You’ve may have heard of the recent discovery of a Civil War era shipwreck found off the North Carolina coast. Underwater archeologists are now almost certain the large, iron hulled vessel is the Agnes E. Fry, a confederate blockage runner that was scuttled near the mouth of the Cape Fear River in 1865. It’s the latest Civil War-era vessel to be discovered in the area for decades.
“We knew immediately what we had when we looked at it. We were like, oh yeah.”
Billy Ray Morris is the Director of the Underwater Archeology Branch of the Office of State Archeology. He’s discovered quite a few shipwrecks in his career. But this one, he says is special.
“We were looking for it, we designed the predictive models for where it would be. It was a very satisfying feeling. And when we saw the extent of preservation, it was very exciting for everybody on the boat because the potential to look at stuff that we perhaps have not been able to see before.”
The discovery was made while surveying other wreck sites in the area. The Underwater Archeology branch received a grant from the National Park Service through the American Battlefield Protection Program to assess the condition of 27 vessels involved in the campaign to block Wilmington and eventually storm Fort Fisher during the Civil War.
“While we were looking at them, we were also cognizant of the fact that there’s a two mile stretch of beach where three runners were known to have gone aground and nobody has ever found them. There had been reports over the years of divers talking about being on wrecks over there.”
Since the team was already in the area, they decided to use a magnetometer towed behind their research vessel to search the ocean floor.
“It’s really a high end metal detector that picks up differences in the Earth’s magnetic field as generated by a big pile of ferrous metal like an iron-hulled ship or engines or what have you. So we had done some mag work down there and we had a couple of targets. But when you’re towing the mag we don’t tow the sonar because you can tow the mag faster and cover more area. ”
More than a year later, on February 27th, Morris says they were finally able to study their most promising target near the mouth of the Cape Fear River.
“And we got this incredibly good image of a 225 foot hull remains laying on the bottom about 400 yards off the beach in about 18 feet of water.”
The 19th century shipwreck is mostly intact, and lays partially submerged in the sand with the stern pointing toward the beach. At least one boiler, a steam engine component- is still in place and both engines and the paddlewheel are missing. The outline on the sonar image matches the description of a blockade vessel used during the Civil War, and given its size, they’ve been able to determine which of the three missing blockage runners it is.
“The first two, the Georgianna McCaw and the Spunkie were too small. Georgianna McCaw being 179 feet, Spunkie being about 190 feet. Fry was about 236 feet and we had hull remains stretching 225 feet.”
Evidence combined with sonar imaging and extensive documentation leads Morris to believe this is indeed the shipwreck of the Agnus E. Fry. Historical records say the paddlewheel shaft was recovered in 1888 and the two engines removed. In 1909, the Army Corps of Engineers wire dragged the wreck to deepen the channel. This flattened the vessel so it would only be 10 feet off the bottom. Morris says the sonar image confirms that these occurrences took place at the wreck site.
“Into the 1920s, the lifesaving service kept an operational log book that kept range and bearing to the wreck Agnes E. Fry. And when we put the cursor on GIS maps and ran the range and bearing, it ran right over top of what we’ve got. So every single piece of evidence we have points to this being the Agnus Fry.”
Morris is now in the process of trying to obtain construction plans for the Fry and its cargo manifest, documents which could further prove its identity.
In addition to solving a 150 year old mystery of what happened to the Agnes E. Fry, Morris is excited about the condition of the vessel and the artifacts it may contain. Since the ship went down in between the first and second assaults on Fort Fisher, the cargo was never recovered.
“And we have an account from one of the engineering officers describing how he and the other guys on the boat left with pretty much with what they were wearing. Given the state of preservation of this blockage runner, I think there is a better than average chance that there will be some of her cargo left behind and some of the personal effects of her crew. We have not only the opportunity to look at the way the ship was built, the technological changes and design, but there’s a change we’re going to get to look at what the sailors left behind and what her cargo was.”
Just last week, Morris attempted to dive at the site to catch a glimpse of some of the artifacts first hand, but said extremely low visibility dampened his research.
“The one dive we ran was pitch black. So if you can image closing your eyes, and getting inside a dark closet at midnight, that is what it was like. I mean you literally cannot see.”
Morris hopes to try diving at the site next week to get more detailed images of the wreck, if weather conditions are favorable. This Fall, he hopes students from East Carolina University’s Maritime Studies Program will join the team as they gather more data from the Agnes E. Fry.
