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British forces sank ships across the Savannah River entrance in 1779 to block the French fleet from reaching Savannah. Cannons and ammunition later recovered from the river are believed to have gone down with those vessels—not to have been deliberately buried there as a separate cache.
Why were ships sunk in the Savannah River?
The vessels were scuttled as a military obstruction. British forces wanted to close the river channel to approaching naval ships and deny the French fleet access to Savannah ahead of the city’s October 1779 siege. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the obstruction blocked the French advance in September that year.
A U.S. War Department correspondence report from 1855 identifies six vessels in the obstruction: HMS Rose, the armed ship Savannah, and four transports. It says they were sunk across the lower entrance to Front River to close the channel against naval vessels. The report was written decades after the event; its account supports the general purpose and named vessels, but does not identify which ship carried each recovered cannon. Read the War Department report.
How did cannonballs and powder end up in the river?
Cannons were among the artifacts found during Savannah Harbor Expansion Project dredging in 2021–2022. The Associated Press reported in June 2026 that 19 cannons had been recovered over just more than a year. Many of the cannon bores still had wooden plugs and were packed with cannonballs and powder charges. That indicates ammunition remained inside some guns; it is not evidence of a separate buried ammunition stockpile. Associated Press report on the recovered cannons.
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Which ships did the cannons come from?
The individual guns’ origins have not been confirmed. The Corps says researchers consider HMS Savannah and HMS Venus possible sources, but the attribution remains uncertain. Its 2022 account said conservation and further research would look for markings and ship-log evidence that could connect finds to a particular vessel. The defensible distinction is that the ships were sunk to obstruct the river, while the provenance of the recovered cannons is still unresolved. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers account of the 2022 discoveries.
Where are the recovered cannons now?
In 2026, 17 conserved cannons returned to Savannah and went on public display at the Savannah History Museum, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District. That display count is not the total recovery: the Associated Press reported 19 cannons raised from the river. Corps announcement about the museum display.
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Further reading on the 1779 siege
For more context about the siege and the French expedition, see the University of Georgia Press edition of Storm Over Savannah: The Story of Count d’Estaing and the Siege of the Town in 1779, or the Digital Library of Georgia’s The Siege of Savannah … in the Autumn of 1779.
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