- Joined
- Aug 25, 2012
photo by @ronzzo from thread https://civilwartalk.com/threads/fort-sumter-charleston-harbor-1963.171610/#post-2243424
The newest issue of Civil War Times came this week. In this issue is the article Floating Fire by Mark Carlson. This article is about the monstrous Confederate 'Floating Battery' that help bombard Fort Sumter in April of 1861. I know this based on the French floating battery form the Crimean War. Should we consider this a boat or other naval item such as a barge, or a fort? Perhaps a floating fort might be a better description. Should we consider the artillerymen who manned the cannons soldiers or sailors? The Yankees at Fort Sumter called it "The Raft".
The Confederate Floating Battery at Charleston had four heavy cannons It was 100 feet long and 25 feet wide. The sloped glacis and angled roof were made from pine and palmetto timbers with six layers of heavy iron boilerplate reinforced with railroad iron. In the end the Floating Battery was destroyed by a storm. After which the guns and the iron sheathing were removed. By 1865 most wreckage of the Floating Battery was under the shifting sands off of Sullivan's Island with only part of the casemate remaining above the water.
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