SAVANNAH ― Cannon thunder often echoes in this coastal Georgia city, both from historic forts turned tourist attractions and from artillery training exercise fields at nearby Fort Stewart, home to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division.
Cannon talk is also reverberating in the run-up to Independence Day and the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. A collection of 19 cannons believed to have been aboard two British troop transport ships sunk during the Revolutionary War will go on display this week at the Savannah History Museum.
The guns, many still loaded, were discovered in 2021 during a dredging project on the Savannah River just east of the city’s downtown. Encrusted with barnacles and centuries of other underwater growth, the cannons underwent a three-year restoration process at a Texas A&M lab and returned to Georgia in early June to be the centerpieces of the “Loyalists & Liberty” exhibit. The exhibit opens Thursday afternoon across the street from a Revolutionary War battlefield linked to the cannons.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
The timing of the cannons’ discovery was “serendipitous” given the America 250 celebration, said Nora Lee, the director of the museum operator, the Coastal Heritage Society. Every history museum in America is eager to do something “truly special” for the anniversary, she said. And the cannons and several other artifacts discovered along with them are extraordinary finds, said Andrea Farmer, an archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In a tourist town where history-telling is big business and often straddles the line between fact and fable, the silent cannons speak loudly.
“Savannah history tends to be shrouded in mystery,” Lee said. “But these cannons illustrate that there are still tangible things in our history out there to be discovered. You just have to keep turning over stones until you find them.”
A pivotal moment in Siege of Savannah
The cannons lend insight into an often-overlooked key moment in the Revolution: the 1779 Siege of Savannah.
More than four years after the war started at Lexington and Concord, Georgia was in British hands. Georgia patriots had expelled the British in early 1776 ahead of the signing of the Declaration of Independence only to see the Redcoats reclaim control in late 1778.
Losing Savannah and its deep-water port put the fledgling United States at a strategic disadvantage. The British operated freely and used Georgia as the base for their “Southern Strategy,” whereby they meant to capture agriculturally rich South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
Gen. George Washington worked with the Continental Army’s allies, the French, to initiate a retaking. The Americans and French blockaded the river with ships off Tybee Island ahead of a planned move upstream and an invasion.
The British countered by deliberately sinking two of their own ships, the HMS Venus and HMS Savannah, at the narrowest part of the channel to block passage. The ships’ cannons also sank to the bottom.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
The tactic forced the invaders to take a roundabout approach that climaxed at an earthen battlement, known as the Spring Hill Redoubt, on the then-edge of the city. The Siege of Savannah saw 800 casualties in its first hour. More than 700 of those killed were American or French.
The Continental forces retreated, and Georgia remained a British colony until the war’s end in July 1782.
The HMS Venus and HMS Savannah didn’t fire shots from their cannons but proved decisive in the battle nonetheless.
Surprise discoveries in riverbed
Nearly 250 years later, those cannons were scraped from the riverbed. A dredging contractor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inadvertently pulled the first one up in the jaws of a clamshell digger. The next scoop brought up two more.
The guns were initially thought to be Civil War artifacts. A sunken Confederate States gunboat, the CSS Georgia, had been recovered near the discovery site in 2015. But further research indicated the newly found cannons differed significantly in size and style from those previously discovered.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
The dredge work had “obviously stumbled upon another site,” Farmer said. Using sonar and other underwater search techniques, they located the other 16. Then they utilized historic documents and maps to piece together the probability that the cannons were from the British ships.
In stepped the Coastal Heritage Society. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had asked the Savannah History Museum to put two of the cannons on display, but Lee and her team lobbied instead for the whole collection. The organization raised $325,000 to fund part of the restoration effort with the understanding all 19 could be displayed on permanent loan.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers welcomed the initiative. Farmer cited the famous end scene of the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where crates of artifacts fill a government warehouse, out of public view.
“That’s not far from reality,” she said. “For these cannons to all go on display and not be locked away somewhere is great.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Coastal Heritage Society
Credit: Photo courtesy of Coastal Heritage Society
Putting Georgia on Revolutionary War map
Today, the cannons frame the Savannah History Museum’s “Loyalists & Liberty” exhibit, which tells a comprehensive account of Georgia’s role in the American Revolution.
Sixteen sit on vertical racks looking clean and menacing, as if they could be used today. Nearby display cases showcase other artifacts from the HMS Venus and Savannah find, including a sextant, a piece of a ship’s bell and a barshot round, which are shaped like a barbell and shot from a cannon at the rigging of ships.
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Credit: Sarah Peacock
Another restored cannon is positioned to show how the black-powdered armaments were loaded. It sits near the two unrestored and still barnacle-encrusted guns in the 3,000-square-foot exhibit.
“This puts Georgia on the map in terms of the Revolution,” Lee said. “Everyone knows Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge, Yorktown. But Savannah played a role, and now we can do more than just talk about it. We can see and experience it.”
IF YOU GO
“Loyalists & Liberty: Savannah in the American Revolution”
9 a.m.-4 p.m., every day except major holidays. Opening reception at 4 p.m. on July 2. $8-$12. Savannah History Museum, 303 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Savannah 31401. 912-651-6825. SavannahHistoryMuseum.
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