The wreck of the Ivanhoe, a Confederate blockade runner, has been uncovered in the surf along Fort Morgan.

The Ivanhoe dates to the Civil War. It was an iron hulled paddlewheel steamer built in Scotland in May of 1864. The ship was sunk on its maiden voyage just seven weeks later as it attempted to steam into Mobile Bay, past the Union naval blockade set up between Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island. At the time, the Confederates still controlled both forts. The Union ships patrolled the mouth of the bay just outside of the reach of the cannons in the forts.

According to historical accounts, the Ivanhoe came under heavy fire from Union ships and was forced to run aground on Fort Morgan before it sank. The crew survived the incident, and most of the cargo was removed by Confederate forces stationed in Fort Morgan. The Union ships were kept at a distance by the big cannons of Fort Morgan as the cargo and engine were pulled from the Ivanhoe. Union troops managed to slip in under the cannons in a small boat and set the Ivanhoe on fire about a week later.

Today, the Ivanhoe lies 50 yards from shore, in six feet of water at low tide, roughly a mile to the east of the tip of Fort Morgan. Its location has been known since the Civil War, but most of the time, the wreck itself is covered beneath several feet of sand. That changed this summer, as waves associated with tropical storms and hurricanes, swept the sand away and revealed the outline of the hull, its ribs, and two giant smokestacks. The stacks themselves are always visible above the sand, but they remain underwater even at low tide.

If you hurry, before the water gets cold, you can actually snorkel over the wreck right now. I swam on it a few days ago and the water was still warm enough that I didn’t need a wetsuit. You will find a scene very much like what you see in Dreas Andreasen’s aerial photos accompanying this story. Andreasen, captain of the Fort Morgan Fire Rescue, saw the wreck was uncovered during a training flight on a helicopter and shared the news via Facebook.

Much of the 201-foot length of the big iron ship is exposed and swarming with schools of small fish. Be careful if you swim out to the Ivanhoe, as the smokestacks are festooned with hooks and fishing lures, and the wreck itself is composed of jagged and rusting iron. Your best bet would be to visit on a day with a north wind, so the Gulf will be flat. Otherwise, breaking waves will make snorkeling over the ship most difficult, and dangerous. The water will also be much cleared on a calm, north wind day.

The day I visited, there were a number of small schoolmaster snapper on the wreck, an unusual sighting for our area. There were also spadefish, hand-sized sheepshead, a few flounder, and lots of little mangrove snapper. Brian Jones of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab found two octopus on the wreck and a big electric ray. If you are unfamiliar with the electric ray, I have this advice, don’t touch one! I got shocked by one a few years ago while diving. It definitely gets your attention. Like being hooked up to three or four car batteries at once.

Another word of caution about historic shipwrecks: It is illegal to remove anything from the site, dig for relics, or disturb the wreck in any way.

“The Ivanhoe is protected by the Alabama Underwater Cultural Resources Act,” said Stacye Hathorn, Alabama State Archaeologist. “It is important for people to understand they are welcome to view the wreck, but it is illegal to remove anything from the site as well as damage, destroy, salvage, excavate or alter the wreck in any way. The Ivanhoe is a nonrenewable cultural resource, meaning that if it is damaged or destroyed, it is gone forever, and that piece of history is lost.”

But what a fun piece of history to have revealed to us for even just a moment.

Blockade runner ships were purpose built for evading Union ships then patrolling Confederate ports as part of a massive naval blockade. Steam-powered and designed for speed, hundreds of blockade runners were employed during the war, mostly to sneak cotton out of the Confederate states to Europe, and then return with the cannons, guns and gunpowder vital to the war effort.

Further adding to the romance of the blockade runners is that Rhett Butler, Clark Gable’s character in Gone with the Wind, made his fortune as owner of four blockade running ships. Like the real-life profiteers his character was based on, Butler’s fortune was based on the desperation of the Confederacy in the face of the Union naval blockade. As nearly all of the nation’s manufacturing apparatus was in the north, once the war started, the Confederacy had no access to guns, gunpowder, or other vital supplies. Likewise, the wealthy in the south suddenly found themselves cut off from everything Europe and New York had to offer, including wine, fine clothing, and other luxury goods.

