Ironclad’s Turret Yields Civil War Artifacts

Scientists exploring the gun turret of the Civil War ironclad Monitor, recovered just off the coast of North Carolina in August, have found two skeletons, one with a gold wedding band, the team said.

They have also recovered several silver spoons and forks. One bears the name “G. Frederickson,” presumably George Frederickson, an officer from Philadelphia who drowned along with 15 other crew members when the Monitor sank on Dec. 31, 1862. Another spoon is engraved “USN,” for U.S. Navy, and bears the initials “SAL.”

It may have belonged to third assistant engineer Samuel Augee Lewis, who also was lost in the sinking.

Other artifacts extracted from the nearly 40 tons of silt that filled the turret include a copper tea kettle, a lantern that apparently hung in the turret, two bone or ivory knife handles, fragments of a wool overcoat, a key, coins and a variety of uniform buttons.

Also found was a hard rubber Goodyear comb, three shoes and a boot. There were also fragments of a wooden cabinet, and cannon implements, such as worms, a sponge, rammers, brass and wooden blocks and coal.

“We are literally digging through an inverted time capsule from 1862,” said Mariners’ Museum conservator Wayne Lusardi.

“The artifacts are slowly revealing to us and the world what life was like on one of the most historic naval vessel’s in the country’s history.”