The Louisiana in the Civil War Message Board

CSS Darby

I'm getting ready to read Donald Frazier's "Fire in the Cane Field" and I was checking the index when I found something of particular interest to me. Frazier mentions the CSS Darby, a lightly armored steamer, and the CSS Segar, a scout boat, as accompanying the gunboat J.A. Cotton on Berwick Bay in the fall of 1862. Does anyone know the origin of these two smaller boats? I believe they may have been owned, provided or financed by my great-great-grandfather F.O. Darby, who was a captain in the Louisiana Partisan Rangers, because Segar was also family name, being the maiden name of F.O.'s great-great-grandmother back in England in the late 1600s. Although F.O.'s house in Baldwin, on Bayou Teche, was sacked and looted, as documented in "The Conduct of Federal Troops in Louisiana," it still stands in good condition and is still known as the Darby House. If F.O. was not the man behind the gunboats, they were likely provided by one of his Darby cousins in the Teche area. Does anyone know? Thanks a lot, Joe Darby.

Messages In This Thread

CSS Darby
Re: CSS Darby
Re: CSS Darby