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WET & HOT NEWS ! > Civil War
Lost gold of the Whites found in Baikal
The 03 Sep. 2010 at 20:12Treasure Hunting / recovery
By Andy Potts - The Moscow News
Submarines in the depths of Baikal may have solved one of the great mysteries of the Civil War.
The long-lost gold of White commander Alexander Kolchak could be within reach of submersibles exploring the lake as part of a scientific mission.
Environmentalists working with the mission told journalists: “Deep-sea vehicles found rectangular blocks with a metallic gleam, like gold, 400 meters below the surface.”
Local residents say that sunken railway wagons found last year match those used on the Circum-Baikal Railway during the Civil War, fuelling rumours that the Admiral’s lost riches could be nearby. And the latest find, on the bed of Cape Tolstoy, has reinforced that hope.
Doomed admiral
Kolchak was a hero of the Russian navy in World War I who went on to lead the White resistance to the 1917 revolutionaries.
For a time he was commander of much of eastern Russia, but he failed to persuade potential allies to support him, perhaps because of his overtly monarchistic politics.
Ultimately he was executed by the Bolsheviks in Feb. 1920 and his body was hidden under the ice of Irkutsk's Angara river. After that, legends grew up saying a vast horde of wealth had been lost during the chaos of the civil war.Treasure hunters comb world’s deepest lake
The 31 Aug. 2010 at 06:56Treasure Hunting / recovery
By RT - Prime Time Russia
The Russian Empire's lost gold may be buried at the bottom of Lake Baikal. That is the guess of an underwater research expedition, after it caught sight of something shiny.
Expedition members think they may have found the gold that admiral Kolchak seized during the Civil War almost a century ago. This was part of the country's gold reserve and amounted to more than 180 tonnes of gold.
All trace of the hoard was lost after a train crash in the region of Lake Baikal. Last year, researchers found the remains of a train carriage. Currently, the deep-water sub "Mir" is exploring the site.
It is still unclear if the find is the real thing or not. Some believe the gold reserve is being kept in Japanese and British banks. Scientists say there is no evidence that any treasures are hidden in the lake.
"This would be totally unscientific to comb the whole lake without any proof or documents hinting that the treasure was buried there,” Anatoly Sagalevich, head of the Baikal expedition, was quoted as saying by Izvestia newspaper. “In fact, we have found much more than Kolchak’s gold – the giant solid gas hydrate deposits. In the future, these could be used as alternative fuel – without any harm to the lake.”Diving bell that aided gold miners being restored
The 04 Jul. 2010 at 18:56MiscellaneousBy Carolyn Crist - The Times, Gainesville
A piece of history left Gainesville 135 years ago, but now it's back.
A diving bell - the only one of its kind still left from the Civil War - was unearthed from the Chestatee River decades ago and is finally being restored before it is displayed in downtown Dahlonega.
Usually found in port towns such as New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston, S.C., the diving bell was used in Dahlonega in 1875 to mine gold at the bottom of the river. The object, which measures 8 feet high, 15 feet long and almost 6 feet wide, allowed divers a place to breathe under water while skimming river bottoms.
Historians have compared the design to turning a glass upside down in water, which creates a pocket of air at the top.
"It's a very rare piece of Civil War-era technology and the only one surviving of its kind," said Chip Wright, project manager and preservation planner for the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission. "This diving bell should never have been here. It's a good thing because that's why it has survived."
During the metal drives of World War I and World War II, bells of this type were melted down and used by the military, he said.
"This was lying on the bottom of the river and forgotten for all these years," he said. "You can read about these in books and see drawings, but this one is even more unique because it was customized to serve in a gold mining operation."
Philologus Loud, a Dahlonega inventor and entrepreneur, was doing business in New Orleans when he came up with the idea to use the bell to search for gold. The Benjamin Mallifert bell model, which includes two hatches and a pressurized air-lock system to create a pocket of air under water, was part of the salvaging ship named The Glide that scanned the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers.
Loud bought the bell when the ship was converted to a package steamer. The bell was loaded onto a rail car and reached the end of its rail trip in Gainesville, where it was loaded onto a Southern Express wagon and toted to Dahlonega.
