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. 

They were stopped cold by Confederate obstructions in the upper James River and the artillery batteries on Drewry’s Bluff guarding the river’s approaches to the capital. 

With that way blocked, the US Navy needed to find another route to Richmond.

“If the railroad bridge at Petersburg can be destroyed, or so commanded by our vessels as to prevent its use by the enemy, it would be of infinite advantage to us, especially in case of his retreat from Richmond, which, without this bridge, would be effectively cut off in that direction.” -Flag Officer Louis Goldsborough, commanding US Navy’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron to Commodore John Rodgers.

Origins of the Appomattox River Raid

With the direct approach to the capital blocked, attention turned to the Appomattox River and the city of Petersburg. In defending Richmond, the new commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, was aware that his right flank was open to attacks along the James by the Yankee navy. He also knew that the real peril to Richmond’s future resided in the city of Petersburg and along the Appomattox River.

Flowing north some twelve miles from Petersburg, the Appomattox River meets its tributary, Swift Creek, some four miles above where it joins with the James River in the mudflats off City Point, Virginia. 

The key to Petersburg’s importance in 1862 was the same that it would be three years later: the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad. This railroad was the only direct rail route south from the Confederate capital to the rest of the Confederacy. Though guarded by infantry and artillery positions and patrolled by roving bands of cavalry, the R & P was still vulnerable in two locations. 

The first was the railroad bridge over a tributary of the Appomattox River called Swift Creek. 

The second was the High Bridge over the Appomattox River itself at Petersburg, Virginia. 

If the US Navy could get their guns or a landing party within range of either bridge, Richmond’s main supply line would be cut. 

The plan looked feasible to Flag Officer Louis Goldsborough, commanding the US Navy’s North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. 

Order of Battle and Initial Intelligence

Under pressure from Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus V. Fox (and some think President Abraham Lincoln), Goldsborough detailed Commodore John Rodgers to advance up the Appomattox River and destroy both bridges. 

Rodgers was given a twelve-ship task force of varying drafts and potentials. A notable inclusion was the turreted ironclad USS Monitor of Hampton Roads fame. 

While Goldsborough and Rodgers were formulating their plans for the R & P Railroad’s bridges, Union general George McClellan was busy landing the Union Army of the Potomac on the Virginia Peninsula between the York and James Rivers near Williamsburg and Yorktown. 

With the Confederate capital of Richmond as McClellan and the Union army’s goal, the “Young Napoleon” wanted the US Navy to cover his army’s flanks on both rivers as his army marched up the Peninsula to Richmond and victory. 

At his headquarters in Fort Monroe, events were fast becoming complicated for Flag Officer Louis Goldsborough.

The initial reconnaissance of the lower Appomattox River conducted by Rodgers on May 27, 1862, from City Point to Point of Rocks uncovered several river obstructions and torpedoes placed somewhat haphazardly by the rebels in an attempt to block the river’s main channel. 

Additional naval intelligence informed Rodgers that each set of obstructions appeared to have its own dug-in shore battery of rebel artillery supporting it.

Reactions at Fort Monroe and Washington

Rodgers communicated this intelligence to Flag Officer Goldsborough in Fort Monroe, saying that he could not risk sending vessels of his task force, even those with a very shallow draft through haphazard river obstructions—his boats would be easy targets for the supporting rebel artillery batteries. 

Goldsborough sent this information up to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox in Washington, who promptly offered Goldsborough and Rodgers use of the Navy’s newest secret weapon, the “Submarine Propeller.” 

The “Submarine Propeller” had a crew of twenty four, eighteen of which being brawny tars who’d all volunteered to serve on the new vessel as rowers and, if need be, a sizable armed landing party. The “Submarine Propeller’s” main weapon was its ability to deploy two divers clad in “underwater armor” (diving suits and helmets) and use explosives to clear the river’s main channel of all obstructions. 

Should the tide and river’s depth be in Rodgers’s favor and allow his raiders to reach their respective targets, the divers might even make an underwater assault on the support pillars of either or both of the railroad bridges.

Goldsborough agreed to Fox’s addition to the raiders’ order of battle, and the “Submarine Propeller” was towed from Fort Monroe up the James River to join Rodgers’s squadron. Accompanying the Infernal Machine was a pointed suggestion from Goldsborough that Commodore Rodgers take “special care” of the US Navy’s latest secret weapon. 

Rodgers passed this information on to the “Submarine Propeller’s” captain, Acting Master Samuel Eakins, telling him to make his Underwater Marvel ready in all respects.

Postscript

The arrival of the “Submarine Propeller” as part of John Rodgers’s task force on the James River Theater marks another “First-Ever” event of the American Civil War. 

A Richmond-based Confederate submarine designer, one William Cheeney, had just taken delivery of the submarine he designed that Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works constructed for him.

As Commodore Rodgers was weighing anchor downstream, Cheeney and his team of designers and mechanics were busy conducting a shakedown cruise of their own “Infernal Machine” in the James River off the Confederate Navy Yards at Rocketts Landing. 

This is the first time in history that opposing sides in a single military theater were each armed with their own “Infernal Machine” submersible. 

By the way, we will learn more about Mr. William Cheeney later in these pages.

Next time, Part 4 of “The Other Infernal Machine” tells the tale of the “Submarine Propeller’s” role in the Appomattox River Raid and the events experienced by the Union’s own “Infernal Machine” subsequent to the raid.

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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