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. 

Such a fateful event as this will present you with several tough choices. 

First, you can pack up your plans, your people and your fishboat and hightail it out of town for another location in the Confederacy. This will entail some significant cash outlay from your company’s safe. A shortage of funds may find you forced to leave materials and, sadly, even some employees behind as you depart for a safer Southern locale. As a canny entrepreneur, it helps to check out the various ports and cities of the Confederacy (those that remain) should you and your team desire departure on short notice. And make sure that the city you’ve skedaddled to won’t suddenly be flying the Stars & Stripes, forcing you to skedaddle all over again.  

Second, you can be a loyal son of the now “Lost Cause” and remain in town when the Yankees arrive. 

Here is what the future may hold for you if this is your choice:

Your business will be padlocked and its contents seized. 

You and several members of your team (including Investors) will be “Detained at the pleasure of the Military Governor.” 

Depending upon his mood, you may soon find out what the inside of your town’s hoosegow looks (and smells) like. 

Your fishboat, in whatever stage of completion, will be “seized as a war measure” and sent off to Washington “for study.”

After a time, the Military Government will see that you are released and can go home. 

You will be lauded by other Southern sympathizers, viewed with continued suspicion by the occupying, Army-backed Union government, and generally regarded with something approaching awe by your peers. 

But your career as an Inventor and an Engineer is over. 

And so is the game.

Or,

Third, you can ignore the diatribes, bite your lip, raise your hand and “Swallow the Dog.” 

As in swearing allegiance to the United States.

You will swear a binding oath in the presence of some witnesses, most of whom will be in uniform and armed. 

You will then affix your signature with theirs on a loyalty oath. 

Congratulations, citizen. You have rejoined the Union.

Violating this loyalty oath you’ve just sworn to makes you a backslider. 

It is treason, an offense punishable by death. 

The Union  War Department hangs backsliders.  

(Note: Addendum to the Fifteenth Edition of the Inventor’s Vade-Mecum)

What can you expect if the choice of switching sides is offered to you, and you decide to take it?

First, after you have chosen your loyal employee, you bid a regretful farewell to the rest of your shop’s personnel. 

Your former Mechanics, Sailors, Journeymen and Investors are all hauled off by Union Provost Marshal to the stockade.

Next, you, your one loyal employee and your fishboat (in whatever condition of seaworthiness it is in) are packed up and sent by fast train or steamship to the Washington Navy Yard, there to be placed under the watchful eye of the facility’s Chief of the Bureau of Docks & Yards. 

Once there, you and your employee will each “Swallow the Dog” probably for a second time, “… just to make sure the oath “takes,” you understand. Sir.”

 You are then commissioned in the Union Navy as an Acting Master. 

Your employee is drafted into the Union Navy as a Sailor. 

Your fishboat project is now under the auspices of the Department of the Navy. 

This means that you will no longer need Investors. 

The Navy will be providing the parts and people now. 

The parts arrive via a system of Purchase Orders. 

Since you’ll have the Mechanics and Journeymen of the Washington Navy Yard at your disposal, affixing the parts you ordered onto the existing fishboat is automatic and free of charge. 

Any crewmen that you require to man your fishboat will be provided courtesy of the Union War Department itself.

There is one thing more. 

When your fishboat is considered seaworthy and you have a trained crew, the Navy will expect a return on its efforts. 

You and your crew can expect orders to be cut and your fishboat assigned to a theater of operation. More often than not, this will be as part of the Union naval blockade of City Point (Richmond) Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina, Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Mobile, Alabama. 

Blockade duty can be deadly dull, or both deadly and dull; long days of inaction interrupted by moments of unvarnished terror. 

You must keep your crew trained and in top condition, since orders for a Mission can (and probably will) arrive at any time.

Missions provide opportunities for promotion, or being mentioned-in-dispatches. There are even cash “prizes” for sinking enemy ships or destroying enemy shore facilities like wharves and bridges.

Always be mindful that, no matter which color uniform your crew wears or which flag they salute, your first and foremost task as Inventor is to see that your fishboat makes it back home (in one piece, if possible) and with her crew intact. 

Fulfill that goal each and every time and success and honors will follow in due course, never fear.

There, I think I’ve given you enough to mull over for now. 

Yes, I know that it is a lot to think upon, but I would not have told you any of it if I was unsure of your not only hearing it but using it to you and your team’s advantage. 

And, though I hope the Yankees never knock on your machine shop door, should that moment arrive, be sure the memory of what we’ve talked about here serves you well.

Now go, colleague. 

Oh, and make sure you aren’t followed, won’t you?

(Note: All graphic images of “Infernal Machine” game materials used in The Inventor’s Vade Mecum are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form.  All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)

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