WEBVTT 00:01.740 --> 00:03.450 At Texas A and M University's 00:03.460 --> 00:06.050 conservation research lab . Historical 00:06.059 --> 00:08.140 mysteries are being unraveled as 00:08.149 --> 00:10.130 experts work to conserve 17 00:10.140 --> 00:12.369 revolutionary war cannon raised from 00:12.380 --> 00:14.380 the bottom of a river in Savannah , 00:14.380 --> 00:16.709 Georgia . The cannon were originally 00:16.719 --> 00:18.830 mounted on the Venus and the Savannah 00:18.969 --> 00:20.969 sailing vessels sunk by the British 00:20.969 --> 00:24.229 military in fall 1779 to block a French 00:24.239 --> 00:26.183 fleet from advancing and helping a 00:26.183 --> 00:28.350 patriot army attack . The British held 00:28.350 --> 00:31.629 city . They were discovered during 00:31.639 --> 00:33.439 dredging work in 2021 00:38.330 --> 00:40.169 raised the next year by divers 00:40.180 --> 00:42.124 contracted by the US Army Corps of 00:42.124 --> 00:44.069 Engineers , Savannah district with 00:44.069 --> 00:46.236 support from the Jacksonville District 00:46.236 --> 00:47.958 studied by archaeologists from 00:47.958 --> 00:49.902 chronicle heritage starts at eight 00:49.902 --> 00:52.200 inches from center and then brought by 00:52.209 --> 00:54.209 truck to the lab to be prepared for 00:54.209 --> 00:55.431 exhibit in a museum . 01:00.610 --> 01:02.909 The CRL team chiseled away a layer of 01:02.919 --> 01:05.030 concretion on the outside of the guns 01:05.030 --> 01:06.752 and removed the wooden plugs , 01:06.752 --> 01:08.641 cannonballs and remains of powder 01:08.641 --> 01:10.141 charges from the barrels . 01:13.790 --> 01:16.459 Next came a process called electrolysis , 01:16.690 --> 01:18.468 submerging the guns in a sodium 01:18.468 --> 01:20.349 hydroxide solution and running 01:20.360 --> 01:22.582 electrical current through it to remove 01:22.582 --> 01:25.160 salts from the metal and removes the 01:25.169 --> 01:27.336 excess concretion that we couldn't get 01:27.336 --> 01:29.502 off manually . No one knew exactly how 01:29.502 --> 01:31.836 long process would take for each cannon . 01:31.845 --> 01:34.724 Ultimately , the completion date rests 01:34.735 --> 01:37.068 in the hands of the cannons . So we say , 01:37.068 --> 01:39.291 hey , these cannons will pay six months 01:39.291 --> 01:41.124 to a year . But if there's still 01:41.124 --> 01:41.044 chlorides coming out of the , the 01:41.055 --> 01:43.485 solution , we can't just , we can't 01:43.495 --> 01:45.717 reason with the cannons and say , hey , 01:45.717 --> 01:47.940 we're hitting a deadline here this 01:49.919 --> 01:51.919 when the time is right , the cannon 01:51.919 --> 01:53.863 comes out and the solution must be 01:53.863 --> 01:55.808 rinsed completely away . The first 01:55.808 --> 01:58.030 thing we have to do is get any residual 01:58.030 --> 02:00.599 electrolyte off . Uh So the the cannons 02:00.610 --> 02:02.832 come out of the vats , they go into our 02:02.832 --> 02:05.980 big vat of boiling deionized water and 02:05.989 --> 02:08.045 they get several boiling rinses . It 02:08.045 --> 02:10.267 takes a couple of weeks um to make sure 02:10.267 --> 02:12.045 that we drive all of the sodium 02:12.045 --> 02:15.490 hydroxide off of the cannon . As soon 02:15.500 --> 02:17.556 as we finish boiling these cannons , 02:17.556 --> 02:19.500 they're like , I'm ready to rust . 02:21.750 --> 02:24.050 The CRL team must act quickly to brush 02:24.059 --> 02:27.729 away any powdery rust . Then they paint 02:27.740 --> 02:29.851 the cannon with a coat of tannic acid 02:29.851 --> 02:32.073 to form a corrosion resistant barrier . 02:33.369 --> 02:35.591 You hear tannins when people talk about 02:35.591 --> 02:37.647 wine . Uh it's , it's just some acid 02:37.647 --> 02:39.702 that comes out of things like leaves 02:39.702 --> 02:41.869 and bark and trees . Uh And so we take 02:41.869 --> 02:43.702 that acid and we paint it on the 02:43.702 --> 02:45.813 surface of the metal . And this co uh 02:45.813 --> 02:47.813 forms a corrosion resistant barrier 02:47.813 --> 02:50.910 called ferric tannate . And once the 02:50.919 --> 02:52.929 tannic acid solution dries , they 02:52.940 --> 02:55.050 submerge the gun in a vat of molten 02:55.059 --> 02:57.809 microcrystalline wax . This drives out 02:57.820 --> 02:59.709 the rest of the moisture from the 02:59.709 --> 03:01.876 cannon . And it also , when we take it 03:01.876 --> 03:03.764 out of the wax , there's a , it's 03:03.764 --> 03:03.600 invisible but there's a , a moisture 03:03.610 --> 03:05.809 resistant barrier from the wax . The 03:05.820 --> 03:07.931 final step is to apply several layers 03:07.931 --> 03:10.250 of alkaline paint , sealing everything 03:10.259 --> 03:12.419 up to prevent any future corrosion . 03:13.970 --> 03:16.789 It's a very process and a very job , 03:17.070 --> 03:19.910 but it's very , very fun and rewarding . 