SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A warehouse along the Savannah River
is holding historical treasures that evidence suggests remained
lost for more than 240 years — a cache of 19 cannons that
researchers suspect came from British ships scuttled to the river
bottom during the American Revolution.

The mud- and rust-encrusted guns were discovered by accident
when a dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed last year as
part of a $973 million deepening of Savannah’s busy shipping
channel surfaced with one of the cannons clasped in its metal
jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.

Archaeologists guessed they were possibly leftover relics from
a sunken Confederate gunship excavated a few years earlier in
the same area, according to Andrea Farmer, an archaeologist
for the Army Corps of Engineers. But experts for the U.S. Navy
found they didn’t match any known cannons used in the Civil
War. Further research indicates they’re likely almost a century
older and sank during the  buildup to the Revolutionary War’s
bloody siege of Savannah in 1779.

Fort Jackson just outside Savannah, Ga.

Painting of The Siege of Savannah.

April 19, 1775: At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into
Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, a shot was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud
of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others
were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the
American Revolution had begun.

John Parker
(July 13, 1729 – September 17, 1775)

Battle of Lexington State Historic Site today.

Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord
Cornwallis surrendered 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a
larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the
American Revolution.

Lord Cornwallis was one of the most capable British generals
of the American Revolution. In 1776, he drove General George
Washington’s Patriots forces out of New Jersey, and in 1780
he won a stunning victory over General Horatio Gates’ Patriot
army at Camden,South Carolina.

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis
(December 31, 1738 – October 5, 1805)

On September 21, 1780, during the American Revolution, American
General Benedict Arnold met with British Major John Andre to discuss
handing over West Point to the British, in return for the promise of
a large sum of money and a high position in the British army. The
plot was foiled and Arnold, a former American hero, became
synonymous with the word “traitor.”

Arnold was born into a respected family in Norwich, Connecticut,
on January 14, 1741.  He died in London June 13, 1801 at age 60. He
had been in poor health for several months.

The U.S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which
was established during the American Revolutionary War and
was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.

After suffering significant loss of goods and personnel at the
hands of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, the U.S. Congress
passed the Naval Act of 1794 for the construction of six heavy
frigates, the first ships of the U.S. Navy.