Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Place.....C.W. Ironclad ' Muscogee' ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 May 5, 2007, 11:22 pm Source: Sesquicentennial Supplement III, Ledger-Enquirer Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/cwironcl12723gph.jpg Image file size: 193.5 Kb Naval Museum Battles Worse Than Its Ships By Ken Elkins Ledger Staff Writer Columbus' Confederate Naval Museum has had more battles than either of its two warships - the gunboat Chattahoochee or the Ironclad Muscogee could boast during their brief reign over the Chattahoochee River. The two river boats, finally scuttled and burned by their own crews as Union forces approached to capture Columbus, were fired upon by nothing larger than a muzzle-loaded rifle during the entire Civil War. The museum has survived something more deadly than gunfire - a funds cutoff and relatively low attendance over its 15 years of existence. But the museum, the only one of its kind in the world housing two remnants of the Confederate Navy, has survived the war and there's peace forecast in the years to come, predicts its curator Robert Holcombe. Ten years will see a new land different activity at the Fourth Street museum which was officially renamed last year the James W. Woodruff Jr. Confederate Naval Museum, to honor the late Columbus communications industrialist who was instrumental in the salvage of the ships from their century-old river graves. Visitors there now see the charred wood and metal remains of two ships. It's hard for a spectator to visualize a 13O-foot, fully armed gunboat Chattahoochee from the 30-foot stern section on display. And a small section of ironclad Muscogee's tells sightseers little about the sleek ship. That will change in the coming decade, Holcombe said. There will be scale models of the two ships at the museum by then, he said. Then visitors can visualize the full-sized boats. Now's the time for the museum to grow, Holcombe reasons. "The museum has all the potential," he said. The state cut off funds for the fledgling exhibit three years ago only to have the city take over the responsibility. And attendance there has been climbing but still lags behind other museums. Holcombe estimated 14,000 will have visited the exhibits this year. But that number will grow when the museum is advertised, he believes. Besides, there is talk about salvaging the famed USS Monitor, of Monitor- Merrimac fame, which sank in a storm near Cape Hatteras, N. C. “And that will raise some interest in the museum," Holcombe forecasts. He has assembled an impressive catalogue of the Confederal Navy and answers demands often for information on what historians have called the "miracle of improvization." Special Sesquicentennial Supplement III Ledger-Enquirer, Sunday, April 30, 1978, pages S-20 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/cwironcl12723gph.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 3.4 Kb