Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay was a member of the Confederate Secret Service and the inventor of the coal torpedo, a bomb disguised as a lump of coal that was used to attack Union steam-powered warships and transports.

The Confederate Secret Service refers to any of a number of official and semi-official secret service organizations and operations performed by the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Some of the organizations were directed by the Confederate government, others operated independently with government approval, while still others were either completely independent of the government or operated with only its tacit acknowledgment.