Museum Tour

Welcome to the CSS Neuse Museum! In front of you is the CSS Neuse, an ironclad ram of the Confederate States Navy. She was one of the 26 ironclads that the South commissioned during the Civil War. You are currently facing the starboard side of the hull. Above you are white tubes, which represent the outline of the superstructure of the ironclad. As impressive and well fit for battle as it was, the CSS Neuse did not partake in its intended mission to re-capture New Bern in April 1864. Instead, the Neuse shelled the Union Army to cover the Confederate retreat after the Battle of Wyse Fork in March 1865. On the same day Kinston fell to the Union, the Neuse’s crew scuttled the ironclad to prevent its capture. Following the end of the Civil War, a contracting company stripped the Neuse of its guns and most of its iron casemate. The Neuse’s wooden hull and other unrecovered artifacts remained in the Neuse River for the next century. In the early 1960s, renewed interest in the Civil War led Kinston locals to raise the ship and transport it to the Governor Richard Caswell Memorial on West Vernon Avenue. Today, the Neuse and some of its nearly 15,000 recovered artifacts remain on display here at the CSS Neuse Museum.

Stepping to your left, you will see a model replica of the CSS Neuse, complete with its two decks and interior. This model reflects what the ironclad’s interior may have looked like.