Meanwhile, the southern farmers had lost access to the markets of Europe, which typically purchased all of the cotton coming out of the southern fields. With the Union blockade in effect, no cotton could make it out of the country to provide income for the Confederacy, and no weaponry could make it into the country to equip the Confederate army.

Answering these twin needs, was the blockade runner. There were thousands of privately-owned ships employed to sneak cargo in and out during the war. As it turns out, the blockade runners were mostly very good at evading the much slower Union ships. And the Union ships, at least in the early years of the war, were lousy at catching what amounted to steam-powered speedboats. Even so, by wars end, the Union Navy had reportedly captured more than 1,000 blockade runners, and sunk another 355.

Jim Delgado, a celebrated marine archaeologist with Search Inc., said that most of the Civil War era wrecks known today were actually blockade runners, not warships.

“The largest group of Civil War wrecks are the blockade runners. There were some smaller craft. But then there were also these high-speed greyhounds of ocean steam power. That’s what the Ivanhoe represents,” Delgado said. “It was a ship designed purely for speed.”

A look at its measurements suggests as much. According to records from Clydeships.co.uk, a website that documents ships built in Scottish shipyards along the River Clyde, the Ivanhoe was 200 feet long and 20 feet wide, or a 10 to 1 ratio for length to width. That is an exceptionally long and narrow vessel. Such ships were built to be fast, not seaworthy. A more typical ratio for length to width for a ship of the era would be roughly 4 to 1, meaning an 80-foot-long vessel would be 20 feet wide.

“The wreck is important because while you are always talking about different civil war wrecks, and how much of the southern coastline is littered with them, each presents a unique story,” Delgado said. “In this case, the Ivanhoe speaks powerfully to the importance of Mobile to the war effort. As the Union kept continually tightening the blockade, and worked on this powerful push to take the ports, Mobile, given the strength of the fortifications, and the shallowness of the bay, it stayed open.”

Indeed, Mobile was the last major southern port to remain open, finally falling in August of 1864. Highlighting the importance of the trans-Atlantic trade coming through Mobile, the war was over just a few months after the Union Army captured the port. Unable to get goods in or out of Mobile, the Confederacy was simply starved of income and guns.

The Ivanhoe was one of the last blockade runners to attempt to enter Mobile Bay, sinking in June of 1864. It fell victim to an effort to tighten the Union blockade in preparation for the Battle of Mobile Bay that summer. It was in that battle that Admiral Farragut famously uttered the phrase, “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!”

“I recall that the number of cotton bales shipped out of Mobile was over 850,000, that’s a 500-pound bale,” Delgado said. With cotton fetching more than a dollar a pound in Europe during the war years, the cotton exports were crucial. “Basically, the economics of the situation are such, that if you are in the blockade running business, you could make a really good living if you could make at least one run.”

Though the Confederacy passed laws toward the end of the war that prohibited the blockade runners from importing anything other than necessities, like guns and gunpowder, they were never really enforced. There remained a lucrative and illicit trade in luxury items brought in by blockade runners throughout the war.

“The Ivanhoe really underscores the importance of the port of Mobile and all of that throughout history,” Delgado said. “We are seeing more storms, and more and more ships are becoming exposed. I’m seeing this nationwide. With sea level incrementally rising, we are going to see more and more of this.”

With more ships becoming exposed, state officials encouraged people to exercise care.

“The Alabama Historical Commission encourages the citizens of our state to enjoy our cultural resources, but they should do so responsibly,” said Lisa D. Jones, Executive Director of the Alabama Historical Commission. “It is important to protect and preserve the Ivanhoe, a significant piece of our state’s Civil War history, so that future Alabamians can experience it. Anyone wishing to explore or scientifically survey the Ivanhoe or any other wreck in Alabama waters can apply for a permit through the Alabama Historical Commission.”

Ben Raines specializes in investigations and natural wonders. You can follow him via Facebook, Twitter at BenHRaines, and on Instagram. You can reach him via email at braines@al.com.

You can watch Ben’s most recent documentary, The Underwater Forest, here on Youtube.