The Civil War Navies Message Board

Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
In Response To: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram ()

APR 27, 1864 – Major General Richard Taylor, commander of Confederate troops in western Louisiana, reported, “The iron-clad blown up by the enemy yesterday is ascertained to have been the Eastport. She had a small transport lashed to her, which was destroyed with her. Two very fine pumps had been removed from her to the captured transports, and will prove useful in some of the departments at Shreveport. I shall leave a small guard to protect them until you order them up.”

JUN 23, 1865 - The 166-foot, sidewheel steamer Edward F. Dix ran afoul of the armored hull of the Eastport and sank in twenty minutes. The vessel had been transporting the 1st Louisiana Regiment of Cavalry Volunteers, under the command of Captain Samuel B. Alger, up the Red River to Texas.

1994 – Retired Judge Mike Wahlder acquired property along the Red River in a land swap with a local bank, while Congressional aide Mike Sibley coordinated a magnetometer search for the Eastport by the Army Corps of Engineers in the same area.

Later that same year, Mike Sibley announced the discovery of the Eastport, which appeared largely intact, and another wreck buried in sixty feet of mud and lying directly across the ironclad’s bow. The other vessel was soon identified as the Edward F. Dix.

1995 – The Army Corps of Engineers dug a large pit on Mike Wahlder’s land and after ten weeks salvaged iron from the Eastport’s casemate and charred timbers from her hull.

Messages In This Thread

USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Re: USS Eastport Ironclad/Ram
Location of USS Eastport Ironclad