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.

The James River figured in Virginia’s early colonial history. The colonial capitals, Jamestown (founded 1607) and Williamsburg (founded 1632), as well as the current state capital of Richmond (chartered 1742) were established on its banks. Richmond is the farthest point navigable along the river’s length from the Chesapeake Bay, due to the presence of a line of waterfalls and rapids that cause the flow of the James to drop over one hundred feet through a distance of seven miles. Travel on the James River further north from Richmond was eventually facilitated by construction of the James River and Kanawha Canal (begun in 1790), bringing immigrants to and goods from as far away as the Ohio River valley. With the canal system first supported and then gradually replaced by railroads, by the mid-1800’s the James River and Richmond were growing as centers of commerce, immigration, and trade.

The James River in the Civil War

With the onset of the American Civil War, Richmond’s citizens saw their city not only as their nation’s capital but also maintaining its position as a center of commerce and overseas trade for the eastern Confederacy, with the James River being the major artery for that trade.

However, the United States had a grand strategy entitled “Operation Anaconda,” which planned to blockade the James River and Richmond by the US Navy as a means to hasten the war’s end.

By the opening months of 1862, the Anaconda Plan was showing signs of success. The James River’s estuary at Hampton Roads, together with what was left of its naval bases at Norfolk and Portsmouth, were all back in possession of the US Navy.

In one stroke, the Confederacy’s lack of a navy to defend approaches to the nation’s capital became their number one concern.

Matthew Fontaine Maury – torpedo specialist 

Fortunate for the Confederacy, it found a defender of the James River in one Matthew Fontaine Maury. Maury devoted his efforts to the field of torpedo design and development. Maury saw that, absent a navy to challenge that of the United States, the Confederacy would have to rely on a multi-layered and static defense to protect its waterways and ports.

Static defense (including the use of torpedoes) was just one aspect of Maury’s three-part defensive strategy.

Maury’s torpedoes and obstruction fields would be supported by the second element: mobile and pre-positioned land artillery batteries covering the navigable channels and choke points.

The third element was a riverine or coastal defense navy comprised of what few heavily-armed and armored ironclad vessels could be built locally, with these supported by a covering “mosquito fleet” of lightly-armed and speedy commercial vessels.

The result of Maury’s creativity in producing so many different torpedo designs was a James River that was all but un-navigable by the middle of 1862, except by following an intricate and continuously-changing path of safety known only to the defenders of Richmond.

General George McClellan’s “Turning Movement”

Maury’s defensive spider web protecting the James River was of little moment for the commander of the Union Army of the Potomac.

General George McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign of 1862 was his take on the classic West Point-taught “Turning Movement,” only done on a McClellan-sized grand scale. The general would outflank Confederate general Joe Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia’s positions on the Rappahannock River by landing the entire Union Army of the Potomac nearly one hundred miles away to the southeast, landing on Virginia’s Peninsula between the York and James Rivers. McClellan would take the Confederate capital Richmond through its undefended “side door.”

Though he put on a brave front, at heart McClellan was a cautious soul.

The “Young Napoleon” could not lead his men up the Peninsula to kick in the “side door” if the US Navy’s warships and monitors were not there guarding his flanks. The Navy’s talk of the rivers being full of sunken ships and overgrown firecrackers annoyed him.

You can almost hear McClellan boldly declaim, while dismissively waving an imperious hand:

“Clear that river rubbish away! I’ve a city to take and a war to win!”

Work for the “Submarine Propeller”

The Union “Submarine Propeller’s” mission to sink the Confederate ironclad ram CSS “Virginia” ended on May 16, 1862, with the Confederate’s evacuation of the Norfolk Navy Yard. The ram itself was blown up to prevent capture.

Since then, the submersible had been based under the Union guns of Fort Monroe, Virginia. With Norfolk captured and the “Virginia” gone, a new mission for the “Submarine Propeller” had to be found.

It was US Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox who recalled that a previous submersible invented by the French émigré and self-styled “Natural Genius” Brutus de Villeroi was designed to assist in the recovery of shipwrecks by deploying salvage divers in “submarine armor” (diver’s suits and helmets) while submerged.

Could not de Villeroi’s current “Submarine Propeller” be used in such a manner so as to remove McClellan’s “river rubbish” and maybe sink some enemy ships in the process?

Next time, Part 3 of “The Other Infernal Machine” finds the Union’s “Submarine Propeller” joining a motley fleet of ships (including the ironclad USS “Monitor”) on a mission to end the American Civil War in one stroke.

See you then.

(Note: All graphic images of Infernal Machine game materials used in this series of articles are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form.  All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)

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