Posted on 12/04/2002 8:34:13 PM PST by stainlessbanner
WEST POINT -- The coffee-colored waters of the Chattahoochee River are a bone-numbing 52 degrees. The brisk wind adds a bitter edge to a frosty November morning.
At the water's edge, a dozen divers, swaddled in layers of neoprene, with snorkels, regulators and clipboards dangling from their wet suits, make final checks of their gear. They are eager to enter the river, even though one quips, "It's so cold velcro won't stick."
The divers are the first of what state officials hope will become a legion of sport divers interested in surveying and preserving the forgotten history that lies beneath Georgia's rivers, lakes and bays. Their eagerness is fueled by a chance to see hidden history the river has safeguarded for a century and a half.
For a half mile below the U.S. 29 bridge, the bottom of the Chattahoochee is littered with relics dating from the age of covered bridges, slavery, the closing days of the Civil War and 19th-century riverboat commerce.
"See that pile of rocks out there?" asks Charles Kelly, a historical archivist and sport diver from LaGrange. "That's what's left of a covered bridge that was built in 1838 by Horace King, a former slave who became a master bridge builder.
"Over there are the remains of a railroad trestle that was burned by Union troops in 1865. And somewhere underneath this bank is the C.W. Jones, a riverboat that broke loose and sank in the storm of 1888."
Much of what lies on the river bottom is a result of West Point's most noteworthy moment in history -- the day 3,750 Union troops and 64 Confederate defenders fought a one-day battle that might have been forgotten, except that it occurred on Easter Sunday a week after the war ended.
Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9. News traveled slowly in those days, but as victorious Union troops withdrew from West Point, they burned the town's bridges and sent timbers, wagons and their contents tumbling into the river. Somewhere down there, historians say, might even be a railroad car or two.
In a state in which historical preservation usually evokes images of antebellum mansions and sprawling battlefields, the stretch of river behind West Point's City Hall and fire station doesn't look like much.
But to archaeologists and historians, the everyday tools, timbers and other artifacts that litter the river bottom can reveal more about the past than buildings and monuments can.
"This site has a little bit of everything: African-American, Civil War and post-bellum Southern history," state Archaeologist David Crass says. "And yet we know almost nothing about it because, like hundreds of other sites in the state, it's underwater."
For most of Georgia's history, anything underwater has been out of sight, out of mind. On paper, the state is the steward of all archaeological resources in Georgia's rivers, lakes and bays. In reality, the growing popularity of sport diving and the state's inability to protect so many sites from artifact collectors have created an open season on Georgia's submerged cultural history.
"There's a wealth of stuff still buried down there in the silt, but it's slowly disappearing," Kelly says. "A few weeks ago, we found an old wagon right out there with four mule shoes, right in front of the wagon where you'd expect the mule to have been. When we looked again the other day, there were only three shoes.
"Most divers who make off with goodies don't really know they're doing anything illegal," he says. "They just don't realize that what they're taking could be a lot more meaningful if they could be studied in context. By itself, a mule shoe is just a mule shoe."
Crass hopes that the first cadre of volunteers, loosely coordinated by the Paul Barnes LaGrange Dive Center, will do what the state has been unable to do: provide a source of manpower to survey Georgia's underwater sites. In time, he says, divers also could be tapped to help excavate selected artifacts for local museums.
Crass is also hoping that the group's exposure to Georgia's little-known cultural resources will ripple through the state's sport diving community and instill an interest in history and a desire to see it protected in place.
"This is the first time Georgia has ever entered into an underwater study with sport divers," Crass tells the group after its initial survey work is completed and as members thaw out with hot cider and coffee. Many more surveys will be needed to completely map the site, most of which lies in 12 feet or more of water. "Just remember," he cautions the group. "The only way Georgia is ever going to be able to protect its underwater sites is if people like you take care of it."
For Joe and Shelley Hunt of LaGrange, the two chilly hours under the river's surface with Georgia's past seems to have whetted an appetite for more.
"We saw wagon wheels and bottles and all kinds of things, " he says, peeling off his wet suit. "We got a lot of things tagged today, and we'll definitely come back to do more. I really want to know more about what's down there.
"This kind of effort can be a great opportunity for divers to use their skills," says Lynn Harris, who heads a similar sport diving archaeology program in South Carolina.
"But it should also be a reminder to divers that you don't have to go off to exotic place to see something interesting," Harris says. "Sometime it's right on your doorstep."
Down by the river on a Friday night,
A pyramid of cans in the pale moonlight.
Talkin' bout cars and dreamin' bout women,
We never had a plan just livin' the minute.
He claimed that the environmental agencies would not have ever approved of his use of the river and had to do it secretly. He had divers do the work and they claimed to have seen catfish as big as a small car at the deep bottom channel.
What lies beneath Chappaquiddick?
They are remarkably similar to shark...unless something kills them, they just keep growing.
Sounds like an even match up. Who won?
That river was the Chattooga, on the other side of the state -- between Georgia and South Carolina.
West Point and the Chattahoochee are on the Georgia-Alabama line.
Could well be. I didn't read the book.
What do I know? I don't get to see near enough of that gorgeous and inticing countryside.
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