USS Westfield was a sidewheel steam ferryboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.

That mission finally succeeded on 8 April 1862, and Westfield began duty covering a coastal survey party developing more precise maps of the lower Mississippi for the assault on Forts Jackson and St. Philip.

Late in July and early in August 1862, the ship made her way back down the Mississippi via Baton Rouge and New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Dahlgren cannon is said to be the centerpiece of the recovered artifacts, which were brought to College Station and will be kept at the Conservation Research Lab on Texas A&M's Riverside Campus.

The cannon was placed in an electrolysis bath for up to two years to remove chlorides and preserve the metal, according to Donny Hamilton, head of the Texas A&M anthropology department.

Once the archaeology project completes, the US Army Corps of Engineers begins a $71 million dredging effort of the waterway.