ended with several firms sending proposals to the navy and one bid for $48,000 actually being accepted. The company that made the successful bid, however, rethought their proposal after examining the wreck more closely and backed out, never to be heard from again. Two other firms pulled the same stunt and further salvage of the wreck was held off until the Summer of 1865.
Again the original plan was to raise her, tow her to Norfolk Navy Yard, and scrap her after everything useful had been stripped off of her. Hey, they managed to raise most of Congress after she burned and exploded, and Cumberland went down in one piece...she'd be easy to raise!
Again the original plan was to raise her, tow her to Norfolk Navy Yard, and scrap her after everything useful had been stripped off of her. Hey, they managed to raise most of Congress after she burned and exploded, and Cumberland went down in one piece...she'd be easy to raise!
Guess again. Cumberland’s wreck went down in the middle of the main channel where the current ran at a constant two or so knots, moving the bottom sand around at will and consequently filling Cumberland's hull with several hundred tons of the stuff. They didn't have vacuum dredges back in 1865 so, with raising her both economically and technologically unfeasible, on the bottom she stayed. They did salvage her guns and some of her fittings, and possibly something else, a little item that generated lots...and lots...and lots of interest and speculation back then and still does to this day.
When she went down a chest containing some $40,000 worth of gold coin, the payroll for the crews of the Union ships involved in the blockade of Hampton Roads, supposedly went down with her. In case you don't have an inflation calculator handy, I did the math. That's a shade over half a million dollars in today's money. Yeah, that just might have generated a bit of curiosity, interest, and such.
This chest was located in the Paymasters stateroom deep within the bowels of the ship, and required some seriously dangerous operations to even attempt to reach. Remember, this was the mid to late 1800s and diving technology wasn't all that well developed, ditto equipment for working and actually seeing anything beneath the surface. One firm blew a hole in her stern and worked their way forward towards the Paymasters cabin under dangerous conditions and with little or no visibility. One of their divers was actually pulled out of the wreck unconscious on a couple of occasions. (IMHO, that guy used his entire quota of luck up in those two or three dives. If a diver gets trapped in a shipwreck today, with all of the modern technology we have at our disposal, his chances of survival are not all that good. They were all but nil in the 1860s).
The wild thing is, all of it was for nothing because none of the teams that went after the chest ever found it. Records actually indicated that the chest was removed during the earliest salvage attempts in 1865, and that even then it may have been empty or nearly so as the pay had likely already been distributed. Any content found in the chest, of course, would have reverted back to the Treasury Dept. Word of the recovery of the chest wasn't spread widely at all, thus interest in the chest continued well into the 20th century, with the Navy getting inquiries about it into the 1970s.
The wreck was forgotten after the initial salvage and rush of treasure hunting, at least it was until one day in 1909 when the British steamer Queen Wilhelmina's anchor stopped dead when they tried to raise it. They tried using the steam powered anchor windlass to pull the anchor free of whatever had it but all it did was strain futily without budging the anchor another inch. I'm guessing that when the windlass actually began pulling the bow down and over...or maybe when it started making really nasty, expensive sounding noises...they stopped trying to raise the anchor and called for a local salvage company to send divers down to unsnag it.
Guess what wreck Wilhelmina was anchored only a few dozen yards from, and whose anchor chain her anchor was snagged on. The diver's freed the Wilhelmina's anchor, then decided to raise the chain as well...all 1080 feet of it...so they wouldn't have to come out and dis-tangle any more anchors from the thing. I don't know if they tried selling it, or just decided to be charitable, but the entire chain ended up in Richmond, with 100 feet or so displayed in front of the Museum of the Confederacy and the remaining 980 or so feet dumped in a pile at Tredegar Iron Works, about a mile or so away. The chain is supposedly still there, or was a few years ago...sounds like a quick trip with a camera to me!
Guess what wreck Wilhelmina was anchored only a few dozen yards from, and whose anchor chain her anchor was snagged on. The diver's freed the Wilhelmina's anchor, then decided to raise the chain as well...all 1080 feet of it...so they wouldn't have to come out and dis-tangle any more anchors from the thing. I don't know if they tried selling it, or just decided to be charitable, but the entire chain ended up in Richmond, with 100 feet or so displayed in front of the Museum of the Confederacy and the remaining 980 or so feet dumped in a pile at Tredegar Iron Works, about a mile or so away. The chain is supposedly still there, or was a few years ago...sounds like a quick trip with a camera to me!
After all of the salvage efforts had pretty much petered out and most of the people who might have remembered where Cumberland went down had passed away the wreck's location was, well, forgotten. Fishermen knew something was snagging nets, etc, but there are a lot of sunken objects that could do just that. Other than muttered and not so muttered curses, depending on how expensive the lost rig might be, no one gave a thought to just what might be snagging and taking their nets. The area was just noted as a black hole into which fishing nets and lures were cast, never to return.
One of the first serious efforts to find the wreck (Along with that of CSS Florida) was launched in 1980 by Clive Cussler's NUMA in collaboration with the Virginia Research Center for Archeology. Despite several months worth of effort that search didn't even locate a clue to the Cumberland's or the Florida's resting places.
One of the first serious efforts to find the wreck (Along with that of CSS Florida) was launched in 1980 by Clive Cussler's NUMA in collaboration with the Virginia Research Center for Archeology. Despite several months worth of effort that search didn't even locate a clue to the Cumberland's or the Florida's resting places.
