Mini subs at Shreveport?

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

"Marty Loschen, director of the Spring Street Museum in downtown Shreveport, thinks he's found remnants of the hand-propelled craft in the banks of a branch of Cross Bayou about a half-mile west of where the Confederate Navy had a shipyard. At Cross Bayou's mouth on Red River, it was home to the leaky ironclad CSS Missouri and a fast packet, the Webb, whose presence overshadowed the humbler underwater vessels."

" There's evidence the Shreveport subs existed. Reports of Union spies in Shreveport, as well as Confederate reports, detail the appearance and dimensions of the submarines as well as operations to put mines in Red River for a Union invasion that never came. Five submarines were built, with one sent to the Houston/Galveston area in Texas, and lost in transit. The late historians and authors Eric Brock and Katherine Brash Jeter did considerable research on the subs and the Confederate Navy Yard and found documentation that a number of machinists and engineers who had built the Hunley and other submarines for the South were in Shreveport the last year of the conflict."

Before this article I'd never heard this before, thoughts?

Mystery of missing Civil War submarines resurfaces

An archaeologists thinks he's found the remains of four Confederate subs in Shreveport.

www.usatoday.com

 

[DaveBrt]

"Marty Loschen, director of the Spring Street Museum in downtown Shreveport, thinks he's found remnants of the hand-propelled craft in the banks of a branch of Cross Bayou about a half-mile west of where the Confederate Navy had a shipyard. At Cross Bayou's mouth on Red River, it was home to the leaky ironclad CSS Missouri and a fast packet, the Webb, whose presence overshadowed the humbler underwater vessels."

" There's evidence the Shreveport subs existed. Reports of Union spies in Shreveport, as well as Confederate reports, detail the appearance and dimensions of the submarines as well as operations to put mines in Red River for a Union invasion that never came. Five submarines were built, with one sent to the Houston/Galveston area in Texas, and lost in transit. The late historians and authors Eric Brock and Katherine Brash Jeter did considerable research on the subs and the Confederate Navy Yard and found documentation that a number of machinists and engineers who had built the Hunley and other submarines for the South were in Shreveport the last year of the conflict."

Before this article I'd never heard this before, thoughts?

Mystery of missing Civil War submarines resurfaces

An archaeologists thinks he's found the remains of four Confederate subs in Shreveport.

www.usatoday.com

We have discussed them several times. Search for Shreveport sub and you should find the collected wisdom on them.

 

[Pollaco]

How does a sub get lost in transit?

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

We have discussed them several times. Search for Shreveport sub and you should find the collected wisdom on them.

Here's a link that includes a few of those discussions:

https://civilwartalk.com/threadloom/search?search_type[1]=post&keywords=Shreveport&c[nodes][0]=87&c[child_nodes]=1&tab=0

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

Easiest and shortest explanation to prove that very prevalent, (and aggravating when certain types of folks get to talking of them), myth, is a myth, is a very logical line of thought in the form of a question I once heard asked:

"If the Confederacy didn't have the capability to roll iron plate for the ironclad CSS Missouri, and had to use railroad iron laid across the casemate, how could they have built five, let alone one submarine in the same city?"

To me that question alone sinks the story of Confederate subs in Shreveport.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

Also when I was kid visiting Red River Campaign sites for the first time we visited a CW navy museum filled with handcrafted models. The elderly gentleman who owned the place personally knew a man who supposedly discovered the submarines in in the Red near Shreveport and gave a detailed description of them because he saw them all laying together on the bottom parallel to each other.

His model was identical to the Hunley except with the aft conning tower? We'll say conning tower absent and plugged closed and everything identical.

As a kid hearing the story I believed it without question, especially after getting it straight from the source so to speak. Growing up, and researching I found my faith shaken quite a bit, especially when it occurred to me the impossibility of visibility on the bottom of the Red River, and every other aspect came into question.

I halfway think some wacko somewhere originated the story and then someone found the Union record incorrectly reporting their existence to higher ups just confirming the urban legend even more to believers.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

How does a sub get lost in transit?

LOL! Sounds like they didn't even exist.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

Also when I was kid visiting Red River Campaign sites for the first time we visited a CW navy museum filled with handcrafted models. The elderly gentleman who owned the place personally knew a man who supposedly discovered the submarines in in the Red near Shreveport and gave a detailed description of them because he saw them all laying together on the bottom parallel to each other.

His model was identical to the Hunley except with the aft conning tower? We'll say conning tower absent and plugged closed and everything identical.

