BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Richmond Natl Battlefield Park -- Tredegar Iron Works -- Grounds

VA -- Richmond Natl Battlefield Park -- Tredegar Iron Works -- Grounds:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TRED_060503_001.JPG: The raceway
2. TRED_060503_008.JPG: Early Industrial Patterns The Pattern Building's origins reflect the uses of the Valentine Riverside site by several industries that were key to America's, and Richmond's industrial development. The building's stone and brick foundations are from a water-powered flour mill built by Lewis D. Crenshaw, later used a woolen mill. Crenshaw's operation also included a warehouse-grain elevator on the canal. After Crenshaw's mill burned in 1863, Tredegar Iron Works rebuilt the mill in its present form for making and storage of foundry patterns. Another fire, around 1890, destroyed the upper floor, which was rebuilt. Crenshaw flour and woolen mill, c. 1854-63 Crenshaw's flour mill, converted to woolen production in 1860, was 5 stories with stepped end gables. Its stone foundations can still be seen. Tredegar pattern shop and storage, c. 1867-1890's Tredegar rebuilt a three story pattern shop over the stone foundations of Crenshaw's mill. The new building's large foundation required an arch to support the northeast corner, bridging an earlier raceway. Wooden patterns were used to make architectural columns for iron front buildings in Richmond, including this building in Shockoe Slip, constructed in 1878. Tredegar Pattern Building, 1890's to present The building continued to be used to store patterns until Tredegar's operations ended in 1957. The red brick of the upper floor and a change in the window form indicate the 1890 rebuilding. Patterns used in an iron works are three dimensional wooden models that are pressed into specially bonded casting sand called green sand. The pattern is removed and molten iron is poured into the impression, casting a perfect replica of the pattern.
3. TRED_060503_012.JPG: Adapting Power The Raceway and Earlier Uses of the Site This raceway brought water from the James River and Kanawha Canal to power waterwheels, and later turbines, that drove machinery. During its earliest use, the raceway contained at least two overshot waterwheels that powered a corn mill, a cotton mill, and a flour mill. The stone base of the Pattern Building probably dates from the earliest structures. The tubes or penstocks you see here, carry water into the round metal casings that hold turbines. This system had 22 feet of head, the distance between the forebay, or holding tank above the turbine, and the tailrace, which carried the water from the turbine toward the river. This graphic shows how many buildings these tubines powered through 1935. We have rebuilt the shafts and gears coming from the turbines to suggest the complexity of the system. Note that turbine #5 powered machines in the foundry, which meant that a long shaft had to run right through the Pattern Building to transmit the power! From the raceway, turbines transmitted power widely, through thousands of feet of shafts, gears, pulleys, and leather belt, to machinery. Typically, one or two turbines would be used to power machinery in a single factory. Because of the adaptive reuse of this site for various industrial purposes over 150 years, the system you see here is more complex. The Tredegar Iron Works began using this raceway during the Civil War. The company installed turbines to power individual buildings or sets of machines as needed. What evolved was a set of turbines that were connected to at least five other buildings, some hundreds of feet away. Identifying Turbines: Turbines are identified by their maker and by their design, which is associated with the inventor's name. We have listed makers and identifying information below for each turbine, including the diameter of the runner that spins inside the casing (40", 18", etc.), the horsepower generated at full power, how fast the runner can turn, and when the turbine was installed. 1. 40" Bodine Vertical Shaft 104.65 horsepower, 69 revolutions per minute, installed 1897-8 2. 36" Burham Vertical Shaft 76.21 horsepower, 158 rpm installed 1871. 3. 18" McCormick Horizontal Shaft, 58.7 hp, 302rpm, installed 1910. 4. 24" Smith Horizontal Shaft, 139.6hp, 325rpm, installed 1907. 5. 36" Burham Vertical Shaft, 114.3hp, 159 rpm, installed 1920.
4. TRED_060503_021.JPG: Francis Turbine: This Francis type turbine was used on the Tredegar site in the early twentieth century... It was built by the S. Morgan Smith Company of York, Pennsylvania. By turning the wheel attached to the gears, the cylinder gate (the part with the fin-like openings) moves in and out, controlling the amount of water passing into the turbine, thus controlling the power. The water pushes the buckets of the runner, turning the power shaft.
5. TRED_060503_024.JPG: Francis turbine
6. TRED_060503_043.JPG: The Lincoln Visits Richmond memorial statue. It's behind the visitor center gates to prevent it from being vandalized.
