Selma Civil War sites and Pettus bridge nominated for National Historic Register

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Selma Civil War sites and Pettus bridge nominated for National Historic Register
By
Ben Raines [email protected]
Updated Oct 5, 7:28 AM; Posted Oct 5, 7:27 AM

A few days ago, the Alabama Historical Commission nominated most of Selma's waterfront district to the National Register of Historic Places, including the Civil War-era Confederate arsenal, shipyard and foundry.

Portions of the downtown area and the Edmund Pettus Bridge were previously listed with the National Register, which documents the most important sites in the nation's history, in 2005. The new expanded nomination adds a number of buildings and the newly explored Civil War sites, including portions which are today underwater in the Alabama River. Listing on the Historic Register provides certain protections for sites, and tax incentives and other perks, such as grants and other assistance for revitalizing and preserving the character of historic properties.

The new nomination encompasses Selma's vital role in the Civil War, through the munitions production, and its vital role in the Civil Rights movement, with the inclusion of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and other Movement era sites.

Interestingly, while the scene on the Edmund Pettus Bridge is seared in the global consciousness, Selma's critical role in the Civil War is almost unknown to the public.

"At its peak around 1863-64, this manufacturing center employed as many as 10,000 workers in approximately 100 buildings and was second only to the Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, Virginia, in the production of war materials," reads the Selma Ordnance and Naval Foundry entry in the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Most of those 10,000 workers in the Selma facilities were women, children, Union POWs, or slaves forced to help build the cannons and rifles that would be used against the very soldiers trying to free them.

Tredegar Ironworks, mentioned in the above citation, was the primary military arsenal and foundry at the start of the Civil War, but Selma quickly matched it in terms of output and significance. Tredegar Ironworks is now a major Civil War museum, whereas Selma's wartime role has almost been lost to history. The new nomination and pending recognition from the National Registry could change that.

"The update to the Water Avenue Historic District will expand the boundary of the district to include buildings and sites that contribute to the landscape and history of the Water Avenue Historic District originally listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. This update is intended to better tell the whole story of the district by providing additional information and documentation on archeological sites and sites associated with African-American history, while updating the descriptions of the places previously included in the boundaries," said Collier Neeley, Alabama Historical Commission National Register Coordinator.

"The boundary has been expanded from its original confines to include several contributing buildings along Martin Luther King Street and Broad Street, as well as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and two archeological sites associated with the Confederate Naval and Army arsenals, on and in the bottom of the Alabama River. A terrestrial archeological site has also been included as a contributing site. The 2005 update had 47 contributing resources, this update has been increased to include 59 contributing resources."

The National Register is managed by the National Park Service. Neeley stressed that, "listing a property or site to the National Register does not interfere with an owner's right to alter, manage, or dispose of their property, nor does it give the Federal government any control of a property or impose financial obligations on a property owner."


Jim Delgado, an archaeologist with Search Inc., which explored the submerged portions of the site and helped the state craft the new nomination documents, said, this is "another significant, submerged and buried part of Alabama's history."


"When you look at the Civil War, the best known facility is the Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond. But equally important was the ironworks at Selma. It was a preexisting facility, and it also had access to these other small ironworks around Selma, and the raw materials in Alabama. Selma also had the Alabama River as a highway for transport. It's been a highway for settlement, for commerce, but also war," Delgado said. "As the war progressed, Selma become more and more important. (It was farther from the front lines and fighting and production increased as pressure on Richmond limited production there). The foundry works were producing the armor for the (ironclad) ships that would go on to fight in the Battle of Mobile Bay, as well as the cannons. What also came out of those facilities were the materials needed for war: bullets, bullet molds, rifles..."


For the final two years of the Civil War, Selma became the source for most of the weaponry and ammunition. (Most of the cannons still on display around the coastal South were forged at Selma.) That meant the city became a primary target for Union forces in the spring of 1865. General James Wilson led a raid on the city and the Selma factories.


Several of the buildings tied to the wartime production in Selma, dating to the early 1800s, are still standing along the city waterfront, having survived Wilson's raid. But the history of the ironworks disappeared along with its machinery, most of which was pushed into the river at the tail end of the war. In fact, the destruction of that machinery hastened the end of the Civil War.


From the Encyclopedia of Alabama entry, written by Herbert J. Lewis:


"On April 2, 1865, Wilson's troops captured the city of Selma and completely destroyed all of the city's manufacturing facilities and equipment, including the arsenal, the ordnance center, the gunpowder works, the nitre works, and 11 ironworks and foundries. In the arsenal alone, 15 siege guns, 10 heavy carriages, 10 field pieces, 10 caissons, 63,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, three million feet of lumber, and 10,000 bushels of coal were destroyed.


