A year passed. Public interest waned without the stimuli of exciting new discoveries. Then Gov. Ross Barnett of Mississippi came to the project’s aid. Long interested in history, the Governor persuaded several State agencies to provide funds. Historian Bearss appeared on a nationwide television quiz program and won the $10,000 jackpot for his knowledge of the Civil War. This money, too, went into the project. In the autumn of 1962, Bearss, Jacks, Vicksburg National Military Park historian Albert Banton, and scuba divers Parks and Hart began a 30-day survey to determine the condition of the Cairo’s structural timbers. The New England Naval and Maritime Museum joined them in the effort. Firehoses cleared the silt from the spardeck, and the divers forced their way inside the casemate to get at the beams. Every one they tested was sound. Encouraged by this survey, the Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board superintended a drive in the autumn of 1963 to raise the ship intact. A mighty gravel dredge sucked the mud and debris away from the hull. Divers, both U.S. and professional, cleared the silt from the gundeck, and workmen pulled all the remaining cannon and carriages to the surface, along with hundreds of other historical objects of all kinds. The treasure hoard of Civil War artifacts began to accumulate. Impressed by the importance of the recoveries and by the favorable publicity attached to them, the Mississippi Legislature in the spring of 1964 appropriated $50,000 to continue the operations. A group of interested Vicksburgers contacted a New Orleans construction firm which agreed to raise the _Cairo_ on a “no raise, no pay” contract. An experienced diver undertook the diving on the same basis. And the Warren County (Miss.) Board of Supervisors agreed to underwrite the salvage. At long last everything had meshed. The great adventure began on August 3, 1964. A dredge cleared away the silt that had accumulated since March, and a dragline dug a hole in the river bottom just ahead of the _Cairo’s_ bow. Logs, some as much as 5 feet in diameter, had to be removed. Then the divers slowly see-sawed huge cables (2½ and 3 inches in diameter) under the hull. By October 17 seven of these cables were in position, and the next day the raising operation commenced. Four derricks with a total lifting capacity of 1,000 tons pitted their strength against the dead weight of the big ironclad. They hauled her out of the hole into which she had settled, but even their combined power could not lift her out of the water. The thick iron armor, the waterlogged timbers, and the mud-filled holds were too much for them. They moved the vessel, still submerged, 70 feet upstream and set her down on a shoal.