7. TRED_060503_050.JPG: Another raceway
8. TRED_060503_052.JPG: Raceways As you explore the grounds of the Tredegar Iron Works, you will occasionally see evidence of underground networks. Below the ground are numerous "raceways," tunnels of stone and brick, which carried water downhill from the canal to provide water power to the various industrial facilities. The raceways powered water wheels during the mid-nineteenth century which were replaced by more efficient turbines after the Civil War. You are standing next to one of the most complex raceways on the Tredegar site. Looking up the hill toward the stone wall, you are lined up with the underground course of the raceway. Water came through the metal gate at the stone wall. The water was first channeled into a "forebay," a holding tank for water, and then into a set of turbines, the water falling over twenty feet. After powering the turbines above, the water continued its underground journey down the hill, rushing past your current position. The water then entered another holding tank, or forebay, which was just below the black metal flooring between the two buildings. Tubes or penstocks carried it downward another 22 feet to the turbines beside the Pattern Building next to the parking lot.
9. TRED_060503_074.JPG: Rutherfoord's Mill Thomas Rutherfoord, a Scottish immigrant, built a flour mill on this site around 1800, using water power from the James River and Kanawha Canal. The ruins of the stone foundation can still be seen. Grain milling was the earliest industrial use of the Tredegar site, and was critical to Richmond's development as an industrial city that was home to the largest flour milling operations in the world. In 1812, Edward Cunningham purchased Rutherfoord's mill. The flour mill was only one of several buildings built by Rutherfoord before the Civil War. A corn mill, a cooper's shop for barrel making, and granaries for storage before milling were built in this vicinity. The quantities of grain produced far surpassed tobacco in the early 1800s, requiring a rapid expansion in transportation, storage, and milling facilities. The James River and Kanawha Canal not only provided water power for Rutherfoord's Mill, but also was the conduit for transporting grains from western Virginia. By the 1840s, milling operations had stopped in the flour mill. The Tredegar Iron Works built a spike mill on the earlier foundations in 1859, seen in many photographs taken after the Civil War. Tredegar still used water power from the canal, but made many products for the canal's direct competitor – railroads.
10. TRED_060503_087.JPG: The water power controls from the old spike mill
11. TRED_060503_090.JPG: Tredegar Spike Mill You are now standing in the middle of the footprint of the Tredegar spike mill. Since its beginnings in the 1830s, the Tredegar Iron Works relied on railroads as a major market. Spikes were one of the most important products Tredegar made and, even after leaving their James River site in 1957, Tredegar continued to produce spikes into the late 1980s at a plant in Chesterfield County. In 1859 Joseph Reid Anderson built the first spike mill (above) on the ruins of the former Rutherfoord flour mill, just north of where you are standing along the canal. From the mid-19th century to the 1950s the rolling mills, spike machines and other equipment were powered through the use of water turbines, sophisticated water wheels housed in the pit behind you. Water flowed down the hill from the canal in underground "raceways" (the brick openings), and was channeled through metal tubes into the metal cases you can see below ground. The shafts coming upward from the turbines turned a set of gears, transferring power to equipment.
12. TRED_060503_094.JPG: In the location of the Tredegar Spike Mill
13. TRED_060503_107.JPG: Working housing (represented by the frame)
14. TRED_060503_112.JPG: Worker Housing The wooden framework you see here represents the outline of one unit of a six unit "laborers' quarters" built for Tredegar workers before the Civil War. Two long, multi-unit "quarters" bordered each other along the canal where the brick wall exists today.
15. TRED_060503_116.JPG: Rail Lines at Tredegar Nearly all of the materials shipped to and from Tredegar moved by railroad after the Civil War. The company's small fleet of industrial switcher locomotives moved car loads along the spur lines that connected Tredegar to the outside world. Over two miles of railroad tracks criss-crossed the Tredegar complex. They ran alongside, between, and through many of the large buildings that filled the site. Other tracks ran to elevated dump sites where metal and coal were off-loaded. The photographs shown here were taken c.1918 through c.1940. Tredegar's main incoming cargo consisted of pig iron, scrap metal, and coal. Iron and steel were moved from the freight yards around Richmond in gondolas and off-loaded at the Iron Works. The locomotives moved large, steam-powered cranes around the site and, using hooks, magnets, and chains, the cranes unloaded the heavy metal fragments which were melted in Tredegar's furnaces and made into new metal products for shipment across the city and the nation. Coal, used to fuel the metal furnaces, was shipped in from the coal fields of Virginia and West Virginia and unloaded at dump sites around the works. From there it was moved around the site by horse-drawn carts and wagons. One locomotive that worked the rails at Tredegar still sees service today. Engine No. 1, an 0-6-0 T built by H.K. Porter in 1942, is owned by the Old Dominion Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. Originally built as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers No. 5019, the locomotive was purchased by Tredegar in 1948 and renumbered No. 4. The engine became the property of Albemarle Paper Company when it acquired the Tredegar site in 1960. Retired in 1966, the engine, then called "Rebel," was donated by Ethyl Corporation in 1969 and returned to service by the Old Dominion Chapter in 1982."
