In my ongoing research for “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare,” I have made the acquaintance of a number of very interesting people, not only in my current era, but also from the American Civil War period.

The mid-19th Century is one of the most interesting periods of human endeavor.

The Industrial Revolution, filled with promise and with might, was still underway.

During this period, you would occasionally get one spark of intellect and genius that would shine brighter than its neighbors.

Of course like the proverb says, “The spark that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”

Such a spark was a man with the name of William G. Cheeney.

In July, 1862, Union General George McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign came to its ignominious end on the banks of the James River, as his Army of the Potomac huddled under the protection of the US Navy’s guns at Harrison’s Landing.

Little Mac’s version of the West Point “Turning Movement,” conceived (but not performed) in grand Napoleonic style was beaten by Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, using the resurgent Army of Northern Virginia in a turning movement of their own and saving the Confederacy’s capital of Richmond in the process.

Almost un-noticed in the campaign’s finish was the end of the abortive Appomattox River Raid. Commodore John Rodgers discovered that warships armored and laden with heavy guns are no good if the river they are fighting in is low on water.

During his preparations for the Appomattox River Raid, the commander of the US Navy raiding force, Commodore John Rodgers had become concerned about the river route his task force would take. The primary target was the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad’s High Bridge over the Appomattox River at Petersburg, Virginia. Also targeted was the R & P’s bridge over Swift Creek. Destruction of one or both bridges would sever the Confederate capital of Richmond’s connection with the rest of the Confederacy.

Success of the River Raid, combined with a successful assault on the Confederate capital by Union General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac meant that the Civil War could be over within the year.

Strangling the Rebel Capital

Ever since the Union navy had retaken Norfolk, Virginia, Union gunboats had been prowling the James River to within seven miles of the Confederacy’s capital city of Richmond. 

The James River in Northern Virginia

As the longest river system in the Virginia Commonwealth, the James River has its origins out west in the Appalachian Mountains. It meanders 443 miles through the northern Virginia countryside before emptying into Chesapeake Bay.

I propose to you a new arm of war, as formidable as it is economical.

Submarine navigation, which has been sometimes attempted, but as all know without results, owing to want of suitable opportunities, is now a problematical thing no more.”

(French nautical designer Brutus de Villeroi, in a letter to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.)

Though the “H.L. Hunley” is widely known as the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in combat, it was by no means the only submarine to come out of the American Civil War. The construction team headed by James McClintock and Baxter Watson who built the “Hunley” had already completed and tested two other designs for underwater vessels. Though there were other designs created and built south of the Mason-Line, they were by no means the only submersibles being built in North America in the 1860’s.

Part Two: Down River from Port Hudson to Baton Rouge

Beginning April 16, 1862, the US Navy’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron under Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut began a thunderous bombardment of the Confederate forts Jackson and St. Philip, guardians of the lower Mississippi River and the approaches to New Orleans, Louisiana. Seven nights later, on April 23, 1862, after a pitched river battle, Farragut‘s West Gulf Squadron steamed past the two forts.

The New Orleans Action Board is the setting for the “brown water” naval battles, fought for control of the Mississippi River during the American Civil War.

Part One: South from the Crescent City

Though it is not shown on the Action Board, the key to this conflict is New Orleans, Louisiana. Known as the “Crescent City” for the shape of its “Vieux Carre,” New Orleans grew from the French colonial settlement that today still clings to the north bank of the Mississippi River.

By 1861, New Orleans had grown into one of the largest port cities on the North American continent.

In the 1860’s the River’s main channel at New Orleans reached down over 50 feet (9 fathoms), deep enough that overseas shipping and other commercial traffic could sail up from the Gulf of Mexico to dock almost at the local merchants’ front door.

For the Confederacy, possession of New Orleans and its control of the Mississippi River was essential to the South’s survival as a nation.

After visiting Director Kellen Butler at the Lasch Conservation Center and seen the H.L. Hunley itself being painstakingly and lovingly restored, I needed to learn more about the locations  where those involved in unleashing the Hunley upon the Union Navy blockading Charleston Harbor did their good work.

At the opening of the American Civil War, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his people faced an enemy that had a substantially larger and fully ocean-going navy and was wedded to a strategic “Anaconda Plan” of defeating the Confederacy by economic strangulation through a naval blockading of all of its ports.

Like their forefathers, the Confederates used the technology of the 19^th Century’s Industrial Revolution to even the odds by engineering an up-to-date version of a Revolutionary War weapon, the torpedo.

The term “torpedo” here applies to any explosive device triggered either remotely or by its own internal fuse.

With the Civil War entering its second year, the Confederate government set up two separate bureaus in Richmond, VA to expedite development and deployment of the torpedo on land and sea.