Copyright © 2006 by Steve Lloyd—All Rights Reserved

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Voyage into History

Early on the morning of July 15, 1868 a wooden sailing ship named the Torrent struck an underwater reef in Cook Inlet, Alaska, just south of Kachemak Bay. Terrified by icy breakers crashing over the sinking ship, desperate to reach the lifeboats in time, more than 150 men, women and children fought for their lives.

The Torrent carried men of the US Army’s Second Artillery division, many of them veterans of bloody Civil War battles in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. The story of why these soldiers voyaged to Alaska, and how their ship came to crash against a jagged reef in far off Cook Inlet has been a neglected chapter of Alaska’s history.

Driven by a love of adventure and a passion for history, a small group of researchers wants to resurrect the story of the Torrent from the icy depths that claimed the ship 138 years ago, and share what they find with the people of Alaska.

The Torrent Sets Sail

When the United States and Russia signed the Alaska Treaty in October 1867, the vast and far-flung northern territory came under American control. The US Army took command of the garrison, warehouses, offices and other facilities at Sitka that had been constructed by the Russian-America Company, and American troops moved into the company’s existing buildings at Kodiak.

To protect American interests in the fur-rich central region of Alaska, the commander of the Army’s Pacific Division decided that the army should construct a fort near the mouth of the Kenai River on Cook Inlet, in addition to the existing posts at Sitka and Kodiak

The United States Army, Second Artillery Regiment had been active in the South—primarily in Florida—in the mid 1850s, and the individual companies of the regiment saw heavy combat during the Civil War. In August 1865 the regiment sailed for California, crossing the isthmus on the Panama Railroad, then boarding another ship for the voyage up the west coast and arriving in California in September. Initially assigned to the Presidio of San Francisco, six of the batteries that comprised the Second Infantry were dispatched to various places in Alaska as part of the US move to assume control following the transfer of Alaska from Russia.

Battery F of the Second Infantry, under the command of Lt. John McGilvray, sailed from Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory aboard the steamship Active, arriving at Fort Gamble, Washington on June 6th, 1868. There the army chartered two sailing ships to carry men, munitions, supplies and building materials destined for the new fort at Cook Inlet. A wooden bark, the 576-ton Torrent in command of Captain Richard Carlton, was chartered to transport the enlisted men and support personnel of Battery F, along with food and supplies enough to last six months.

The Torrent carried five mules, and an army corporal traveling with his wife and three children had even received permission to bring 72 chickens on the long voyage north. Another sailing vessel, the Milan, was loaded with 267,000 feet of lumber and 300 tons of coal. Her master, Captain Joseph Snow, anticipated following the Torrent to Cook Inlet in one or two weeks time.

When everything was stowed and ready, the Torrent set sail for Alaska on June 11th, 1868. The ship carried a crew of about 15 men plus five army officers, 125 enlisted men, four laundresses, two servants, and 11 children.

The Alaska Mission Begins

The Torrent sailed north for nearly a month, reaching Kodiak Island on the evening of July 7th and setting sail the next day for Cook Inlet to the northeast. The ship’s immediate destination was a body of water then called Chugachnik Gulf, which today we know as Kachemak Bay. By climbing the Torrent’s mast, lookouts were able to see the protected waters beyond what is now the Homer spit; to a place they called Kenay. One of the men aboard later wrote, “About sunset, we were in sight of Kenay Harbor. Directly ahead was a low sand-bank, projecting into the gulf for about five miles and forming the western boundary of Kenay Bay.

“The north shore, with its dense forest and grass-covered hills, had an inviting appearance, after our long sea-voyage. To some of us, the green seemed too deep a hue and the vegetation too rank, to be the natural growth of the soil.”

The next morning, Lt. McGilvray dispatched a small reconnaissance party in one of the ship’s boats. Historians today are unclear today why the Torrent was in Kachemak Bay at all since their orders were to proceed to the tiny Russian settlement of St. Nicholas, near the mouth of the Kenai River, to construct the new army fort there. Whatever the reason, it is clear that McGilvray’s focus was not merely general exploration; he and his officers were looking for a place to build a fort.

“There was no place where the land was solid enough to support the weight of the smallest house,” one of the officers explained. “Our stores could not be landed without great difficulty, and, when landed, we had no place to take them. We might have camped on the sand-bank; but this was evidently subject to overflow, and swept by the breaking up of the ice in the spring… From the deck of the ship, Kenay appeared, indeed, like a paradise; but, as a soldier remarked, while dripping wet, as he stumbled through the swamp, holding his musket in one hand, while he fought mosquitoes with the other, ‘I tell you, boys, this is hell!’”

Despite orders that seem to have instructed the army battery to construct Fort Kenay near what is now the city of Homer, it was not to be. “These facts convinced me that it would be impossible to establish a post at this point even temporarily,” Lt. McGilvray reported.