16. TRED_060503_120.JPG: The Canal and the Civil War At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the James River and the Kanawha Canal extended to Buchanon, nearly 200 miles west of Richmond. As Virginia's railroads fell prey to Union armies, the canal became an increasingly important artery in the Confederacy's transportation network. Despite its significance, Union armies made little effort to sever the canal in the first years of the war. It was not seriously threatened until March 1864, when Ulric Dalgren's raiders briefly reached the James River. Three months later a Confederate force at Lynchburg defeated Federals under Gen. David Hunter, saving the waterway from serious injury. In March 1865, Union cavalry under Gen. Philip Sheridan delivered the most serious blow by damaging enormous stretches of the canal west of Richmond.
17. TRED_060503_143.JPG: Engine Number 2882. Note that they removed this engine a few years later.
18. TRED_060503_145.JPG: Iron Horses at Tredegar: Tredegar operated a small fleet of diminutive coal-fired switcher locomotives on over 2 miles of track within the boundaries of the iron works. These steam engines were called 0-1-0 Tank engines, which referred to their wheel arrangements (0 wheels leading, 4 driving wheels, and 0 wheels trailing) and the "saddle" type water tanks wrapped around their boilers. Manufactured by such companies as Baldwin Locomotive Works, Vulcan Iron Works and the H.K. Portar Company, most 0-4-0 Ts were between 25 and 30 feet long and weighed between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds. These "tank engines" carried their own fuel and water, eliminating the need for a tender and their short wheelbase made them perfect for the rough track and right confines of an industrial site like Tredegar. While small and nimble, Tredegar's steam switchers could move amazing amounts of freight. Engine Number 2882: The locomotive on display here is representative of the small steam locomotives that ran at Tredegar for over sixty years. Engine number 2882 is an 0-4-0 T manufactured in 1918 by the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. It was originally purchased by the Ironton Solvay Coke Company of Ironton, Ohio and served there until World War II when it was requisitioned by the United States Navy. During the war, 2882 worked in Norfolk, Virginia. In the late 1940s, the engine was sold to Consolidated Sand and Gravel Company of Phenix City, Alabama where it hauled freight for nearly 25 years. In 1971, CS&G sold the locomotive to the Confederacy Railroad Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Purchased by a private owner in 1989, number 2882 came to Tredegar in 1994. Hundreds of this type of locomotive were produced in the twentieth century. Although most have been scrapped, a few survive including a sister locomotive to 2882. Engine number 2888, built eleven months after 2882, originally worked at the New Haven Trap Rock Company and is now at the National Park Service's Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA.
19. TRED_060503_150.JPG: Industrial Recycling Iron companies in the late 1800s began melting down scrap metal from old machines and parts to make new products, just as we recycle materials like aluminum cans today. The "car wheel crusher" that stood here broke up old railroad car wheels so that the pieces could be melted and reshaped. A large weight was dropped on the wheels to break them.
20. TRED_060503_173.JPG: Making Machines at Tredegar During the 1880's the Tredegar Iron Works made many of the specialized machines necessary in iron production. This was especially true for machinery used in the rolling mills. Two major parts of the stand of rolls you see in the display behind you, were made at Tredegar–the rolls which shape the metal, and the large housings that hold the rolls and gears together. The rolls were turned on the lathe displayed here. The lathe copies the form of an already shaped piece.
