Infernal Machine

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

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

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

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

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

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 &

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.