In 1983, local gold miners decided to pull out the object that fishers had noticed.
"The gold miners knew what it was right way," said Anne Amerson, a Dahlonega historian who has studied the bell for years. "I didn't see it until 1990, and we still haven't figured out everything about it."Students dive into mystery of Civil War submarine Hunley
The 11 May. 2010 at 04:56Famous WrecksBy Betty Klinck - USA Today
Part of the story is solid. Part of it remains a mystery.
What is certain is that on the night of Feb. 17, 1864, the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina to become the first submarine to sink a ship during combat.
Then the Hunley itself literally sank into oblivion when it went down with its crew of eight. The resting place of the Civil War submarine, which had remained a mystery for more than century, finally was discovered in 1995 off Sullivan's Island.
But before the submarine sank, the story goes, it flashed a blue light to Confederate soldiers on the shore to signal success.
But as this part of the story comes from second- and third-hand accounts, it "gets a little fuzzy," says archaeologist Mike Scafuri of the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston, where the recovered Hunley is on display.
Nobody knows whether the signal was supposed to be made directly after the attack or as the Hunley approached shore, Scafuri says. And another question remains: Could a lantern have produced a strong enough light for the soldiers to see?
To try to answer the question of the mysterious blue signal, 12 students at Hamburg (Pa.) Area High School are building three replicas of the submarine's lantern in the school's metal shop.
Retired history teacher Ned Eisenhuth and retired shop teacher Fred Lutkis began the project after expressing interest last summer in the history of the Hunley to the Lasch Conservation Center. Before they retired, Eisenhuth and Lutkis had worked with students at Minersville (Pa.) Area High School to create replicas of a Viking burial sled and a medieval cart.
These will be the only true replicas of the Hunley's lantern, Eisenhuth says. Next month, the school plans to donate the best replica of the lantern to the conservation center, which has been studying the submarine since it was excavated in 2000 with help from the Friends of the Hunley Organization.Sunken Treasure Ship of Playa de Oro Beach Manzanillo
The 28 Mar. 2010 at 06:49Famous Wrecks
From Manzanillo Blogger
146 years ago on the Sunday evening of July 27, 1862 this beautiful beach provided a much different scene. The surf was up that afternoon, viciously beating the shores. Reflected in the violent waters was the inferno of flames pouring out of a nearby wrecked ship.
The very waves that surfers now carve were strewn with the battered bodies, wreckage, and gold that had fallen overboard. The screams of the drowning burning men must have been terrible, covered over only by the roar of the unrelenting surf and explosions from the nearby shipwreck.
How did this happen ? It was the middle of the American Civil War. The boat was the S.S. Golden Gate, one of the fastest paddle steam ships on the West Coast. 338 passengers and crew, along with a reported $1.4 million in gold were sailing on a voyage from San Francisco to Panama. They never made it.
When the S.S. Golden Gate was just 15 miles off the shore of Manzanillo Mexico it was reported that there was a fire in the engine room. Since they were only a short distance away from the safety of shore the ship headed towards the beach. The spot where they landed was at a rock called Pena Blanca. The passengers were ordered off into lifeboats, but many never made it.
The fire spread rapidly, quickly engulfed the entire ship in an inferno of flames. The survivors were forced to jump overboard, putting themselves at the mercy of the currents and violent waves. Many died in the relentless surf, too weak and injured to make it to shore.
When help finally arrived 204 of the passengers and crew of the S.S. Golden Gate had already died. The ship itself was completely destroyed by the flames and pounding seas. The massive iron boxes that had contained the golden treasure sunk down into the sand were quickly buried.Florida archaeological divers believe they've found Civil War-era steamer off Bayport
The 22 Nov. 2009 at 08:45Underwater Archeology
By Dan DeWitt - Tampa Bay.com
Considering the divers were looking for remains of an iron-hulled Civil War-era steamer, Tom Allyn's news was about as good as it could be.
"I found something — it's old and it's metallic,'' said Allyn, wearing a wet suit and standing in chest-deep water off Bayport Park on Thursday morning.
Then, moments later, marine archaeologist Billy Morris surfaced with an update that topped Allen's.