As a kid hearing the story I believed it without question, especially after getting it straight from the source so to speak. Growing up, and researching I found my faith shaken quite a bit, especially when it occurred to me the impossibility of visibility on the bottom of the Red River, and every other aspect came into question.

I halfway think some wacko somewhere originated the story and then someone found the Union record incorrectly reporting their existence to higher ups just confirming the urban legend even more to believers.

Thanks Rusk, yah that's how urban legends get started, lol.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

Here's a link that includes a few of those discussions:

https://civilwartalk.com/threadloom/search?search_type[1]=post&keywords=Shreveport&c[nodes][0]=87&c[child_nodes]=1&tab=0

Thanks 7th.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Thanks 7th.

I'll never forget the first time I heard about the Shreveport submarines.
My first response was to laugh out loud.

Then I started researching this claim.
I found a lot info that made cases both pro and con.

My personal opinion is that there was no doubt private individuals working on secret projects in Shreveport.
But I do not believe the CSA had some type of U-Boat base that far inland or anywhere.

However, it is a very interesting conversation.

 

[Pollaco]

I have to agree with the "impossibly of visibility" of the Red River. I haven't seen it in years but it is a murky body of water. In fact I think that's how it got it's name.Reddish silt or clay that colored the river red.

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

I'll never forget the first time I heard about the Shreveport submarines.
My first response was to laugh out loud.

Then I started researching this claim.
I found a lot info that made cases both pro and con.

My personal opinion is that there was no doubt private individuals working on secret projects in Shreveport.
But I do not believe the CSA had some type of U-Boat base that far inland or anywhere.

However, it is a very interesting conversation.

It's sounds completely absurd, but there were two subs at New Orleans no? Pioneer and the Bayou St. John sub, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_(submarine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou_St._John_submarine

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

It may sound completely absurd, but I personally know about 33 or 34 people here in the Ark-La-Tex who are friends who believe that story with a passion, and no matter what I say they refuse to believe me. Sure they say "Ohhh okay that makes sense." then a week later I'll catch them talking to somebody about the subs and how they are there.

So pardon me if I get a bit aggravated when the subject comes up.

On another note, the Red is one of the curviest, most difficult to navigate rivers in Louisiana for surface traffic, worse so back then. So bearing that in mind, how in the heck would you navigate a sub in that mess?

 

[Kentucky Derby Cavalier.]

It may sound completely absurd, but I personally know about 33 or 34 people here in the Ark-La-Tex who are friends who believe that story with a passion, and no matter what I say they refuse to believe me. Sure they say "Ohhh okay that makes sense." then a week later I'll catch them talking to somebody about the subs and how they are there.

So pardon me if I get a bit aggravated when the subject comes up.

On another note, the Red is one of the curviest, most difficult to navigate rivers in Louisiana for surface traffic, worse so back then. So bearing that in mind, how in the heck would you navigate a sub in that mess?

You don't, lol.

 

[Katyrw]

It's sounds completely absurd, but there were two subs at New Orleans no? Pioneer and the Bayou St. John sub, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_(submarine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou_St._John_submarine

It's sounds completely absurd, but there were two subs at New Orleans no? Pioneer and the Bayou St. John sub, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_(submarine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayou_St._John_submarine

The other interesting thing is John Roy who was my great-great-grandfather has several entries in his diary related to drawing plans and sending to Confederate government to build a New Orleans submarine. Other references seem to say it was apporoved. It is generally believed the mystery sub now in the Baton Rouge Museum was his. His diary ends in mid 1862 when he left New Orleans to go to Selma and build a foundry. Obviously the foundry never happened but he then was on the CSS Missouri and in Shreveport from 1863 to end of war when he surrendered as Chief Ordinance Officer for the Missouri. I'm working on a book about his life and just came across the Shreveport story. Makes me wonder.

 

[Katyrw]

 

[Charlie Robbins]

LOL! Sounds like they didn't even exist.

Not to support the existence of the subs, but if you consider the state of rail transport in the Confederacy at the time, if you were shipping it by rail, it's not hard to envision almost anything getting lost. Armor plate for several ironclads and guns for the CSS Mississippi come immediately to mind as examples. It didn't really have to get lost, just sidelined somewhere due to higher priority traffic, and never picked up again.

