ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) — As beach days return to the Lowcountry, a delicate balancing act is underway on the Isle of Palms, where efforts to combat coastal erosion must contend with Civil War history resting just offshore.
About a mile out in murky Atlantic waters lie the remains of ships sunk more than 160 years ago. They were part of the Union Navy’s effort to choke off Charleston during the Civil War. Today, those same wrecks are shaping how engineers restore the island’s eroding shoreline.
A blockade beneath the waves
In a quiet basement lab at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, toothbrushes, teacups, ceramics, bullets and even bones sit carefully cataloged in boxes.
They are artifacts recovered from blockade runners and vessels connected to what became known as the First and Second Stone Fleets.
“During the Civil War, the Union Navy instituted a blockade of Southern ports. In South Carolina, that really manifested in Charleston trying to prevent blockade runners from coming in,” James Spirek, state underwater archaeologist, said. “The blockade runners are bringing military goods and then also commercial goods, consumer goods to the South and to keep the army going.”…