After conferring with the Torrent’s captain and others who were knowledgeable about the area, Lt. McGilvray decided to establish a temporary fort at Port Graham, a large natural harbor about 20 miles south. The Torrent sailed from the protection of Kenay Harbor at 7 a.m. on the 12th of July, and almost immediately encountered a storm blowing into Kachemak Bay.

“In the evening,” an officer writes, “the gale became so severe that several of our sails were blown away, and finding we could not weather Anchor Point, the Mate—now in command—put back to Kenay Harbor where we lay at anchor all night.”

The next day, the weather had cleared enough that the Torrent was able to leave the relative shelter of Kachemak Bay and enter Cook Inlet. The storm from the previous day blew up again as the bark turned south, and all night the Torrent made its way along the coastline in a drizzling rain. The gale subsided at daybreak on the 14th, the fog lifted in the afternoon, and by sunset the men could see the large natural harbor of Port Graham. The mate, still in command, made the decision to hold offshore overnight.

An Unfortunate Shipwreck

Early the next morning, July 15th, the mate sailed the Torrent for the harbor. A long, rocky reef extended out from shore about a mile and a half. Some of the rocks showed black above the water, and others lay just underwater, marked only by the surf pounding in from the Gulf of Alaska. A strong current, estimated at seven knots, was setting across the end of the reef.

“The yards were hauled, but the ship did not answer to the helm, and we saw that she was doomed.” Two minutes later, the Torrent struck the reef. Her bow grounded hard against the ragged obstruction. The strong current spun the ship 180 degrees, and a breaker carried the bark well onto the rocks. The hull timbers shuddered, and the Torrent immediately listed and began taking on water.

“It was soon evident that the ship was sinking, and the waves began to break over her, amidships,” one of the men wrote later. “The soldiers made a rush for the lifeboat, which was hanging at the davits, and in a moment it was full of men. Captain McGilvray and his officers threatened to shoot into the crowd if they did not come out. They obeyed very quickly, and with this exception behaved well.”

With no time to salvage any provisions or personal belongings from the sinking ship, everyone aboard managed to board the Torrent’s six small boats, casting off into the crashing surf and rowing frantically for the beach. Minutes later, the bark sunk on top of the reef. Her mainmast protruded from the water at low tide, marking the spot where the US Army’s mission to establish Fort Kenay had—at least for the time being—tragically failed.

More than 150 men, women and children were aboard the Torrent that morning; incredibly, everyone reached shore safely. An attempt by some of the sailors and an army officer to reach Fort Kodiak in one of the ship’s lifeboats failed, and the leaking boat turned back. The castaways were rescued two weeks later by Capt. Snow of the bark Milan, which finally arrived from Washington carrying lumber and coal, and by Capt. Erskine of the steamer Fidelater, who had spotted wreckage from the Torrent floating at sea and came to investigate.

The men of Battery F spent the winter of 1868-69 at Kodiak. They arrived at the tiny Russian settlement of St. Nicholas aboard the steamer Constantine at last on April 17, 1869 to establish what would finally become Fort Kenay. The garrison would be active for less than two years; Army headquarters ordered the abandonment of Fort Kenay in August 1870.

The Torrent’s Story Lives Again

Nearly 140 years after the Torrent sunk early that July morning in 1868, the wooden remains of the ill-fated bark have long since disintegrated or been washed away by storms. Because the ship is reported to have grounded on a reef surrounded by deep water, there is a chance that portions of the ship or its contents may have survived the ravages of the sea, and perhaps remain even today.

Through a combination of exhaustive historical research and sophisticated shipwreck-searching equipment and techniques, we hope to locate the site of the Torrent’s watery grave. If we find it, our goal for the initial phase of the project is to document the site using video and still photography, laying the foundation for a follow-up archaeological investigation of the Torrent’s resting place.

Although the Torrent was a civilian vessel, it was operating under contract to the US Army on an official government mission, an expedition commanded by US Army officers. The shipwreck probably represents the earliest loss of an American vessel in Alaska occurring after the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia. Historically, it may be one of Alaska’s most important undiscovered shipwrecks.

The loss of the ship—and the supplies and provisions the Torrent carried—unquestionably delayed the founding of Fort Kenay by nearly a year. If the bark had not wrecked, there is a good chance that the Army’s fort at Cook Inlet would have been built at Port Graham, and the course of Alaskan history in the region would have been significantly altered.

The expedition to search for and find the remains of the Torrent is a tribute to the brave men—and women—of the United States Army, Second Artillery Regiment, Battery F of 1868, and to the hardships and dangers they endured while pioneering the remote and dangerous coastline of Cook Inlet, Alaska.

Watch a short Flash movie about the Torrent discovery.