The CSS Pedee, also known as the CSS Pee Dee was a Confederate gunboat

Gunboat

A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...

 launched in January 1865 and scuttled the following month during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

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The Pee Dee was a Macon-class gunboat that was outfitted with two Brooke rifled cannon and a Union Dahlgren cannon. It was built at the Mars Bluff Navy Yard on the Great Pee Dee River in Marion County, South Carolina.

On December 21, 2010, South Carolina’s state archaeologist announced that a team of researchers believes they have discovered the remains of the Pee Dee.

It is believed that in mid-February 1865, after an upriver skirmish with a Union ship, the crew of the Pee Dee scuttled the ship so it would not fall into enemy hands.

“They started dismantling the vessel and burning it,” The Associated Press quoted South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

state archaeologist Jonathan Leader as saying. “It’s a debris field.”

The discovery comes a year and a half after Leader and fellow researcher Chris Amer discovered two cannons belonging to the ship.