Mary Bowerman

USA TODAY NETWORK

Bomb squads successfully detonated Civil War-era cannon balls uncovered on a beach near Charleston after Hurricane Matthew ripped through the area.

Charleston County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday that the majority of the ordnance were successfully detonated, but a few were transported to the nearby Navy Base.

Maj. Eric Watson, a public information officer with the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, said the cannon balls were discovered early afternoon on Sunday, though high tide prevented officials from recovering the cannonballs initially.

“We had to wait until after seven for the tide to go down,” Watson said. “When the tide receded our guys and members of the U.S. Air Force explosive team used a small amount of C-4 to detonate the cannon balls right there on the beach.”

On Sunday morning, the city of Folly Beach near Charleston said on its Facebook page that 16 cannon balls were uncovered by the Hurricane.

Possible Civil War cannon balls unearthed in S.C. after Matthew

John and Judy Manzi, who have a home on Little Oak Island on the other side of Folly, went on to the beach Sunday and said a friend uncovered the Civil War-era shells.

“There was a gun emplacement there during the Civil War and this must have been a stack because they were all consolidated together,” he said.

Both exploding shells and non-exploding cannonballs were used in the Civil War.

Watson said this is not the first time Civil War-era ordnance have been found in the area.

"Charleston played a major role in the Civil War, so whenever we have construction or a natural disaster like a hurricane it's more than likely people come across some old Civil War ordnance," Watson said.

Folly Beach Island is no stranger to pirates, shipwrecks, the Civil War – or hurricanes, according to the city's website. The island was occupied by 13.000 federal troops in 1863 during the Civil War, and soldiers built roads, forts and an artillery battery, according to the city.

The island served as a strategic base for the Union battle to take Fort Wagner, which guarded Charleston harbor from the neighboring Morris Island. In 1987, construction workers found 14 bodies at the west end of the beach that were determined to be members of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, popularized in the movie Glory.

Watson encouraged people who come across anything that could be an explosive to call authorities.

"The ordnance are old, mixed with black powder which is unstable if handled the wrong way, so we encourage them when they come across ordnance to reach out to the proper authorities," he said.

Contributing: Tim Smith , Kirk Brown and Tonya Maxwell and Bart Jansen contributed to this report.