"It's a piece of steam pipe,'' Morris said.
That pipe, about 9 inches in diameter and 2 feet long — definitely iron and definitely consistent with the side-wheeler the divers were looking for — is some of the most solid evidence ever found of a dramatic and often overlooked chapter in Hernando history.Crews search for Civil War history
The 20 Nov. 2009 at 01:43Underwater ArcheologyBy Nick Cenegy - The Daily News
For years, the scoured remains of a Civil War naval tragedy slowly rusted beneath the spinning propellers of gargantuan tankers and sky-scraping container ships.
The scuttled USS Westfield, a Union gunship, and the last vestiges of its 14 doomed crew lay obscured in sea floor sediment near the confluence of the Texas City and Houston ship channels.
On Wednesday, however, divers and salvage crews visited the all-but-forgotten site to begin recovering what is left of the ship in preparation for a planned 5-foot deepening of the Texas City Channel.
Since the dredging will damage or destroy the archaeological site, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District and Navy salvage experts stepped in to remove artifacts from the site, as required by federal law, Sharon Tirpak, Corps project manager for the Texas City Channel, said.
The Westfield sank in an ill-fated attempt by Union sailors to destroy the ship so Confederate sailors wouldn’t capture it, she said.Florida Aquarium maps and explores archaeological treasures
The 06 Oct. 2009 at 08:53Underwater ArcheologyBy Janet Zink - Tampa Bay.com
Casey Coy stood on a boat on the Hillsborough River two weeks ago, monitoring the breathing of divers below and watching cars cruise along the interstate above.
"The thought struck me: I'm anchored over a sunken Civil War battleship, and these people are driving to and from work and have no idea what they're driving over," he said.
Coy, the dive director at the Florida Aquarium, hopes all that will change in coming years as the aquarium maps and explores shipwrecks and other underwater archaeological treasures in the Tampa Bay area.
So far, aquarium divers have discovered two Confederate blockade runners — the Scottish Chief and the Kate Dale — sunk in the Hillsborough River, a Union ship called the Narcissus and two unidentified wrecks near Egmont Key. Plans call for searching the Hillsborough River for a third blockade runner — the Noyes — next summer. The aquarium has three state grants of nearly $50,000 for the explorations.Remains of Civil War blockade runner found on bottom of Hillsborough River
The 17 Sep. 2009 at 14:17Underwater Archeology
By Robbyn Mitchell - Tampa Bay.com
Burned and sunk, the steamship Scottish Chief lay at the bottom of the Hillsborough River for 146 years, a legend for its ability to keep Tampa afloat amidst the city's isolation during the Civil War.
Underwater archaeologist John William Morris, with the Florida Aquarium, said Tuesday a research team has found the ship, a vessel not seen since the night in 1863 when Union troops raided the shipyard.
Morris' team first spotted the suggestion of a ship Aug. 29 with new sonar technology, but it took until Tuesday to confirm that the shadowy trace in the sand was that of the lost blockade runner.
The relic has been lodged underwater near the Interstate 275 exit to the Hillsborough Bridge, across from Blake High School, said aquarium spokesman Tom Wagner. The find comes one year after the discovery of the Kate Dale in the river, which had been reduced to wooden ship's ribs, he said.Civil War naval clashes uncovered at Bayport
The 27 Mar. 2009 at 01:55Underwater Archeology
By Dan DeWitt
Dale Groth — minding his crab traps at Bayport Park and soaking in the gulfside atmosphere of sunshine, marsh grass, cabbage palms and wind-rippled water — was asked if he knew that this peaceful setting had hosted a series of naval clashes during the Civil War. Groth, 76, a Bayport regular since 1997, gave a surprised look and shook his head no. "I'll be darned,'' he said.
It's true. At least five times between 1863 and 1865, Union ships confronted blockade-runners in or near Bayport. Three of these cargo ships were burned, either by Union sailors who had captured them or Confederates who wanted to prevent their seizure. In the most dramatic engagement, in April 1863, one Confederate soldier was killed and at least three were wounded.
That surpasses the single Confederate death and gunshot wound — probably inflicted by a band of fellow Southern sympathizers — during the much ballyhooed Brooksville Raid in 1864.