At the start of the American Civil War, the Confederacy was faced with an almost insurmountable problem.

Using its navy, the United States was able to blockade trade, not only through coastal ports, but also the necessary interstate riverine trade on the South’s crisscrossing network of rivers, canals and lakes. For a predominately-agricultural nation like the Confederate States of America whose existence depended on unobstructed internal and overseas trade, a naval blockade was a threat to the nation’s existence.  

Attempting to construct a national navy matching on a ship-for-ship basis the already-existing one of the northern states, would quickly bankrupt the fledgling Southern government.

So it was that a proclamation from Confederate president Jefferson Davis invited Southern businessmen and inventors to lend a hand in their nation’s defense and, oh yes, be paid handsomely for their work.

The response from patriotic Southerners was nothing short of amazing.

First out of the gate was Captain Francis D. Lee of Charleston, SC, an engineer busily developing an explosive device soon to be known as a torpedo.

Delivery of this infernal machine by water required the design, development and construction of a purpose-built weapon of war.

The “Torch,” the first-ever torpedo boat, had a crew of ten, was fifty feet long, five feet wide, armored with quarter-inch steel plating fore and aft and powered by a cranky steam engine cobbled from the “Barton,” an abandoned Savannah, Georgia steam tug.  Lee’s torpedo delivery system used a fourteen foot spar hinged at the boat’s bow. On its warhead was a triad of Lee’s torpedoes, each one loaded with fifty pounds of black gunpowder.

The idea was to approach one of the Union navy warships at high speed. Then, at the climax of the attack run, the “Torch’s” spar would be quickly lowered so that all three torpedoes were submerged and aimed at the target vessel’s hull.

Impact would cause a detonation, leaving a hole “big enough to drive a carriage through,” and quickly sink the Yankee vessel.

Despite enthusiastic assistance from Lee’s boss, General Pierre Beauregard, the commander of the defenses of Charleston, the Confederate Navy’s bureaucracy would not be hurried in locating the necessary materials to construct the “Torch,” nor would the civilian work force that was supposed to be assembling the craft. To Lee’s frustration, construction on the “Torch” moved at a snail’s pace during 1862.

This changed in the spring of 1863.

Lee was contacted by James Carlin, captain of the blockade runner “Ella & Annie,” and currently employed by the Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina.

Carlin offered to purchase the “Torch” outright, using the profits received from his career as captain of the “Ella & Annie,” as well as additional financial backing from Charleston shipping giant John Fraser & Company.

Once construction was completed its construction, Carlin would then hire a crew and use the “Torch” to hunt some Yankee navy boats.

Lee, together with Beauregard, readily agreed to this.

The “Torch” was completed and launched “without fanfare” in June of 1863.

In August, 1863, its sea trials completed, the craft was accepted on the rolls of the Confederate States Navy as the CSS “Torch.” 

Carlin and crew were itching to start in on the Union warships blockading the entrance to Charleston harbor. All they needed was an excuse, which Union Admiral Samuel DuPont promptly gave them.

On August 16, 1863, a four-day cannonade from the heavy guns of the Union Army and Navy shelled the harbor defenses and then the city of Charleston itself.

The most active Union naval vessel was the USS “New Ironsides,” with its main battery of eleven-inch Dahlgren smoothbore cannon. Mounted seven per side and fired simultaneously, a broadside from the “New Ironsides” could throw half a ton of explosive shells a distance of two miles and more.

At 10:00 PM on the moonless night of August 20, 1863, Carlin, his crew and the “Torch” steamed past the smoldering bulk of Fort Sumter. Pausing briefly at the fort to collect twenty South Carolina soldiers to help repel boarders; Carlin and the “Torch” were soon on their way to their appointment with the “New Ironsides.”

At 11:30 PM, Carlin spied a shape looming out of the surrounding darkness a few hundred yards ahead of the “Torch.” From the sightings taken earlier in the evening, Carlin knew it to be the “New Ironsides,” riding at anchor in the ebb tide, with just a few twinkling lights showing her location.

Carlin confirmed his target’s position by his magnetic compass, observing that the “Torch” was approaching the “New Ironsides” from dead-astern.

At a quarter-mile from the target, Carlin ordered the engineer to fully-open the steam valves on the “Torch’s” engine to full speed, telling the helmsman to begin a wide turn to port in order to set his attack run on the starboard side of the “New Ironsides.”

It was in the middle of this attack run that the “Torch’s” steering linkage refused to answer her helm.

As the crew worked feverishly to restore steering control, the “Torch’s” course put her in parallel and alongside the “New Ironsides.”

To a challenge shouted down from the deck watch of the “New Ironsides,” James Carlin replied that his boat was the “Live Yankee.” A further challenge of “Where are you from?” received the reply “Port Royal,” from Carlin.

The “Torch’s” steam engine chose this moment to seize up, leaving the “Torch” totally without power.

This caused the boat to drift slowly along the length of “New Ironsides’” starboard side.

As the “Torch” drifted past the bow of the “New Ironsides,” Carlin and his crew found the air to be filled with sounds of Yankee tars beating to quarters while lanterns and torches began to light up the night.

After what seemed an age, the “Torch’s” steam engine finally roared back to life.

Carlin hollered at the helmsman to pull away and make for the harbor as fast as possible. Yankee sailors began shooting at the noise, their musket balls pinging off the “Torch’s” stern armor like leaden raindrops.

In the distance, Carlin could hear the alarm beginning to spread from one Union warship to the next through the anchored warships.

This was underscored by the more ominous, heavy rumbling of the “New Ironside’s” seven Dahlgren broadside smoothbores being brought to bear on the retreating Confederate torpedo boat.

Two shells that the battery fired went wide of the target. Fortunately, owing to its speed fueled by smokeless anthracite coal, the “Torch” was soon out of range and out of sight of the Yankee behemoth.   

James Carlin’s report on the battle blamed his failure on the mechanical issues the “Torch” suffered while on its attack run. He concluded that the torpedo boat should be disarmed and relegated to transport duties as soon as possible.

General Beauregard still backed the project. The General was determined that, with proper mechanical repair and further training of the crew, the “Torch” could still be an asset to the defense of Charleston.

Despite Beauregard’s support, it seems that the Confederate States Navy agreed with Captain Carlin’s assessment: the Confederacy’s first torpedo boat had its torpedoes and spar pole removed. The “Torch” became a Navy transport and would remain so for the rest of the Civil War.

Though Captain Francis Lee’s “Torch” did not succeed as a torpedo boat, other such torpedo boats were being constructed, and would soon make their mark, joining the submarine as one of the Civil War’s new weapons of war.

Next time, in Part 2 of “The Torpedo Boat during the Civil War,” we follow the work of two of the South’s engineering wizards in creating one of the Civil War’s iconic naval warships.

Work cited:

Campbell, R. Thomas, “Hunters of the Night,” Shippensburg, PA, 2000, Burg Street Press, pp. 47 – 48. (Good source on the subject of Confederate Torpedo Boats.)

(Note: All graphic images of Infernal Machine game materials used in this series of articles are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form.  All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)

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