"Torpedo Machine" on Bayou Teche?

[skb8721]

Around 1868 a steamboat captain on Bayou Teche produced a map showing all navigation hazards on the waterway in south-central Louisiana; the map included a few sunken gunboats and something he called a "torpedo machine."

I attach the detail of the map showing this vessel, which is marked "40" (right beneath the "T" in "Teche"). Does anyone know what this "torpedo machine" would have looked like or consisted of?

I see from Civil War-era documents that a "torpedo machine" was a sort of semi-submersible vessel, sometimes even called a "submarine," used for attaching mines to vessels . . . but other than this captain's map, I know of no other sources claiming that such vessels operated on the Teche.

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[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Welcome to CivilWarTalk.

 

[NedBaldwin]

Around 1868 a steamboat captain on Bayou Teche produced a map showing all navigation hazards on the waterway in south-central Louisiana; the map included a few sunken gunboats and something he called a "torpedo machine."

I attach the detail of the map showing this vessel, which is marked "40" (right beneath the "T" in "Teche"). Does anyone know what this "torpedo machine" would have looked like or consisted of?

I see from Civil War-era documents that a "torpedo machine" was a sort of semi-submersible vessel, sometimes even called a "submarine," used for attaching mines to vessels . . . but other than this captain's map, I know of no other sources claiming that such vessels operated on the Teche.

I think in this case it might be a vessel for laying mines/torpedoes in the bayou. The location is just up stream from Fort Bisland. I believe mines had been placed in the bayou prior to the fighting there in April 1863.

 

[John Hartwell]

Civil war torpedoes are actually naval mines -- a keg of gunpowder or some such explosive, floating on or just below the surface, and fitted with a detonator, so it will explode on contact with a passing ship. There were numerous varieties.
The modern "self-propelled torpedo," is a later development.

 

[kholland]

Welcome from Maryland.

​

As Ned says it was probably used to lay mines which in the a Civil War were called torpedoes.

 

[18thVirginia]

Welcome from Florida.

 

[AndyHall]

On July 1, 1864, a Captain Charles S. Bulkley of the U.S. Department of the Gulf made a report about setting up telegraph lines (OR 125:850-51). At the end he writes:

The obstructions in Bayou Teche, consisting of sunken vessels filled with brick piles, iron-clads, and steam-boats, we removed with submarine batteries. Guerrillas have been numerous and annoying, but have not caused any serious delay.

Pretty sure your steamboat captain's map is reflecting some of that junk in the bayou.

 

[AndyHall]

Welcome from Wet Texas!

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[vikingbear]

Welcome from way up almost to the other boarder.

GRIZZ

 

[John Hartwell]

Welcome from way up almost to the other boarder.

GRIZZ

You mean the other secessionists, "The Republic of Indian Stream?"
Those guys seceded from both the USA and Canada!

 

[OwenRichards]

Welcome from formerly gray and wet, but recently suspiciously sunny England.

 

[skb8721]

Thanks for all the kind welcomes! And thanks for this info, especially the tidbit you found, Andy. I did not know that!!!

 

[skb8721]

So, to summarize, the consensus here seems to be that the "torpedo machine" in question was likely a vessel used for laying mines, possibly synonymous with a reference in the historical record to a "submarine battery."

Does anyone have a photo or illustration of such a vessel? (And would a "submarine battery" have actually been a vessel, or does this phrase more likely refer to the mines themselves?)

Thank you again for all the assistance!

 

[AndyHall]

And would a "submarine battery" have actually been a vessel, or does this phrase more likely refer to the mines themselves?

It was all very newfangled, and the vocabulary hadn't settled out yet. But in context, I'd read the reference above to "submarine batteries" as meaning explosives -- i.e., they cleared the obstructions in the bayou by blasting.

 

[skb8721]

Is it possible, then, that the "torpedo machine," which is shown on the map as having the shape of a vessel, was the boat that installed those explosives? (Granted, we're speculating.) Either way, it is interesting that this "torpedo machine" appears to be a wreck, as the cartographer was interested only in charting the locations of navigational hazards (and all the other vessels on the map are burnt/sunken ones).

 

[NedBaldwin]

Is it possible, then, that the "torpedo machine," which is shown on the map as having the shape of a vessel, was the boat that installed those explosives?

Yes, I think that is exactly what it was.

I'm curious what 34, 35, and 37 (top of map) are.

 

[skb8721]

Ned, 34 is "cypress trees in channel," 35 is "C.S. gunboat Flycatcher," and 37 is "C. S. schooner Alligator". Elsewhere on the map are shown the wrecks of the gunboats Diana, Cotton, and Hart (aka Stevens).

Incidentally, the reference to the Flycatcher brings up another issue that's been puzzling me: Both on this ca. 1868 map of the Teche, and in a separate 1870 survey of the Teche by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Flycatcher is referred to (by persons who actually saw and documented the vessel's wreck) as a "gunboat" -- but elsewhere (such as in the Official Records) the Flycatcher is referred to merely as a Confederate "steamer."

If anyone has any evidence regarding the type of vessel she was, I'd very much like to know.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Odds are that she was a steamer that occasionally had some field guns put on board... voila, instant gunboat! Almost certainly not purpose-built as such.

IIRC, she's covered in Donald Frazier's second "Louisiana Quadrille" book, though not very extensively.

 

[skb8721]

Yeah, I love Frazier's two books on the war in south Louisiana. There should be another volume out soon.

 

[NedBaldwin]

If anyone has any evidence regarding the type of vessel she was, I'd very much like to know.

Found a book called 'Torpedoes and Torpedo Warfare' from 1880 by a C. W. Sleeman which includes this imagecalled "
Steam Launch for Mooring Submarine Mines'.

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However, I have had a change of heart. I have started thinking it was not a boat but instead might have been a frame torpedo, sometimes referred to as a type of mechanical mine --see top image:

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