AndyHall
Colonel
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2011
Charleston Post and Courier:
Charlie Peery provided the spark that led Barto Arnold, Tom Oertling, and myself to (re-) locate the wreck of the blockade runner Denbigh twenty years ago. Perry was an obstetrical surgeon at the time, and when we parted after dinner he gave us each his business card and said, "call me at that number. They won't let you talk to me directly, but tell them it's about the Civil War and they'll come get me out of surgery." I never tried that, partly because I was afraid that might actually happen.
Peery did a tremendous amount for the study of CW naval operations, especially around Charleston. More, I'm sure, than just about anyone who came at it from a hobby/collector angle. I'm glad the material has been kept housed and intact, but it needs to reach a wider audience.
Sixteen years and more than $3 million in taxpayer dollars later, a hidden collection of Civil War-era memorabilia largely sits stacked in boxes on shelves in a storage room at the Hunley lab in North Charleston.
It's waiting on a future that looks more distant every day. Funding to put the items on public display — always an issue — has gotten to be a thornier one.
The Peery collection was supposed to be the second anchor of a proposed maritime museum in the Charleston area for housing the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first to sink an enemy warship in battle. It was salvaged in 2000.
The 8,000-piece collection is a trove of artifacts from the era: an 1860 U.S. Navy officer's cutlass, drawings from the Augusta arsenal, hundreds of pieces of art, pamphlets and lithographs, more than 400 charts, maps and ship's plans, hundreds of newspapers and rare photographs.
It's waiting on a future that looks more distant every day. Funding to put the items on public display — always an issue — has gotten to be a thornier one.
The Peery collection was supposed to be the second anchor of a proposed maritime museum in the Charleston area for housing the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first to sink an enemy warship in battle. It was salvaged in 2000.
The 8,000-piece collection is a trove of artifacts from the era: an 1860 U.S. Navy officer's cutlass, drawings from the Augusta arsenal, hundreds of pieces of art, pamphlets and lithographs, more than 400 charts, maps and ship's plans, hundreds of newspapers and rare photographs.
Charlie Peery provided the spark that led Barto Arnold, Tom Oertling, and myself to (re-) locate the wreck of the blockade runner Denbigh twenty years ago. Perry was an obstetrical surgeon at the time, and when we parted after dinner he gave us each his business card and said, "call me at that number. They won't let you talk to me directly, but tell them it's about the Civil War and they'll come get me out of surgery." I never tried that, partly because I was afraid that might actually happen.
Peery did a tremendous amount for the study of CW naval operations, especially around Charleston. More, I'm sure, than just about anyone who came at it from a hobby/collector angle. I'm glad the material has been kept housed and intact, but it needs to reach a wider audience.