This is a 12-pounder iron cannonball with Borman fuse and tin straps mounted on a reproduction wood sabot.  Iron is in very good condition overall with mostly smooth surface and dark color.  Borman fuse remains in good shape with some concretion remaining on top. Rarest of all is the original tin straps that remain in excellent condition with traces of black paint. The original turned wood sabot deteriorated and this piece is now sitting on a reproduction sabot.

This item is from the U.S.S. Cairo which was one of seven shallow-draft City Class river ironclads, The U.S.S. Cairo was commissioned in January of 1862. Named after towns along the upper Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the seven formidable City Class gunboats prowled the Mississippi River and connecting shallow waterways, menacing Confederate supply lines and shore batteries. The Cairo’s career was short, seeing only limited action in battles at Fort Pillow in May,1862, and Memphis in June, 1862.

On the morning of December 12, 1862, Lt. Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, led a small flotilla of gunboats into the Yazoo River. Tasked with destroying Confederate batteries and clearing the river of torpedoes (underwater mines) the flotilla inched its way along to a point seven miles north of Vicksburg where the flotilla came under fire. The Cairo was rocked by two explosions in quick succession. The first tore a hole into the port bow and the second detonated near the armored belt amidships on the starboard side. The hole on the bow proved to be catastrophic. As the doomed ironclad took on water, Selfridge ordered the Cairo to be beached and the crew to abandon ship. Within twelve minutes the Cairo slid from the river bank into 36 feet of water without any loss of life.

Over the years the gunboat was forgotten and her resting place was slowly covered by a shroud of silt and mud. Edwin C. Bearss, Historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, was able to plot the approximate site of the wreck and in late 1964 the remains of the Cairo were raised and sent to Vicksburg.   [jet]

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