Hi George,

If you are asking for proof in print, such as newspaper articles in Shreveport at the time, the answer, so far, is no. Let me cover my rear and say that if there IS any mention, I have yet to find it.

I have searched the microfilms in the Shreve Memorial Library. Surprisingly, I have found that there were around seven news publications during the war, here in Shreveport, yet almost no copies of them are on microfilm. I will try the archive section to see if anything is there of the original newspapers.

In Katherine Jeter's book on the CSS Missouri (A Man And His Boat...), built here in 1863, Lt. Jonathan Carter mentions submarines once, possibly twice, in his letter book, but they are not referenced to Shreveport, rather, the mention is Texas.

In Gary Joiner's book, "One Damn Blunder From
Beginning To End", I believe he states Porter's knowledge of the subs in the Red River, concerning him enough to stretch a chain across the Red River to block their possible attack against the Union fleet in 1864, as it advanced on Shreveport. A section of the chain (although undocumented) is in the Mansfield Battlepark Museum, in Mansfield, La.

At first, I thought it strange that Lt. Carter, who commanded the CSS Missouri, would not mention the subs. Then, I realized that he couldn't, for that would link him to "Infernal Machines", and you know the consequences for that. I am positive that is why there are no references to the Shreveport subs in Carter's letterbook, even though they were berthed along with the CSS Missouri, where Cross Bayou (site of the naval yard) meets the Red River. I suspect all records of the subs and their operation on the Red River were destroyed in the end, for fear of Union reprisals.

The Red River, throughout its history, has been a fickle river. Usually low in the summer, it would rise in the winter with the rains. Its level so worried Carter that he feared he would not be able to get out of Shreveport
and head south to engage any Union threat coming up the Red.
Today, with a series of lock and dams finished in the 1990's, the "upper pool" at Shreveport maintains a constant depth. Although steamboats usually had no trouble navigating up the Red from the Mississippi, the CSS Missouri, with it's deep draught, was a problem at the time.

As a mention, after the war, Jonathan Carter married, and bought a small plantation in Bossier Parish, across the Red from Shreveport (probably north of Shreveport in Bossier Parish), called the Lucknaught Plantation. The rains he desperately needed for the Red River during the war, but never got, appeared in 1866 and 67, flooding and completely ruining his crops. He and his wife, Henrietta, moved back east. They are buried in the Baptist cemetery, in Edgefield, S.C.

Steve