by Jacqueline Kochak
View of Port Columbus at night. Photo by
Jim Cawthorne
There’s one word for the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus: Awesome. This museum is worth a trip for anyone even remotely interested in Civil War or naval history, and there’s enough to enthrall the average child and keep his parent or grandparent entertained at the same time. I can’t wait to take my sailor son.
The remains of the CSS Jackson, once weighing 2,000 tons with room for 200 sailors, dominate the museum’s Woodruff- Jackson Gallery. The exhibit is extraordinary, with the ship’s rough-timber skeleton overwhelming the echoing space.
The Port of Columbus, the furthest navigable point upstream on the Chattahoochee, made Columbus an inevitable target when Union troops penetrated the Confederacy’s heartland.
The city’s military-industrial complex boasted naval ironworks, and the Jackson was built on the site to defend the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River system. Unfortunately, the 220-ft. ship, protected by 4-inch iron plates and six guns, never saw service.
After an initial launch Dec. 22, 1864, the ironclad was docked because of problems when Gen. J.H. Wilson’s troops, known as Wilson’s Raiders, overran the city. Union troops captured the Jackson, set the ship ablaze and cut it loose to drift for two weeks before burning to the water line 30 miles downstream. The ravaged vessel remained underwater, covered by silt and slime, for nearly a hundred years before being discovered and returned to Columbus.
Next stop on the well-laid-out tour is the CSS Chattahoochee, a 130-ft. Confederate gunboat designed to protect its namesake river and potentially break the blockade that was part of the Union’s ruthless “Anaconda Plan,” named for the snake that squeezes life out of its prey. Union ships blockaded Confederate ports, aiming to cut off the lucrative cotton trade and strangle the new Confederacy economically.
A boiler explosion killed 19 unfortunate Chattahoochee crewmembers, and the ship was towed to the Confederate Naval Shipyard in Columbus for repairs. Desperate officers scuttled the boat themselves as Wilson and the Union Army approached.
When most people think of the Civil War, they recollect the battles on land, the savage encounters that took the lives of so many men. In fact, the war was a turning point in naval history. During the bloody course of the conflict, the U.S. Navy grew to be one of the largest in the world. Columbus is lucky to have a museum of this caliber, giving a glimpse of a history most people don’t know in a format that accommodates both children and adults.
Other stops on the tour include recreations of portions of the USS Hartford (Admiral Farragut’s famous flagship) and the USS Monitor, the U.S. Navy’s first ship entirely encased in iron. Inside a recreation of part of the CSS Albemarle, visitors can see original iron plating from the CSS Jackson and the arrangement of guns in the pilothouse. An “ironclad simulator” takes the visitor right into the middle of naval combat. What kid could resist?
Essential Info
Cost: $4.50 admission for adults, $3 for students, $3.50 for active military, $3.50 for seniors 65 and older. Free for children 6 and under.
Hours: Visitors center is open 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. every day except Christmas.
Location: Just off U.S. 280 east on the Chattahoochee River
Jacqueline Kochak lives in Auburn and survived raising five rambunctious children. She is now writing a book called “Daytripping in East Central Alabama” and can be reached by e-mail at daytripping@charter.net.