21. TRED_060503_182.JPG: Tredegar Rolling Mills The Tredegar Iron Works had several rolling mills, which produced rails, bars to be made into spikes, connecting plates for rails, merchant bar iron, and plates. The Tredegar rolling mill's most famous work was the plates made for the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia. Power is transferred from a turbine or waterwheel to a set of gears, which drive a series of stands of rolls. Heated metal is elongated and shaped as it passes through each set of rolls. The rolls here, called roughing rolls, shape the metal first. Edward Wade, pictured in the foreground with his tongs, was the son of James Wade, who ran the Tredegar mill during the Civil War. The rolling mills were highly dependent on skilled workers like the Wades. Rolling mill workers in the nineteenth century were considered highly skilled. Often they were paid as a group, and the team, or supervisor, decided how much to pay each worker. Even during slavery, black workers were part of the skilled teams that rolled iron at Tredegar, prompting a strike by white workers in 1847, who objected to training slaves. Morton Deane was a skilled worker on the rolling mill who also served on the Richmond city council in the late 19th century. The photograph (right), from the 1800s, shows the Tredegar rolling mills, which were large shed-like buildings with open sides. Despite the the mill's lack of walls, the workers still found the heat from the furnaces intense in the summer. The flywheel helped to power a rolling mill that shaped hot pieces of iron. The wheel weighs approximately 64,000 pounds. Its great momentum, caused by its weight, helped the mill to run smoothly under the load. The first flywheel was cast in 1846 by the Armory Iron Company, one of Tredegar's various incorporated bodies, and powered the mill through the Civil War. On August 25th, 1905, the first flywheel came loose from its bearings and exploded, killing one man and wounding two others. When the replacement wheel showed signs of cracks and stress in 1950, the wheel you see here took its place until Tredegar ceased operations in 1957.
22. TRED_060503_201.JPG: Belle Isle Prison Directly in front of you, in mid-river, is Belle Isle. Despite the large number of Union prisoners brought to Richmond during the Civil War, the city had only two full-time prisons. Libby Prison for Union officers, a mile and a half downriver, was the more famous of the pair, but Belle Isle, designed for Union enlisted men, was the most miserable. Confederate authorities realized that the island would make an ideal site for holding captured enlisted men from the Union army. The first prisoners arrived from the battlefields in July 1862. Overcrowding soon became the prison's primary problem. At times as many as 6,000 men occupied the portion of the island that had been set aside for prisoners. The absence of wooden buildings increased the suffering of the incarcerated soldiers. Poor sanitation, winter's cold and summer's heat and sun, malnutrition, and an insufficient number of tents plagued the prisoners. By 1864, about 20,000 men had spent some time on the island. The precise number of deaths is not yet known, but the sum could approach 1,000 men.
23. TRED_060503_202.JPG: Belle Isle and Old Dominion Iron and Nail Works Once called Washington's or Broad Rock Island, Belle Isle was bought by Captain John Smith from Chief Powatan in 1608. Early travelers found the island natural and idyllic and current visitors only see hints of the island's industrial past. In 1815, a wooden dam built on the southern side diverted water to power a nail factory, which eventually became Old Dominion Iron and Steel. Belle Isle later became the home of stone quarries and a Virginia Electric Power plant. Old Dominion Iron and Nail Works: Old Dominion Iron and Nail Works began in 1832. This large factory employed many Richmonders. The company manufactured iron bars, horseshoes, nails, spikes, staybolt bars for steam locomotives, and plates for the C.S.S Virginia and other vessels during the Civil War. As steel replaced iron, the company changed its name to Old Dominion Iron and Steel Corporation and began producing steel products.
24. TRED_060503_207.JPG: Tredegar in 1951 The lines in the parking lot represent the outlines of building shown on the 1951 insurance map of Tredegar, below. Three machine shops were constructed in 1872 to manufacture railroad cars and were converted to boiler and machine hops around 1884-1887. By 1887, a series of buildings, represented by lines to the right, had been constructed for the production of horseshoes at Tredegar, including a forge, a machine shop, and storage sheds. Machine Shops: These buildings were long and narrow so that power for equipment could be transmitted through a long system of line shafting that ran along the ceiling. These turned belts that powered lathes, shapers, and other machine equipment. Workers at the Horseshoe Shops: Workers at the Horseshoe Shops included skilled machinists and iron workers, semi-skilled horseshoe machine operators, and unskilled laborers who moved the raw materials and finished products. Both black and white men worked in the mills, but whites held the majority of skilled jobs.
25. TRED_060503_238.JPG: The Bulldozer Press: The earth-moving machine we call a "bulldozer" got its name from this type of press. This bulldozer press, made by Williams and White, shapes and straightens pieces of metal.
26. TRED_060503_240.JPG: The Bulldozer Press: The earth-moving machine we call a "bulldozer" got its name from this type of press. This bulldozer press, made by Williams and White, shapes and straightens pieces of metal.
27. TRED_060503_249.JPG: This is a new museum that's going up. It's called the American Civil War Center. It's located in the building that used to be the New Gun Foundry during the Civil War.