NUMA launched another search in 1980, this time teaming up with Underwater Archaeological Joint Ventures out of Yorktown, Va and this time they got smart and asked local watermen where they had been loosing nets, regularly breaking fishing lines, etc...A resource they had overlooked the year before. This time, using information provided by the locals and remote side scanning sonar they found two 'significant' wrecks. Significant in this usage meaning 'Big and Fairly Extensive'. Divers went down, explored the sites, and brought up loads of artifacts including Cumberland's ship's bell which pretty much eliminated any question as to one of the wrecks' identity.
Further archaeological investigations of the sites took place back in 1983 and 1986 as well as some...er...unauthorized investigation and artifact recovery, most notably in 1989. That was the year that a pair of local watermen teamed up with a pair of local antique dealers and launched several low tech explorations of the wreck site...low tech in that they used clamming tongs to see just what kind of interesting and potentially profitable objects they could bring to the surface. In the process of 'exploring' Cumberland's wreck they damaged the wreck site, badly damaged several of the artifacts through amateurish conservation methods, and brought attention to themselves that was not even vaguely profitable. Interestingly enough when they were caught they claimed they had absolutely no clue that what they were doing was illegal. The US Government and Law Enforcement thought differently. In fact they very strongly frown upon such activities...They call it looting of a historic site. And a felony.
The idio...er, I mean seriously misinformed and misunderstood watermen unfortunately melted down some of the metal artifacts to make 'Made from metal recovered from …' Type tokens and trinkets. Many of the rest of them were damaged severely buy both the salvage and the botched attempts at conservation. After their trial, a good number of the artifacts that the watermen recovered were turned over to the Mariner's Museum collection, but unfortunately the above noted mishandling of the items damaged them severely before the Museum got them. Therefore they're in the Museum’s collection, but unfortunately not on display.
Things are looking up for them though...nearly 300 artifacts were sent to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center (The very same conservation team that's working on CSS Hunley) using monies generated through a conservation grant through the Navy Cultural Resources budget.
Things are looking up for them though...nearly 300 artifacts were sent to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center (The very same conservation team that's working on CSS Hunley) using monies generated through a conservation grant through the Navy Cultural Resources budget.
As if unauthorized amateur artifact hunters wasn't enough of a threat to Cumberland's remains the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel was built in the early 90s, connecting Suffolk and Newport News. The wreck sites straddle the Bridge-Tunnel with Congress' site just to the east, and Cumberland's and Florida's sites a little further to the west. This of course, potentially further imperiled the sites (And likely finished off what little may have been left at the USS Congress site.) but steps were taken to preserve Cumberland’s and Florida's wrecks. Over the last several years The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, The Naval History and Heritage Command, and The Hampton Roads Naval Museum have sponsored several surveys to ensure the sites' stability, the last one in June of 2012.
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| Recent image of Cumberland's wreck. This is from the port side...Virginia rammed her on the starboard side. |
Cumberland still rests quietly on the bottom, mostly buried by sand and obscured by the murky waters of Hampton Roads. And while there are lots of questions still to be answered, she still holds one more big mystery With all of the salvage, exploration, high tech imagery and manual searching that's been accomplished one item has never been found, so the question still remains...
Where is C S S Virginia's ram?
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NOTES, LINKS, AND STUFF.
A bit of a disclaimer here...Almost all of the information you can find online about the wreck sites is about Cumberland's wreck, for the obvious reason that she still sits on the bottom. Hopefully though I managed to get a little bit of interesting information on this thing about both ships...both of their crews fought courageously and gallantly against insurmountable odds, and both crews should be remembered and honored equally.
Both Cumberland's and Congress Legacy is their part in The Battle of Hampton Roads, but both ships had distinguished careers before the Civil War as well. Her first trip was a Diplomatic mission to the Mediterranean and she was alsowas heavily involved in the Mexican American war in 1846.
The courage of Cumberland's crew became legendary, and was lauded and applauded by both sides. Several poems and songs were written about USS Cumberland and her battle with Virginia, and a number of them are included in an article in 'The Daybook', the newsletter of The Hampton Roads Naval Museum...a link to it's provided below.
Some things never change, and one of thse things is politics getting in the way of Doing The Right Thing. Despite the universal applause and commendation given Cumberland's captain and crew they were not rewarded or even officially commended by the Navy, a slight which pissed off members of the Navies on BOTH sides. This was finally corrected in 1884 when prize money for neutralizing Virginia's threat to the blockade was awarded to Cumberland's crew...This is detailed in an excellent and very detailed article about the battle in 'The Daybook...It's the second Daybook article linked below.
When the waterrment and antique dealers who pilfered the artifacts from Cumberland's wreck site were tried and convicted, no jail time or fines resulted, the opinion being that the nere fact of a felony conviction on their records was punishment enough. I ruly hope they realized just how lucky they were...a felony conviction seldom results in absolutely no active punishment.
When the waterrment and antique dealers who pilfered the artifacts from Cumberland's wreck site were tried and convicted, no jail time or fines resulted, the opinion being that the nere fact of a felony conviction on their records was punishment enough. I ruly hope they realized just how lucky they were...a felony conviction seldom results in absolutely no active punishment.
LINKS
All but inevitably we start off with the Wikipedia articles about both ships:
Cumberland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cumberland_%281842%29
NOAA has another very detailed and informative article about Cumberland...both before and after her sinking:
Extremely detailed PDF Document about Cumberland's wreck site, prepared bu the U.S. Navy underwater archeology branch in 2007. You need Adobe Reader to view it.:
Another good article, in the Hampton Roads Naval Museum's newsletter The Daybook about Cumberland's salvage and her wreck. Also in PDF format and also requiring Adobe Reader:
Another PDF format issue of The Daybook, with several excellent articles about Cumberland included.
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