Gunboat found from Revolutionary War
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 17:22:29 -0700
>From: Mike Potter
>Reply-To: mike.potter@artecon.com
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
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>To: mahan@microworks.net
>Subject: Gunboat found from Revolutionary War
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>
>Benedict Arnold’s sunken gunboat found in Vermont lake
>______________________________________________________
>
>Copyright (c) 1997 Nando.net
>Copyright (c) 1997 The Associated Press
>
>FERRISBURG, Vt. (June 30, 1997 7:44 p.m. EDT) — A Revolutionary War
>gunboat, part of a small fleet commanded in a strategic battle by
>Benedict Arnold before he turned traitor, has been found nearly intact
>on the bottom of Lake Champlain, officials said Monday.
>
>No decision has been made yet on whether to leave the ship in place or
>to raise it, said Art Cohn, head of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.
>The ship’s exact location in the 115-mile-long lake and its depth were
>not released.
>
>The 54-foot vessel, whose name is not yet known, is “in an excellent
>state of preservation, sitting upright on the bottom, its mast still
>standing over 50 feet high and its large bow cannon still in place,”
>Cohn said.
>
>It was found in early June during a sonar survey of the lake bottom, he
>said.
>
>Only four vessels survived out of the 15-ship squadron led by Arnold in
>the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776.
>
>Cohn told reporters today he went down on the first dive to the ship.
>His attention was focused on the complicated dive procedures, he said,
>but “at the same time there was a voice screaming in my head ‘Oh my God,
>this is the gunboat! Benedict Arnold probably walked on this deck!”‘
>
>The newly discovered ship was identified as one of Arnold’s flotilla
>because it matches another of his gunboats, the Philadelphia, which was
>found in 1935 and is at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of
>American History.
>
>However, while the Philadelphia was damaged and sunk during the battle,
>this vessel apparently escaped and is believed to have been deliberately
>scuttled during the Americans’ retreat.
>
>Peter Barranco, the historian on the discovery team, said he was sure
>what they had found as soon as he saw it on the sonar. “Everything was
>crystal clear even on the sonar image. There was never any doubt in my
>mind that it was there. History had told us so,” he said.
>
>”This could prove to be the most significant maritime discovery is
>American history in the last half century,” said Philip Lundeberg,
>curator emeritus of naval history at the Smithsonian’s American History
>Museum. “The apparently excellent condition of the gunboat is highly
>unusual for an artifact this old and is one of the reasons the discovery
>is so significant.”
>
>The lake’s cold water, up to 409 feet deep, is credited with preserving
>a number of wrecks that have been found there in recent years.
>
>Lake Champlain, which divides New York and Vermont, was of strategic
>importance in the Revolutionary War because it extends up into Canada.
>
>American forces took control of the lake in 1775 and used it to invade
>British Canada.. That campaign failed, leaving a 10,000-man British
>force poised to move through the colonies.
>
>American forces, led by Arnold, met the British fleet Oct. 11, 1776, at
>the Battle of Valcour Island.
>
>The Americans lost the battle and Arnold later switched sides, giving
>the British information about American plans.
>
>By DAVID GRAM, The Associated Press