CSS Pedee

The CSS Pedee, also known as the CSS Pee Dee was a Confederate gunboat launched in January 1865 and scuttled the following month during the American Civil War.

The Pee Dee was a Macon-class gunboat that was outfitted with two Brooke rifled cannon and a Union Dahlgren cannon. It was built at the Mars Bluff Navy Yard on the Great Pee Dee River in Marion County, South Carolina.

On December 21, 2010, South Carolina’s state archaeologist announced that a team of researchers believes they have discovered the remains of the Pee Dee.

It is believed that in mid-February 1865, after an upriver skirmish with a Union ship, the crew of the Pee Dee scuttled the ship so it would not fall into enemy hands.

“They started dismantling the vessel and burning it,” The Associated Press quoted South Carolina state archaeologist Jonathan Leader as saying. “It’s a debris field.”

The discovery comes a year and a half after Leader and fellow researcher Chris Amer discovered two cannons belonging to the ship. The CSS PEDEE's cannons were located and found originally by the CSS PEEDEE Research and Recovery Team directed by Bob Butler of Florence, S.C., and Ted L. Gragg of Conway, S.C. The entire record of the search for the CSS PEEDEE as well as more of the ship's and the Mars Bluff Shipyard's history can be found in the book Guns of the PEEDEE, The Search for The Warship CSS Pee Dee's Cannons written by Ted L. Gragg and published by Flat River Rock Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9794572-3-4.