Part 2

For the next 6 days, the _Cairo_ lay with the other ironclads at Memphis. On June 12 she was ordered to return to Fort Pillow, where she would remain for 3 months while her crew guarded public property, undertook patrols on each side of the river, and strengthened the boat. From a nearby sawmill and from the Fort Pillow fortifications, lumber and iron were obtained to build a barricade around the engines, steam drums, and boilers.

September brought the _Cairo_ a change of command. For months, Lieutenant Bryant had been in failing health and, as he grew steadily worse, a medical board recommended that he be allowed extended sick leave. On orders, he headed his vessel downstream to Helena to rendezvous with the flotilla and there, on September 12, he turned his command over to Lt. Comdr. Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr.

The new captain, more youthful than Bryant, was a man who had seen more service during the war than most other officers. He had appeared briefly in the limelight at Norfolk, Va., in the opening stages. There, as a lieutenant on board the U.S.S. _Cumberland_, he had been interested in stopping some of the Confederate shenanigans that led to the evacuation and destruction by the North of the Gosport Navy Yard. Later, he was assigned the responsibility of finding out what could be done about the blockade running that was going on so successfully along the North Carolina coast, especially at Hatteras. He studied the situation and recommended sending in a fleet of tugboats, steamers, gunboats, and launches to patrol Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, claiming this would clear up matters in 3 weeks. In effect, he was prescribing the end of a system of signals between ship and shore that the South operated with great results until the fall of Fort Fisher in January 1865.

On March 10, 1862, the day after the famous battle between the _Merrimack_ and the _Monitor_, he was ordered to command the latter vessel. This order was countermanded by Flag Officer L. M. Goldsborough, who reported plans already had been made to place the ship under Lt. Comdr. W. M. Jeffers.

Selfridge's first assignment after assuming command of the _Cairo_ was to guard transports taking prisoners down the Mississippi for exchange at Vicksburg and to return with repatriated Federals. On the run back, he got in an argument with Chief Pilot Oscar B. Jolly, one of the best on the river, who promptly resigned. After this incident, members of the crew began making up their own opinions of the new captain.

The responsibility for the Western Flotilla, which had been under the Army, was assigned by Congress on October 1 to the Navy. Resulting changes caused Captain Davis to be called to Washington as chief of the Bureau of Navigation and to be succeeded as flotilla commander by David Dixon Porter, foster brother of the immortal David G. Farragut, the Navy veteran who had conducted the successful campaign against New Orleans the preceding spring.

Shortly after returning to Helena, the _Cairo_ received orders to accompany the ammunition steamer _Judge Torrence_ to Memphis. This was an opportunity for which Selfridge had been waiting. The fire linings in his vessel had deteriorated to the point at which they were dangerous, and he had been unable so far to get replacements. He felt confident he could find them at Memphis.

After a 2-day run up the Mississippi, the _Cairo_ tied up at Memphis, with instructions to remain there for further orders. This gave Selfridge a chance to make the necessary repairs, and he had them completed by November 7.

The weeks that followed were spent by the _Cairo's_ crew in gunnery practice and in patrolling the river above and below Memphis in an effort to break up the smuggling which was so evident at that point. They did an effective job. Meanwhile, Selfridge received notice from Porter that an active campaign on the Mississippi was about to begin.

The campaign was to be another advance on Vicksburg, this time by land as well as by water. The Army of the Tennessee under General Grant was already moving southward from Tennessee. These troops, according to plan, were to advance by way of Grenada, down the corridor between the Yazoo and Big Black Rivers, and cut the Confederates off from their base of operations at Jackson. The Navy was expected to clear the Yazoo of the enemy as far up as Greenwood, where the light-drafts would turn into the Balobusha and ascend it to Grenada, and there destroy the railroad bridges. An attempt would also be made to capture the large number of steamers the Confederates had secreted in the twisting waterways of the Delta.

Porter, on November 22, ordered Selfridge to bring his vessel to Helena. Three days later the _Cairo's_ commander sent word that he had been asked by the Army to remain at Memphis and that he thought he would be doing right to fulfill the request. This brought a reply from Porter that was couched in sarcasm: "I would feel better satisfied to dispose of the vessels under my command as it seems best to me." He said he would send a replacement for the _Cairo_, which was needed on the expedition he was planning.

While awaiting the replacement, Selfridge continued to strengthen the _Cairo_. More railroad iron was added to reinforce the casemate protecting the boilers and machinery.

His relief arrived on the morning of December 4, and he set out for the mouth of the Yazoo immediately, arriving on the 8th. The fleet that gathered there ready to go upstream was under the command of Capt. Henry Walke, a Mexican War veteran, a fine artist, and a dauntless fighter.

