Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: Period photograph of gunboat] The Story of a Civil War Gunboat [Illustration: U.S.S. CAIRO] _comprising A Narrative of Her Wartime Adventures by Virgil Carrington Jones and An Account of Her Raising in 1964 by Harold L. Peterson_ _National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Washington, D.C. 1971_ _The U.S.S. _Cairo_ was sunk in the Yazoo River by a Confederate torpedo in December 1862. A century later, she was raised and salvaged along with thousands of priceless artifacts. The boat, currently owned by the State of Mississippi, is now at Pascagoula, Miss., awaiting reconstruction. The artifacts, through an agreement with the State of Mississippi and the Warren County (Miss.) Board of Supervisors, have been entrusted to the National Park Service for preservation, care, and display at Vicksburg National Military Park. This publication is designed to interpret both the boat and the artifacts to visitors at the park. Inquiries about the _Cairo_ should be addressed to the Superintendent, Vicksburg National Military Park, Box 349, Vicksburg, MS 39180._ _For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Price—80 cents_ _Foreword_ For 11 years, I was closely associated with the _Cairo_ project, and I know how difficult it is to place the undertaking in its proper perspective and to dispassionately evaluate its historical significance. I was accordingly delighted to learn that Virgil Carrington Jones, who needs no introduction to readers interested in Civil War partisan operations and action afloat, had agreed to chronicle the story of the _Cairo_ and her rendezvous with destiny on the Yazoo in December 1862; and that Harold L. Peterson, whose publications on arms and armament are legion, would survey, describe, and evaluate the thousands of artifacts recovered. Jones and Peterson, as the readers of this booklet will discover, have written of the _Cairo_ and her treasure trove of artifacts with keen insight and understanding. Their accounts will spark the reader’s interest, and, in conjunction with the salvaged objects themselves, lead to a better understanding of how bluejackets lived and fought in our Civil War. —_Edwin C. Bearss_ _The Wartime Adventures of the U.S.S._ Cairo 1 [Illustration: 1]