 

[georgew]

"Marty Loschen, director of the Spring Street Museum in downtown Shreveport, thinks he's found remnants of the hand-propelled craft in the banks of a branch of Cross Bayou about a half-mile west of where the Confederate Navy had a shipyard. At Cross Bayou's mouth on Red River, it was home to the leaky ironclad CSS Missouri and a fast packet, the Webb, whose presence overshadowed the humbler underwater vessels."

" There's evidence the Shreveport subs existed. Reports of Union spies in Shreveport, as well as Confederate reports, detail the appearance and dimensions of the submarines as well as operations to put mines in Red River for a Union invasion that never came. Five submarines were built, with one sent to the Houston/Galveston area in Texas, and lost in transit. The late historians and authors Eric Brock and Katherine Brash Jeter did considerable research on the subs and the Confederate Navy Yard and found documentation that a number of machinists and engineers who had built the Hunley and other submarines for the South were in Shreveport the last year of the conflict."

Before this article I'd never heard this before, thoughts?

Mystery of missing Civil War submarines resurfaces

An archaeologists thinks he's found the remains of four Confederate subs in Shreveport.

www.usatoday.com

There are two issues involving actual documented events that need to be questioned. 1) The tin-cladding from one of the Union gunboats taken at Calcasieu was ordered stripped and sent to Shreveport. The likely thickness of this iron seems a bit thick for a shallow diving submarine. So what would the iron be used for? It doesn't appear to have been used on the Missouri unless it was used to build its smoke-stack. Boilers as replacements or repairs? 2) There was a second Singer organization project going on from the late Fall of 1864 to the very end of the war. Two ironed torpedo boats were authorized to be constructed from scratch in Texas. One at Lubbock's Mill near Houston and the second on ways built across the creek from the Chubb family yard off Buffalo Bayou. Both Gen. Walker and Gen. Magruder are on record supporting the effort. A number of Confederate soldiers were detached to work on them and their engines were apparently to come from a pair of locomotives. At least one was launched as there is Union correspondence placing it at Lynchburg at the end of the war. A civilian contractor was apparently claiming it as it had not been turned over to the Army or commissioned. A CSN Lt. had been sent from Shreveport to take command and a Texas cavalry unit was to supply additional construction help and crewmen when it was completed. A deserter gave Union officers a description of the TB moored in the channel above Galveston as rectangular which is a good description of the the Singer design with an ironed upper deck 18-24 inches out of the water.

 

[rebelatsea]

Not to support the existence of the subs, but if you consider the state of rail transport in the Confederacy at the time, if you were shipping it by rail, it's not hard to envision almost anything getting lost. Armor plate for several ironclads and guns for the CSS Mississippi come immediately to mind as examples. It didn't really have to get lost, just sidelined somewhere due to higher priority traffic, and never picked up again.

Very good point, that can happen even on a modern railroad, back in the day the Royal Mail operated a service called "poultry by post" at various times in the year, Christmas being the best example. One year a complete car full of turkeys "vanished". It turned up in the west sidings opposite Cambridge Station - I'll leave you to imagine how it was found but a certain aroma had something to do with it ! You don't want to know what it looked like when the doors were opened.

 

[georgew]

We have discussed them several times. Search for Shreveport sub and you should find the collected wisdom on them.

Perhaps we need to go back to an essential question. If you had these boats, how and where do you employ them? The effects of current in the Red and Mississippi in large part dictate how you could use them. Because of habitability issues, you suspect that a strike on a target down river would require a "mother ship or ships" to get into range. Assuming that you haven't killed your crew with the explosion (like the Hunley) you would apparently have to plan on exiting the area with the current, leaving the question of whether you then hide the sub down river, perhaps sinking it in shallow water with an intention of recovery later and using troops or local militia to exfiltrate the crew. An alternative might be to use them in the bayou country or at Brashear, interdicting transports or gunboats moored. The same issues might pertain to the alleged sub sent in pieces to Houston. Probably useless on the river, but possibly helpful as a threat in Galveston Bay. It was apparently the habit of the Union blockaders to moor off the port in the manner of blockaders at Charleston. One interesting thought might be to have a runner tow the sub out to the target area. The problem is that if the runner is spotted the targets might all raise steam and move to the chase at speeds for which the submarine could not compensate. You wonder at what speeds and in what sea states you could successfully tow one of those subs? You also wonder just how fast the David towed the Hunley at Charleston? Of course they quit doing this because of the possibility of an accidental collision with the towing vessel. But maybe you could use a steam launch lashed alongside the sub amidships. Ah thought problems and speculation, a harmless and economic way to kill time.