CSS Neuse was a steam-powered ironclad ram of the Confederate States Navy that served in the latter part the American Civil War and was eventually scuttled to avoid capture by rapidly advancing Union Army forces. In the early 1960s, she produced approximately 15,000 artifacts from her raised lower hull, the largest number ever found on a recovered Confederate vessel. The remains of her lower hull and a selection of her artifacts are on exhibit in Kinston, North Carolina at the CSS Neuse Interpretive Center State Historic Site, which belongs to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The ironclad is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.ConstructionA contract for the construction of Neuse was signed on 17 October 1862 between the shipbuilding company of Thomas Howard and Elijah Ellis and the Confederate Navy. Work began in October of that year on the bank across the Neuse River (her namesake) from the small village of Whitehall, North Carolina (present day Seven Springs). The gunboat's design was virtually identical to her sister ironclad, but Neuse differed from Albemarle by having four additional gun ports added (for a total of ten) to her eight-sided armored casemate. The hull was 158ft long by 34ft wide, and she was constructed mostly of locally abundant pine, with some of oak used as sturdy backing for her 4in wrought iron armor. Many delays in construction were incurred by a lack of available materials, mostly the iron plate for her armored casemate and deck; her deck armor was finally left off so the ironclad could be completed and put in service. Due to continuing iron plate shortages, Neuse became the first of several Southern ironclads built with unarmored decks. This situation was compounded by the Confederate Army exercising priority over the Navy in the use of the South's inadequate railroad system for transporting vital war materiel.
