By Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

Again, I bid you a good day, my young prodigy.

Thank you for meeting me in this out-of-the-way location.

Our talk today requires restraint and privacy between colleagues.

We will speak of shifting loyalties.

As you may have gathered, the life of a Confederate Inventor and Entrepreneur is anything but a sedate one. 

Not only are you in need of both funds and employees on what seems to be almost a seasonal basis, but there’s that pesky business of the Civil War taking place elsewhere in the country, causing your best-laid plans to vanish like a hatful of fog.

Such as:

One of the biggest roadblocks in your journey towards engineering success and financial security is the possibility that the Union Army will not only conquer the city where you work, but then use the occasion to come knocking on your machine shop door. 

By Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

Young Inventor! It is good to see you once again.

Have you been applying what the two of us discussed in our last conversation?

Well done. I am pleased with your diligence, both in study and application of what you are learning.

Today, our topic involves one of the forces of nature: water’s current. Though direct control of it is beyond the scope of your, umm, project, you can learn to anticipate, prepare for and deal with its effects upon said project.

By Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

Ah, good day to you once more, young Inventor.

I am happy to see you once again.

And you have brought your copy of the Inventor’s Vade Mecum with you.

May I see it, please?

Hmmm, I notice it is now a very worn and much-thumbed work.

I am proud of your diligence.

What benefit is a book of knowledge if you don’t use it from time to time, eh?

However, there have been several updates since this copy was printed.

The section on Power has received significant editing.

Oh, good.

I see that there are still unused endpapers in your Vade Mecum that you can use for note-taking.

Let’s make an update to your edition on the subject of Power, shall we?

As “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare” moves toward publication, it has been my task to research the backgrounds of those who made up the crews of the “fishboats.”

I am fascinated by the amount of information that is still available on many of these individuals. Census records gathered before, during and after the American Civil War are very informative. When combined with newspaper reports, tax documentation, church attendance records, even civil and criminal arrest warrants, the gathered information will, as Shakespeare once said, “Hold the mirror up to nature.”

19 November 2022

Good afternoon, everyone.

Ed Ostermeyer here.

Several readers have requested information on the works I’ve used in the design of “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare.

Herewith is my bibliography (current as of 19 November 2022) for the game, alphabetized and annotated for your use.

Comments and remarks are my own opinions on the indicated text’s usefulness, ease of same, and value as a source.

So, here you go: 

While technical “wizards” like Dr. St. Julien Ravenel and Theodore Stoney were creating the CSS “David” torpedo boat as the Confederacy’s response to the US Navy’s overwhelming superiority on the nation’s rivers and oceans, the Union wizards were not idle in that field, either.

News of the CSS “Squib” torpedo boat’s semi-success in its attack on the Union Navy’s Squadron anchored at Hampton Roads, Virginia met with enthusiastic response from the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory.

The years 1863 and 1864 were a busy time for Southern inventors interested in creating a weapon that would give the Confederacy parity of a sort with the much larger and more numerous naval vessels of the United States Navy.

Undoubtedly, when inventors such as Charleston’s Dr. St. Julien Ravenel and Theodore Stoney created their CSS “David” torpedo boat, it was thoughts in equal part of both profit and patriotism that guided their minds and hands.

While shipbuilding concerns and machine works like the Park & Lyons Machine Shop in Mobile, Alabama were busy creating an underwater terror known colloquially as a “fishboat,” there were others whose trip to fame and riches lay along a different path.

One such person was Dr. St. Julien Ravenel of Charleston, SC. Ravenel was a scion of Charleston’s well-known Ravenel family. A physician by avocation, Ravenel also taught at the local medical school, being Demonstrator of Anatomy. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Ravenel enlisted as an Army private, participating as such in the siege of Fort Sumter. Within a year’s time, his skill as a physician found him quickly promoted as an officer. Ravenel was then tapped for  the position as Director of the Confederate Hospital, in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia.

At the start of the American Civil War, the Confederacy was faced with an almost insurmountable problem.

Using its navy, the United States was able to blockade trade, not only through coastal ports, but also the necessary interstate riverine trade on the South’s crisscrossing network of rivers, canals and lakes. For a predominately-agricultural nation like the Confederate States of America whose existence depended on unobstructed internal and overseas trade, a naval blockade was a threat to the nation’s existence.  

Attempting to construct a national navy matching on a ship-for-ship basis the already-existing one of the northern states, would quickly bankrupt the fledgling Southern government.