Friday, September 19,1986
Union regiments' image shaped from the St. Johns River's mud

    The remarkable historical productivity of the sunken U.S. transport Maple Leaf be comes more striking with each dive to salvage its Civil War era cargo. As the yield increases from the hold of the vessel, there is an eerie sense of having hit upon the kind of time warp so beloved of science fiction writers.
    From the possessions lying on the muddy bottom of the St. Johns River off Mandarin Point, the divers of St. Johns River Archaeological Expeditions Inc. are reconstructing not merely regiments, but to an almost unbelievable extent are getting to know individuals in those regiments.
    Not only are their names emerging from wooden boxes containing personal items, but so are clues as to their individual values and their vanities.
    Swords with personal inscriptions, elaborately carved pipes, shaving mugs, a bayonet, minie balls, shoes, pistol shot, conch shells, musical instruments, an ink well, a roll of wire wrapped around a stick, are telling Lee Manley and his crew of divers a fascinating tale of life frozen on April 1, 1864, when the 175-foot side-wheel steamship Maple Leaf hit one of 12 Confederate mines that had been placed in the river off Mandarin Point and in about 10 minutes went to the bottom.
    There are spoons etched with the name of Surgeon Charles Washburn  -  the probable owner of surgical paraphernalia found earlier - who contracted fever treating the sick and died in North Carolina in 1865. There is even a hint of modest military booty as divers searching through the mud found doorknobs possibly "liberated" as the regiment fought its way to the Charleston, S.C., area, from which it hurriedly decamped to answer the threat posed by the Confederate victory at Olustee to Union control of Jacksonville.
    Incredibly, just as SJAEI President Keith Holland, a Jacksonville dentist, had so brashly predicted years ago, pieces of newspaper and parts of books brought up so far are legible not barely legible, but legible. They can be read by a person with normal eyesight.
Since there is strong evidence that the Canadian -built ship contained regimental records, the implications are of a historical coup even more spectacular than the unbelievably numerous and well-preserved store of artifacts being slowly brought up from the river.
    Now, the well-named diving barge "Mud Puppy" has ceased operations for this year at the site, unless financing, now unforeseen, is made available to reopen the diving part of the operation.
    It is time to preserve and evaluate what has been uncovered so far, to prepare the items for display, to try to absorb the messages this batch has sent about the tons of cargo that remain, and to plan how best to proceed in the next series of dives, including how to finance them.
    The full implication of what has been discovered will take time to emerge, although it is likely to be as extravagant as the hopes the salvors had several years ago when underwater mapping had almost conclusively identified the ship.
    By now, the SJAEI principals have good reason to be skeptical about the help that is possibly forthcoming, having been generally rebuffed in the past, but it is difficult to believe that the lack of support will continue. This latest series of dives emphatically translates what were once claims, into the tangible stuff of history.
    In the not-too-distant future, Jacksonville residents and visitors will be able to see on exhibit at the Jacksonville Museum of Science and History the artifacts that have been brought up. This will whet the public appetite for more.
    However, the historical importance of the cargo will build its own momentum as word spreads among the fraternity of historians of that fateful period of American history. For instance, metal tubes found in the cargo may be the only remnants of a particular type of mortar used in trench warfare, described in literature of the period but missing from collections of that era's ordnance.
    The pace of artifact recovery has been dictated by the desire to preserve but also by the availability of funds. A state grant for the current year was sought and narrowly missed when available funds were used up on projects with more priority.
    After the results of the latest dive sequence, it is difficult to imagine that many Florida projects could possibly have higher priority.