Remains of Crude Minesweeper From Civil War Found
PORT ARANSAS, Tex. — Archeologists combing the sand dunes of Mustang Island have pinpointed the remains of a century-old minesweeper, a Civil War torpedo raft that they believe washed ashore 120 years ago.
Herman Smith, an archeologist from the Corpus Christi Museum, spent four hours Tuesday using metal detectors to find the iron-spiked wooden fragments of the raft.
The raft is of the type used by the Union Navy as a crude minesweeper during the Civil War, Smith said.
Smith believes that it is one of four rafts that were being towed from New York in 1863 when a storm hit. The other three rafts were lost, he said.
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