Stories of Civil War gunboat battles along Bayou Teche have not been lost to history.
After all, the bayou was a vital economic artery in south Louisiana, as well as a gateway into the state's interior, which made it a contested route between the Union and Confederacy. So, Josh Hall wasn't at all surprised to learn that a former armored Civil War boat is buried beneath the bayou's muddy bottom and bank in New Iberia.
Still, he wasn't familiar with the boat's history.
"This boat was called the Teche, but that was just one of its identities," the Lafayette reader said. "I've looked it up, and I'm finding that it went by several names, and it was used for a different purpose under each of those names. And now it's buried in Bayou Teche. What's its story?"
Never skirmished
Though Bayou Teche is this boat's final resting place, it never skirmished on the southwest Louisiana waterway. And its connection to the state really begins at the end of its story when, in 2005, New Iberia architect Paul Allain discovered its wreckage.
A historical marker along the New Iberia Boardwalk at Weeks Street commemorates the site of the sunken steamboat Teche in the Bayou Teche. The boat served in both the Confederate and Union navies during the Civil War and was used as a transport boat at the time of its wreck.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE
According to the Charles E. Pearson's report in the 2006 Bulletin of the Louisiana Archaeological Society, the boat, called the "Teche," was discovered in November 2005 during construction of a bulkhead for a proposed marine sewage pump-out facility along the bayou in New Iberia.
Pearson's report said Allain was overseeing the project, which was funded by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Louisiana Division of Wildlife and Fisheries.
"The wreckage was discovered on the first day of construction when the contractor recognized a piece of boat structure in the material being removed from Bayou Teche with a bucket dredge," Pearson wrote.
Coastal Environments Inc., of Baton Rouge, was then hired to research the site in 2006 to determine its National Register eligibility. The wreck has since been designated the "New Iberia Shipwreck," a Louisiana archaeological site at the foot of Weeks Street on the western side of Bayou Teche.
Though this is a photo of the gunboat USS Mound City, this is how the USS Tensas, later renamed the Teche, appeared in the Union Navy fleet after it was converted into a tinclad gunboat.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Beneath 4 feet of mud
Today, the wreck is nestled beneath 4 feet of mud at Bayou Teche Boardwalk at Weeks Street in New Iberia's historic district. It's commemorated by a historical marker installed by the Iberia Parish Convention and Visitors Bureau.
That's where it is now, but how did it get there?
The vessel's story begins in 1860 as a sidewheel steamboat called the Tom Sugg, which operated as a merchant vessel in Arkansas.
In records compiled by the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the vessel measured more than 91 feet long and 22 feet wide. By the spring of 1862, the boat was commissioned the CSS Tom Sugg, serving in the Confederate Navy's fleet in Arkansas.
"Captain John W. Dunnington 'armored' it with cotton bales and mounted an 8-inch cannon on its bow so that it could be used against Major General Samuel R. Curtis’ Army of the Southwest," the Encyclopedia of Arkansas continues. "While there are no reports that the Tom Sugg saw action during this period, it continued to serve the Confederacy on the White and Little Red rivers."
The Bayou Teche as it appears today in New Iberia.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
That is, until 1863, when Union Forces captured and confiscated it on the White River, then transported it to the U.S. Naval Base in Cairo, Illinois.
"The navy purchased it from an Illinois prize court for $7,000 on September 29, 1863, at the urging of Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, who said that the steamboat was 'an excellent vessel, and will make one of our most useful gunboats,' the Tom Sugg’s name was changed to (USS) Tensas," the encyclopedia states.
Didn't see action here
Though the USS Tensas didn't see action in Louisiana, Porter, the admiral who sang the boat's praises, was a significant figure in the Union's 1864 Red River Campaign that stretched through the state.
While Gen. Nathaniel Banks commanded the Union Army's failed effort that resulted in the burning of Alexandria, Porter headed the U.S. Navy, whose fleet of 14 ironclads and 20 tinclads found themselves stranded in Alexandria on the north side of the Red River's rapids during low water season.
This situation resulted in Union Col. Joseph Bailey's construction of a makeshift dam that rose water levels just high enough to get the boats to the other side of the rapids. Though it was an embarrassment to the Navy, Bailey's feat is still considered a military engineering masterpiece today.
The Bayou Teche Boardwalk in New Iberia, where a histrorical marker commemorates the sunken steamboat Teche, which served in both the Confederate and Union naval fleets during the Civil War.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE
It was Porter who, a year before the Red River Campaign, encouraged the navy to convert the USS Tensas to a tinclad gunboat and arm it with a pair of 24-pounder howitzers. The boat was commissioned on Jan. 1, 1865, in Mound City, Illinois, and Acting Master E.C. Van Pelt commanded it on the Mississippi River for the remainder of the war.
Then came the boat's third and final iteration as the Teche, along with its journey to its bayou namesake.
Brought to New Iberia
The Tensas was hauled back to Mound City after the war, where it was decommissioned on Aug. 7, 1865. Shortly after, New Iberia businessman E.B. Trinidad of New Iberia bought it at auction for $6,200.
He was the one who renamed the boat the Teche and used it to transport goods through his Attakapas Mail Transportation Co. It wrecked and sank in Bayou Teche in 1868.
And that's where it's been since.
Author Shane K. Bernard, in his 2016 book, "Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou," states that "parts of the vessel have been excavated, including a section of the keel."
But the remainder continues to rest in a muddy grave beneath the murky waters of the Bayou Teche.