Texas A&M unveiled an 11-foot, 10,000-pound cannon Thursday that was plucked from the Texas City Channel last month as part of a $71 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to deepen the channel.
The relic was on the gunship USS Westfield, which Union forces intentionally sunk at the Battle of Galveston in 1863 to prevent its capture.
The Dahlgren cannon is said to be the centerpiece of the recovered artifacts, which were brought to College Station and will be kept at the Conservation Research Lab on Texas A&M's Riverside Campus.
"These are visual and exciting finds," Navy archaeologist and Texas A&M graduate Alexis Catsambis said in a news release. "We have had interest from four or five museums, all in this region. We hope the first displays take place either late next year or early in 2011."
During a press conference Thursday, water was poured over the cannon and five cannon balls that had been excavated from the site to keep them moist. In the next several days, the cannon will be moved into an electrolysis bath for up to two years to remove chlorides and preserve the metal, according to Donny Hamilton, head of the Texas A&M anthropology department.
The A&M lab contracts to conserve artifacts for federal, state and private organizations that do not have conservation facilities, officials said.
"When it is uncovered is when the cannon comes alive," said Jim Jobling, a project manager at the lab, in the news release. "You can see this cast iron is beautiful, but wait until we're done with it."
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