Shipwrecks and other obstructions the Union sank to the bottom
of Charleston Harbor during the Civil War - as well as submerged
Confederate blockade runners - are mapped in a project that took
scientists nearly as long as the four-year battle for
Charleston, S.C., where the war began. The endeavor taken on by
James Spirek and his colleagues from the University of South
Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology cost almost
$60,000 and provides a nearly complete map of the war relics in
the busy harbor. The project was financed with an American
Battlefield Protection grant matched by the institute. The map
includes the locations of the so-called Stone Fleet and 13
wrecked blockade runners. The Union brought the Stone Fleet of
29 old whaling and merchant vessels from New England, filled
them with stones and sank the mess to obstruct Confederate
shipping. Spirek's team located the first Stone Fleet by finding
ballast mounds beneath the main shipping channel. A second group
of 13 ships is in another chan