03:24.089 --> 03:26.200 Now , more than a year later , two of 03:26.200 --> 03:28.311 the conserved cannon look brand new , 03:28.380 --> 03:31.029 shiny black and ready to be displayed . 03:31.199 --> 03:33.255 You'd never expect . They spent more 03:33.255 --> 03:35.477 than two and a quarter centuries at the 03:35.477 --> 03:37.643 bottom of a brackish river . While the 03:37.643 --> 03:39.588 conservation process is relatively 03:39.588 --> 03:41.532 straightforward . The story of the 03:41.532 --> 03:43.366 Shannon's origins has taken some 03:43.366 --> 03:45.588 unexpected twists and turns . 14 of the 03:45.588 --> 03:47.643 17 guns lack evidence that they were 03:47.643 --> 03:49.866 cast in British military foundries like 03:49.866 --> 03:51.699 other guns of the period . These 03:51.699 --> 03:53.810 cannons don't have some of the things 03:53.810 --> 03:55.643 that we would expect for typical 03:55.643 --> 03:58.125 British cannons , right ? Um The first 03:58.134 --> 04:00.134 thing on British military vessels , 04:00.134 --> 04:02.134 there's always a broad arrow that's 04:02.134 --> 04:02.005 stamped on the cannon . None of these 04:02.014 --> 04:04.570 have that . The second thing is that 04:04.729 --> 04:06.869 most cannons have a fair amount of 04:06.880 --> 04:10.850 information uh put on the metal 04:10.860 --> 04:12.971 itself . So you'll usually see like a 04:12.971 --> 04:15.009 weight marking , a proof mark , the 04:15.020 --> 04:16.964 foundry name , all these different 04:16.964 --> 04:18.964 things , right ? We're , we're very 04:18.964 --> 04:21.187 open to the idea that they might not be 04:21.187 --> 04:23.298 what we originally thought . Um And , 04:23.298 --> 04:25.076 and we're just gonna do our due 04:25.076 --> 04:27.187 diligence to figure out what they are 04:27.187 --> 04:29.242 and then share that information with 04:29.242 --> 04:31.076 the world Texas A and M graduate 04:31.076 --> 04:33.131 student , Alyssa Carpenter , who has 04:33.131 --> 04:32.739 been part of the project since the 04:32.750 --> 04:34.970 Canon arrived at the lab , traveled to 04:34.980 --> 04:37.202 the United Kingdom in search of clues . 04:37.760 --> 04:40.239 And so I'm currently working on what 14 , 04:40.519 --> 04:42.741 like what country of origin those could 04:42.741 --> 04:44.852 be from . And so I went there to look 04:44.852 --> 04:47.130 at those cannons to get the dimensions , 04:47.130 --> 04:49.297 the ratios to compare to ours . Alyssa 04:49.297 --> 04:51.463 met with a British artillery expert at 04:51.463 --> 04:53.575 the Tower of London who verified that 04:53.575 --> 04:55.686 three of the 17 cannon are of British 04:55.686 --> 04:57.852 origin . This finding was confirmed by 04:57.852 --> 05:00.019 the curator of maritime history at the 05:00.019 --> 05:02.130 National Maritime Museum in Greenwich 05:02.130 --> 05:01.829 who said that two of the Savannah 05:01.839 --> 05:04.061 cannon are similar in size and style to 05:04.070 --> 05:06.679 a circus 1763 weapon in the museum's 05:06.690 --> 05:08.720 collection . Alyssa wrapped up her 05:08.730 --> 05:10.563 visit with a stop in the British 05:10.563 --> 05:12.508 National Archives where she dug up 05:12.508 --> 05:14.508 period documents that mentioned the 05:14.508 --> 05:16.508 scuttling of British vessels in the 05:16.508 --> 05:18.563 Savannah River in 1779 to figure out 05:18.563 --> 05:20.869 what ship sunk at that location . If 05:20.880 --> 05:22.936 there was like a ship manifest where 05:22.945 --> 05:25.001 they outfitted , kind of getting any 05:25.001 --> 05:27.112 knowledge that I possibly could . The 05:27.112 --> 05:28.945 origins of the 14 apparently non 05:28.945 --> 05:31.278 British cannon remain a mystery for now , 05:31.278 --> 05:33.334 but perhaps it's not surprising they 05:33.334 --> 05:35.223 might have American origins since 05:35.223 --> 05:37.278 recent documentary research revealed 05:37.278 --> 05:39.278 that the Savannah was originally an 05:39.278 --> 05:41.605 American patriot privateer seized by 05:41.614 --> 05:43.670 the Royal Navy before it was sunk in 05:43.670 --> 05:45.774 Savannah . We're not 100% sure where 05:45.785 --> 05:47.952 these came from just yet , but they do 05:47.952 --> 05:50.118 seem to have been the product of maybe 05:50.118 --> 05:52.750 some type of experimentation . The 05:52.760 --> 05:54.816 remaining cannon will go through the 05:54.816 --> 05:57.038 final steps in the conservation process 05:57.038 --> 05:59.204 to prepare them for the return trip to 05:59.204 --> 06:01.316 Savannah where they will be exhibited 06:01.316 --> 06:03.316 downtown in Savannah History Museum 06:03.316 --> 06:05.538 adjacent to Battlefield Memorial Park , 06:05.538 --> 06:08.529 which marks the site of the 1779 battle 06:08.540 --> 06:10.630 of Savannah . Reporting from the 06:10.640 --> 06:12.696 conservation research lab at Texas A 06:12.696 --> 06:14.862 and M University for the US Army Corps 06:14.862 --> 06:16.918 of Engineers Savannah District . I'm 06:16.918 --> 06:17.209 Michael Jordan .