National Civil War Naval Museum hopes to arrange and display armor from ironclad's fantail by the end of March. The comp

Fantail before arson fire, Brandon Gilland with armor, charred wood, explainer on design (Picket photos)

A fire set by Union cavalrymen in 1865 and a second lit by an arsonist in 2020 took away the dignity – and much of the wood – from a remarkable section of the Confederate ironclad CSS Jackson.

But the blazes could not erase the story of the fantail crafted for the vessel, whose remains are on display at the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Ga.

The arson fire dashed hopes of conserving the fantail, the precisely built curved rear deck that protected the vessel’s rudder and propellers. It sat for years, lying upside down, in a pole barn outside the museum. Officials had hoped to move the component inside and build a pie-shaped replica.

The arson changed all that.

Museum officials moved to the idea of using the surviving armor and replacement wood for a recreation that would highlight the artifact’s complexity and contours.

Crew of the CSS Jackson (Muscogee) aboard vessel on Chattahoochee River (Wikipedia)

No dice. That option ultimately proved too costly and unfeasible.

“Each piece looked like it was almost cut to fit. There are all kinds of sizes and shapes,” museum director Brandon Gilland told the Picket. In other words, it would take big bucks and precise knowledge and skills to fashion new pieces.

Now there’s a new approach.

To mark its 25^th year in a large building situated on Victory Drive and near the Chattahoochee River -- where the Jackson was built -- the museum will shortly begin a less ambitious project to display the 30 or so pieces of fantail armor, said Gilland.

“That fantail has been nagging at me for a while,” he said.

Volunteers, using equipment to lift the 400-pound sections, will arrange them in a half-moon shape. Beneath the armor will be cedar or some other material. The finished product will likely end up flat on the floor next to the Jackson’s stern, though Gilland would like for the fantail to be slightly elevated, if possible.

They can't use the original wood, because the 1865 and 2020 fires basically ruined them

The goal is to have the display ready for the March 21 RiverBlast, an annual event that includes cannon firings, living historians, food, family events and more.

Since the surviving armor was treated about five years ago, the sections have sat in rows along the Jackson. Bolts and other fasteners are in crates, awaiting new life. Charred wood lie on pallets, also near the stern

I held a bolt and a couple fasteners and asked Gilland whether they could be reused. Perhaps some of the bolts, he said. To demonstrate, he placed a bolt in a hole in one piece of iron armor (Picket photo, above).

That momentary connection seemingly brought the project to life.

Structure proved to be more complex than thought

CSS Jackson flag captured by 4th Division, U.S. Cavalry (The American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Va.)

Remains of the Jackson and the twin-screw wooden ship CSS Chattahoochee are the star exhibits of the museum. Both were lost in April 1865 at war’s end -- the Jackson set afire by Federal captors and the Chattahoochee scuttled by its own crew.

They were recovered from the Chattahoochee River in the early 1960s. Neither saw action.

The fantail was the half-moon shaped rear deck of the CSS Jackson, which was never fully operational. The section of armor and timber is a remarkable example of design and construction prowess.

After the 2020 fire, the upside-down fantail was the first to receive conservation attention. Each beam was documented. Using a process called photogrammetry, the archaeologists took hundreds of images of each layer in order to better understand the structure. (Gilland says the section with green labels at right may be the least damaged from the 2020 fire; Picket photo)

Jeff Seymour, director of history and collections at the museum at the time of the arson blaze, wrote about the ironclad’s fantail:

“As each level emerged, we were able to see elements of this vessel that no one has seen since 1864. As each level surfaced, several questions about how the Jackson was constructed were answered, but many more questions developed. Simply, this structure is much more complex than we thought heading into this project."

Seymour called the fantail “a very unique piece of naval architecture” that’s believed to be the only Civil War example out of the water. Because the rear deck was curved, builders had to customize the length of the armor and timber. (Seymour now works at the Erie Maritime Museum in Pennsylvania.

When I saw the fantail in 2019, before the arson fire, the artifact and the Chattahoochee’s engine components were in the pole barn outside the museum, exposed to the elements and slowly deteriorating.

I marveled at the fantail, which was charred in places from the 1865 fire. But the wood was in place and you could see how it was fashioned from layers of longleaf pine and other material.

Remnants of the pole barn after the 2020 fire; the roof is no longer there (Columbus Fire and EMS)

The June 2020 arson, which has not been solved, charred the fantail’s timbers to their core, also destroying the piece’s shape. The Chattahoochee’s wrought iron and cast iron engines, the iron plates from the Jackson’s armor and the iron plating to the fantail survived, though they were exposed to the thermal heat.

To this day, dozens of pieces of armor belonging to one side of the Jackson are in the fenced area, poking through weeds and burned wood. Why not move them inside and conserve them? There’s no money to do that currently, said Gilland.

Video shows how the fantail was put together

The naval museum has the benefit of post-fire conservation work done several years ago by Terra Mare Conservation to serve as a guide.

The company treated and tagged the armor, digitally mapped the fantail and produced a fascinating video showing how it was designed and put together. Visitors can stand near one of the Jackson’s propeller and watch the looped production

Gilland expects the work to cost about $2,000, compared to at least $25,000 for a full recreation. Museum officials several years ago cited a much higher figure to do a full-scale recreation.

Fund-raising for the fantail work was part of a larger effort, most of which has been completed, including a few new exhibits, said Gilland.

Robert Holcombe, a naval historian and former director of the museum, previously told me besides the CSS Georgia in Savannah, the fantail may have been the only piece of wood from a Confederate ironclad with iron plating still attached.

Homemade behemoth had an inglorious end

Museum visitors can gaze at the hull of the flat-bottom ironclad from a viewing platform and on the floor (Picket photo below).

A section is missing, but you get a good views of the vessel’s enormity – it was about 222 long and 57 feet across. Above the CSS Jackson’s hull is ghosting framework intended to show how the warship appeared above the water line. The rudder is missing.

The Jackson (originally named the Muscogee) was designed to protect Columbus – a critically important industrial center for the Confederacy -- from Union navy marauders and blockaders. Construction on the Jackson began in early 1863. It was built entirely in Columbus.

The Jackson’s casemate had a 35-degree slope and featured nearly two feet of wood and two layers of plating, mostly manufactured at the Scofield and Markham mill in Atlanta.

The vessel, armed with six Brooke rifles (two of which rest outside the museum), was finally launched -- after earlier unsuccessful attempts -- on Dec. 22, 1864, to local fanfare.

Fantail bolts and fasteners were cleaned and place in boxes (Picket photo)

The two engines and four boilers – manufactured in Columbus – were not operational when the city fell, and there’s a question about how well they would have performed, anyway. At best, the Jackson would have done about 5 knots.

The ship still needed armor and was unfinished when the Federal cavalry arrived on April 16, 1865.

“The following day the nearly completed ship was set ablaze and cut loose by her captors,” a panel at the naval museum says. “After drifting downstream some 30 miles, the Jackson ground on a sandbar and burned to the waterline.”