"Just one week after the destruction of Selma, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, and the war was effectively over. Selma's manufacturing center had contributed greatly to the South's ability to continue fighting during the last two years of the war. But its destruction insured that arms and ammunition could not be supplied to any guerrilla forces that might be encouraged to keep on fighting."


For years, the Alabama Historical Commission has received reports from recreational divers around Selma, who found all manner of war-related items just offshore of the city waterfront.


"A few years back, the state began looking with interest into what existed below the water around Selma, especially with tales from divers of weapons, tools, shells, etc., from the foundry, the arsenal and the navy yard," Delgado said. "When it was destroyed in 1865 as part of Wilson's raid, the Confederate material, a lot of it was pushed into the river and destroyed. That has left two massive deposits with a fair amount of material between them."


Divers from Search explored the heaps of iron and machinery on the river bottom as part of the new historic nomination.


"There is potential in Selma for future digs. For people who were working in the arsenal and foundry, but also the whole life there. There is a tremendous amount of physical evidence that speaks to the production, and the volume of production, as the war progressed," Delgado said, explaining that further archaeological work will be required to unwrap the full story. "Is there any evidence of the fact that the bulk of the people working there were enslaved, joined with Union prisoners of war? If we excavate down there and on the land, what does that tell us about these people?"


Delgado said lost sites such as the munitions works at Selma highlight the importance of archaeology. He said, "going there, standing there, looking at the old maps, but standing on the ground, looking at the old buildings, knowing what lies beneath you," had been a powerful experience.


"It spoke to me in two ways. One how much history is taken for granted until it is pointed out as important, and two, how archaeology can give voice to people who haven't been included in the narrative before," Delgado said, referencing the slaves forced to build weapons that were destined to be used in the effort to keep them captive.


He said his divers immediately hit on significant finds as soon as they reached the river bottom. In one case, they swept some mud away from the bottom and uncovered a cache of minie balls - the bullets used in the black powder guns during the Civil War.


One item the archaeological team found, a bar of lead stamped with the name of a company out of Troy, New York, carried particular significance.


"The Union had a contract with this company to supply lead. Back then, soldiers, carried lead in case they had to make their own bullets. Some Union soldier had that in his pack. How does that end up in Selma on the bottom of a river? Well, there's a lead shortage. So an order goes out, 'Get the lead. Get it from your own guys who have fallen. Get it from their guys, dig it out of a tree. Get lead however you can for Jefferson Davis," Delgado said. "That's how this lead bar ended up here. We can never say that it belonged to a particular Yankee soldier, but just the same you can say a lot about what happened to it in a broader sense. Somebody carried it from the north, and then somehow a Confederate soldier came to have it, and then an archaeologist found it. And now we are able to tell this story."


Full article with pics can be found here - https://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2018/10/selma_civil_war_sites_and_pett.html

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Thanks for sharing this.
I have not heard of POWs being used as forced labor in rebel factories before. This would make an interesting thread on its own.
 
If the river itself is declared to be part of the historical district, any recovery of artifacts from there would be illegal. In the past, the historical commission has attempted to (and has had) divers arrested for looting.
 
@redbob is correct in the fact that if its added the National Registry the excavation or recover of items in the river and on land will be off limits. Under the current Alabama Antiques law recovery of items from the river is still against the law as it is with any other waterway in the state. (Just ask @redbob and I's friend Steve P.) There have been some VERY nice relics recovered from the river and the land site but as always the state says they don't have the funds for recovery.

As far as worker go there were many slaves that were contracted out to the CSA to work in the arsenal but NEVER has there been any evidence of Union POW's being made to work there. If they were you would think that the surviving prisoner would have mention it in all their writings after the war. Below is a great CW period map from The Alabama Archives that shows the area in question. One thing the author did not mention was the fact that Gen Wilson had over 500 horses and mules slaughtered and dump in the river and his artillery piece count is way off as I have a list I will try and dig out of all the ordnance that was present when the yankee army took Selma and the cannons were over 50. I really hope they don't do this as there is some much to learn from the items in the river as well as buried on land.
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"The Union had a contract with this company to supply lead. Back then, soldiers, carried lead in case they had to make their own bullets. Some Union soldier had that in his pack. How does that end up in Selma on the bottom of a river? Well, there's a lead shortage. So an order goes out, 'Get the lead. Get it from your own guys who have fallen. Get it from their guys, dig it out of a tree. Get lead however you can for Jefferson Davis," Delgado said.

Sounds to me like a Northern company was selling lead to the Confederates.

I've got no evidence, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Anything to make a buck.
 
Here is some of the CS gun parts an pieces of lead bars and balls that I found in the CS camps here in Demop. At the time of this camp lead was at a premium. The report of the CS major who had charge of the arsenal here tells how bad it was.
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