The next 2 days were spent in recoaling. Then, on the 11th, plans for a reconnaissance up the Yazoo were carried out. This was done by the two tinclads, _Marmora_ and _Signal_, light-draft stern-wheelers covered with 1¼ inches of iron that afforded protection against shells but not against heavier projectiles.

They ran up the river some 20 miles and prepared to round to, as the lookouts sighted several suspicious objects floating on the water. A man on board the _Marmora_ fired a musket at one of them and touched off a tremendous explosion that shook the boat and threw water over a wide area. Another explosion occurred shortly afterward near the _Signal_. No damage was caused by either. However, it was recognized that contact had been made with some of the vaunted Confederate mines, more commonly referred to as "torpedoes."

Back at the mouth of the river that night, the captains of the two tinclads told of their experience. They said the number of small scows and stationary floats they saw at the point where they had turned around indicated the presence of other torpedoes, but, if protected by one or two gunboats, they believed they could safely lift the "infernal machines" from the water and deactivate them.

Selfridge requested permission to use the _Cairo_ on such a venture, and Walke consented. He also designated the gunboat _Pittsburg_ and the ram _Queen of the West_ to go along.

_Wires to galvanic cell on shore_ _Wood float_ _5-gallon glass demijohn filled with black powder_ _Rope to shore_ _Anchor_

The fleet commander repeated his instructions, addressing his words particularly to Selfridge, who would be in command. The officers were told to avoid the channel where the mines were set. The tinclads were to move close to shore and, by using small boats, haul the infernal machines out and destroy them before proceeding upriver. The ram would follow immediately behind the tinclads, and the two gunboats would bring up the rear, shelling the banks whenever necessary. He concluded by advising that, if there was an apparent danger in the execution of these orders, the project was to be abandoned and they were to return until a better means of carrying it out could be found.

At 7:30 a.m. on December 12, the expedition proceeded up the Yazoo, with the vessels in the order designated. Here and there along the way sharpshooters fired from trees on shore, and an occasional shell was tossed in their direction.

Frequently on the way up, Selfridge displayed impatience. He would peremptorily shout orders to Capt. Edwin W. Sutherland, commander of the _Queen of the West_, moving directly ahead of the _Cairo_, to go faster. Other officers recognized that more speed imperiled the safety of the boats in advance, for, if they had been compelled by some unexpected danger to stop suddenly or to back up in the narrow, tortuous stream, they would have been inevitably run down by the ram.

Sometime after 10:30, the _Marmora_, moving 100 yards or so in advance, came in sight of the torpedoes and stopped, partially hidden by a bend in the river. Selfridge heard a heavy fire of musketry and supposed she was being attacked from shore. As the little fleet closed up, he saw that the firing was coming from the _Marmora_, then backing, and was aimed at a block of wood floating in the river.

"Why don't you go ahead?" shouted Selfridge. Someone on the _Marmora_ yelled back, "Here is where the torpedoes are!"

Selfridge ordered the firing stopped and a boat lowered to examine the object. At the same time, he directed that the right shore be bombarded and a boat sent out from his own vessel.

Men in the small boats recovered one infernal machine and debris from the torpedoes exploded the day before. In the meantime, the bow of the _Cairo_ had turned toward shore. Selfridge, who seemed to have little fear of the Confederate torpedoes, backed out to proceed upstream and then ordered the _Marmora_ to move ahead slowly. The _Cairo_ took the lead and advanced into unreconnoitered waters. Her big wheel had made only a dozen revolutions when there were two explosions in quick succession, one close to her port quarter and the other under her port bow.

Opinions varied as to how long it took the _Cairo_ to go down--8 to 15 minutes, the estimates ran. However long it was, the vessel was run in toward shore where she sank, leaving only her chimneys above water. The _Queen of the West_ came to the aid of the _Cairo's_ crew, all of whom were rescued. Nothing was saved except a few hammocks and bags which floated away from the wreckage.

Before moving downstream, the _Queen_ knocked down the stacks to keep the Southerners from finding the sunken ironclad. (This was an act that would have its benefits a century later, when an enterprising group of men, no longer taking sides between the North and South, sounded for the _Cairo_ until they located her and then brought her to the surface to be restored.)

