Quote Originally Posted by Johnny Peppers View Post
The gunboat Cairo came out of the Yazoo river where it had been sunk by a Confederate torpedo or mine. When it was found it was virtually intact but completely filled with silt. The engineers thought it could be raised by running several large cables under the hull and lifting it, but with the tremendous weight of the silt the cables cut through the hull leaving a jumbled mess. Everything that could be found was loaded on a barge and sent to Pascagoula, Mississippi for salvage and restoration before being returned to Vicksburg.
The silt had preserved many artifacts in the Cairo which are now in the museum at the site of the gunboat.

You seem to know the area quite well. If you haven't been there recently, they are almost done with a new bridge over the Yazoo on Hwy. 61 north of Vicksburg. I travel that way on my way to AR so I don't have to drive through LA. They also have neared completion of a new bridge over the Mississippi river at Greenville. The old steel bridges are about all gone nowdays.


Have a good weekend,

Emri