CSS Georgia (1863)
American Civil War Confederate ironclad warship
CSS Georgia, also known as State of Georgia and Ladies' Ram, was an ironclad warship built in Savannah, Georgia in 1862 during the American Civil War. The Ladies' Gunboat Association raised $115,000 for her construction to defend the port city of Savannah.
Service history
Commanded by Lieutenant Washington Gwathmey, CSN, the new warship was employed to defend the river channels below Savannah, using her cannons to prevent a Union advance on the city from the sea. When her steam engines turned out to lack sufficient power for offensive use, Georgia was anchored in the Savannah River as a floating battery, protecting both the city and Fort Jackson. Georgia had been in service about 20 months, when Sherman's March to the Sea captured Savannah by land on December 21, 1864. Her Confederate crew scuttled the ship to prevent her capture and use against the South.
Wreck
In 1866, the ship's railroad track iron rail armor was partially salvaged and the wooden hull was shattered by the underwater charges used to remove it. The wreck was then left alone and forgotten. In 1968 Georgia was rediscovered during a dredging operation of the Savannah River. The wreck was left untouched, although accidental impacts from dredging equipment and the anchors marking the site location may have damaged what remained.
The public source identifies “CSS Georgia (1863)” as american Civil War Confederate ironclad warship. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Georgia, American and Civil.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5014295. VIAF identifies the subject as 136250497. The Library of Congress control number is n2005042028. Authority coordinates are 32.085, -81.036. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1862, 1864, 1866 and 1968.
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This entry incorporates text from “CSS Georgia (1863)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.