The _Cairo's_ value to the Union must be estimated in terms of disappointment. At the start, she failed to function properly. In addition, she fired a few shells at the riverbank at Eastport, took her share of guard duty at Fort Pillow, and played a rather inconspicuous part in the battle at Plum Point and later that at Memphis. She added little to the North's offensive, and the records gave her very little mention. From a practical standpoint, her major contribution lies in what she took down below the waters with her when she sank in the Yazoo, for therein was preserved for future generations first-hand information on the type of fighting boat that fought along the inland rivers in the Civil War and the sort of life lived by the crewmen on board.

_V. C. J._

_Raising the _Cairo_ and Her Contents_

For almost 100 years the _Cairo_ lay quietly beneath the swift, muddy waters of the Yazoo River. Some of this mud, plus branches and even whole trees, clung to and eventually covered the sunken vessel until only the pilothouse felt the passing water. The survivors of the disaster died, and local residents forgot the location. They remembered the event, however, and in time began to connect it in their minds with the wreckage of a Confederate raft further upstream.

This was the situation in 1956 when Edwin C. Bearss set in motion the chain of events that rescued the _Cairo_ and her contents for history. A thorough student of the Civil War, Bearss was then park historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, Miss. Because of his detailed knowledge of the area and its history, visitors from many parts of the country sought his aid and guidance in their explorations of little-known Civil War sites and their hunts for surviving artifacts. On one such artifact-hunting expedition north of Vicksburg, some local farmers told Bearss that if he were interested and would come back when the water in the Yazoo River was low, he could see, at the foot of Snyder's Bluff, the remains of the _Cairo_, the first warship in history to be sunk by an electrically detonated "torpedo." The wreckage they were talking about was not really the _Cairo_, and Bearss knew it. His study of contemporary documents and maps had told him that the ironclad, if she still existed, must be several miles downstream from the bluff.

But Bearss' interest had been kindled, and he decided to take action. With Warren Grabau, a fellow Civil War buff, and Don Jacks, a Park Service maintenance man who had been born in the area and knew the river and all its moods, he set to work. Armed with their combined knowledge and a small pocket compass, they set off in a small boat one cold November morning in 1956 to find the lost ironclad and prove its identity once and for all. After a number of triangulated probes, their eyes carefully watching the compass needle to catch any deflection when it passed over the mass of iron below, the men pinpointed the wreck. It was just where their study of the historical evidence had convinced them it would be--30 feet from the Yazoo's east bank about 3 miles below Snyder's Bluff, near the site of Benson Blake's lower plantation.

In their own minds the trio of explorers knew they had found the _Cairo_. It was in the right place, and its construction and dimensions matched those in the historical specifications. Still they wanted to be absolutely sure. They worried that another steamer or a barge, sunk here long ago and since forgotten, might have coincidentally met all the same criteria as those of the Civil War gunboat. A long shot, of course, but real scholars must be absolutely sure before reaching any conclusion. They wanted more tests, more data.

For 3 years they waited to confirm their conclusions about the underwater wreckage. Then they got the break they needed. They managed to persuade two scuba divers (Ken Parks and James Hart) from Jackson, Miss., that diving for the old wreck would be fun. In October 1959, Bearss, Jacks, and the divers headed up the Yazoo once more, carrying all the necessary equipment and a host of questions Bearss hoped the underwater men could answer. Finding the answers wasn't easy. The river was so muddy that the divers had to work blind, and the swift current made the operation even trickier. Still, they found that the pilothouse protruded above the mud. They tried to get inside the vessel through the house, but mud completely filled the interior. In the end they had to be satisfied with the port covers from the pilothouse and a few planks for testing. But Bearss and the others now knew for certain that the wreck was the _Cairo_. The armored port covers had wiped away all doubt.

Still they were unsatisfied. The port covers made them want more. Visions of raising the whole boat danced enticingly before them. It could be done. It was worth a try. First they needed public support, then money. A spectacular find, the resurrection of a significant fragment, might do it. Local people succumbed to their persuasion. They gave or lent equipment. A lumber company donated the services of a tug and a derrick. The skilled divers spent 10 days sluicing the silt out of the pilothouse with jets from a firehose. Then, working in total blackness, they passed 1-inch cables through four of the ports. The tug pulled the derrick into position, workmen attached the cables, and in a few moments the pilothouse broke water. A significant portion of the historic vessel felt the free air for the first time in almost a century. Buffs and workmen cheered in excited delight. But there was more. After dark, an 8-inch naval gun on its wooden carriage joined the pilothouse on the bank. Both were in excellent condition, almost perfectly preserved. They caught the popular imagination just as the planners hoped. Interest in the project spread far and wide. But the hoped-for money failed to appear.

A year passed. Public interest waned without the stimuli of exciting new discoveries. Then Gov. Ross Barnett of Mississippi came to the project's aid. Long interested in history, the Governor persuaded several State agencies to provide funds. Historian Bearss appeared on a nationwide television quiz program and won the $10,000 jackpot for his knowledge of the Civil War. This money, too, went into the project. In the autumn of 1962, Bearss, Jacks, Vicksburg National Military Park historian Albert Banton, and scuba divers Parks and Hart began a 30-day survey to determine the condition of the Cairo's structural timbers. The New England Naval and Maritime Museum joined them in the effort. Firehoses cleared the silt from the spardeck, and the divers forced their way inside the casemate to get at the beams. Every one they tested was sound.

Encouraged by this survey, the Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board superintended a drive in the autumn of 1963 to raise the ship intact. A mighty gravel dredge sucked the mud and debris away from the hull. Divers, both U.S. and professional, cleared the silt from the gundeck, and workmen pulled all the remaining cannon and carriages to the surface, along with hundreds of other historical objects of all kinds. The treasure hoard of Civil War artifacts began to accumulate.

Impressed by the importance of the recoveries and by the favorable publicity attached to them, the Mississippi Legislature in the spring of 1964 appropriated $50,000 to continue the operations. A group of interested Vicksburgers contacted a New Orleans construction firm which agreed to raise the _Cairo_ on a "no raise, no pay" contract. An experienced diver undertook the diving on the same basis. And the Warren County (Miss.) Board of Supervisors agreed to underwrite the salvage. At long last everything had meshed.

The great adventure began on August 3, 1964. A dredge cleared away the silt that had accumulated since March, and a dragline dug a hole in the river bottom just ahead of the _Cairo's_ bow. Logs, some as much as 5 feet in diameter, had to be removed. Then the divers slowly see-sawed huge cables (2½ and 3 inches in diameter) under the hull. By October 17 seven of these cables were in position, and the next day the raising operation commenced. Four derricks with a total lifting capacity of 1,000 tons pitted their strength against the dead weight of the big ironclad. They hauled her out of the hole into which she had settled, but even their combined power could not lift her out of the water. The thick iron armor, the waterlogged timbers, and the mud-filled holds were too much for them. They moved the vessel, still submerged, 70 feet upstream and set her down on a shoal.

New strategy was needed. A giant barge (235 x 40 feet) was towed to the scene and sunk in the hole the _Cairo_ had formerly occupied. On October 29 the derricks tugged on the old vessel once more. If they could get her on top of the sunken barge, the engineers felt they could raise both together without difficulty. But Nature refused to cooperate. Water in the Yazoo dropped to a low level, much lower than optimum for the effort. There was no time to wait for rains and a rise in the water level. They had to work now or abandon the project. Cables strained and the casemate broke water. Just 6 inches more and the _Cairo_ would slip easily onto the barge. Again the cables strained, and the hulk moved, but, without the buoyancy of the water to help support most of the vessel, the weight on the cables increased drastically. With a sickening noise, two of them cut deeply into the wooden hull. All hope of raising the ship intact was gone.

Now it was a question of saving as much of the historic vessel as possible--in any way possible. The professionals decided to cut the _Cairo_ into three sections: bow, midship, and stern. Finally, on December 12, 1964, the derrick raised the last section and lowered it gently to the deck of the barge. It was 102 years to the day since the gunboat had sunk.

_Reminders of the Past_

Even in fragments, the _Cairo_ proved a treasure. Experts from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service found it a gold mine of information. It was, in fact, a century-old time capsule loaded with the everyday objects of naval life, some of them previously completely unknown. Studied _in situ_, they told of practices and customs no one had even dreamed about before. Even the vessel itself offered new information, for students quickly discovered that it had not been built according to the original specifications in some instances and that assumptions based on incomplete data were totally wrong. Museum models and drawings across the country had to be reworked, old concepts changed, new features added.

Many phases of life and organization on board a naval vessel developed according to tradition. No one ever wrote them down, and knowledge of them died with the veterans. In this field, the _Cairo_ helped bring the period back to life in a truly vivid manner.

Take the matter of food and drink, for instance. Evidence from the _Cairo_ shows that the sailors ate in messes of about 15 men, and each mess had a special chest to hold its gear: tin plates, cups, spoons, glass condiment bottles, scrub brushes, a washtub, and an earthenware jug of molasses. Every man took care of his own utensils, and he scratched his name or initials on each piece. Those who could not write at least could make an identifying mark. The glass condiment bottles bore embossed labels, "U S NAVY" on one side and "PEPPER" or "MUSTARD" on the other. No one had ever seen such bottles before, but there were more than 300 on board, some still holding their original contents.