28. TRED_060503_254.JPG: Southern Firepower Richmond National Battlefield Park This 6.4-inch Brooke rifled cannon represents one of the greatest sources of pride for the Confederacy. Named for its inventor, John Mercer Brooke, this type of gun was renowned for its superior range, accuracy and reliability over its smoothbore counterparts. Because of their effectiveness, Brooke's guns were mounted inside many southern fortifications and were also used on board many Confederate warships. This example was cast at Richmond's famous Tredegar Iron Works in July 1862, and was mounted within the James River defenses near Drewry's Bluff. There it successfully guarded the river approaches to Richmond. It was capable of firing an 80-pound solid projectile more than four miles. John Mercer Brooke The gun's designer, John Mercer Brooke, was an inventor and Chief of Confederate Naval Ordnance. Brooke assisted in developing many of the South's unique weapons, including submarines and torpedoes, and was instrumental in the design of the famous ironclad C.S.S. Virginia. he also prepared the first railroad mounted artillery that was used at the Battle of Savage's Station.
29. TRED_060503_255.JPG: 6.5-inch Brooke rifled cannon.
30. TRED_060503_271.JPG: Overshot Waterwheel This is a reconstruction of one of many waterwheels used on this site. It is called an overshot wheel because the water flows over the top. The Tredegar Iron Works used waterwheels from its founding in 1836 until the 1870s when turbines were installed. Two different wheels were located here, powering foundry blowers and an early machine shop. No photographs of these waterwheels exist. Information from maps, insurance policies, and company records was used to reconstruct this waterwheel, as well as photographs of wheels of the same era. After the James River and Kanawha canal was constructed in the 1780's, industries began to use its water for power. Thomas Rutherfoord's flour mill was the first, and insurance plans show the waterwheels it employed. Later, the Tredegar Iron Works built a spike mill in the same location.
31. TRED_060503_276.JPG: Overshot Waterwheel
32. TRED_060503_289.JPG: Toledo 1000-ton Press
33. TRED_060503_300.JPG: Toledo 1000-ton Press This press was used to finish iron and steel parts, such as the pieces of rail-connecting plate (known as fishplate) you see displayed here. It straightened hundreds of thousands of tons of metal in its lifetime. The machine weighs about 40 tons. The "1000 ton" designation refers to the amount of force it can generate. The machine was purchased in the 1920's and was moved to Cleveland when the Tredegar Company's equipment was purchased by Cleveland Track material in 1986. To make a fishplate, the iron or steel is rolled into shape at the Tredegar rolling mills. Second, the shaped iron or steel is reheated and cut into the proper length with a bar shear. Third, bolt holes are punched with a punch press. Finally, the fishplate is straightened by the press you see here.
34. TRED_060503_303.JPG: Small cupola, from Tredegar itself
35. TRED_060503_305.JPG: Large cupola from O. G. McGee.
36. TRED_060503_308.JPG: The Cupola Furnace and Foundry The cupola furnace was last used here as part of the carwheel foundry, where railroad carwheels were cast until the 1950's. The wall in front of you is the back wall of the building, and the arch behind you is the remains of the front wall of the original building. The foundry building was expanded considerably over time. In the cupola furnace, iron was heated until it became molten, then poured into molds to produce various cast items. Furnaces at Tredegar once used pig iron from western Virginia, carried to this site by canal boats on the James River and Kanawha Canal, which forms the upper boundary of the Tredegar site. Electric furnaces replaced most cupola furnaces c. 1960-70 because they are easier to operate and more easily fulfill environmental regulations. How cupola furnaces work: 1. The furnace is charged with coke (a refined form of coal used as fuel) and iron is brought on small rail cars to a loading platform near the top of the stack. 2. The coke and iron are dumped into the brick-lined furnace in alternating layers. 3. As each layer of fuel falls into the melting zone, it melts iron above. 4. To make the fire hotter, air is blown into the wind belt through a pipe connected to a blower, and air is forced through openings or tuyeres in the inner part of the furnace. 5. When the iron has melted, the furnace is tapped, and hot metal flows into a ladle or crucible. 6. The ladle or crucible is taken to a mold and the hot metal is poured in. 7. Slag, composed of impurities created by the furnace, is taken off of the top of the melted iron and carried away. Tredegar made railroad carwheels over much of its history. In the photograph below, workers pour molten iron into a carwheel flask, a type of mold. Patterns for carwheels made at Tredegar, pictured below, had interchangeable plates bearing the initials of the railroads they served, including the ACL (Atlantic Coast Line) and the RF&P (Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac), showing how standardized railroad parts had become by the 20th century. Sectional plan of cupola through lower tuyeres: The small Tredegar cupola and the larger cupola are good examples of cupola furnaces. The larger furnace was recovered from a foundry about two miles from here, and dates from around 1910. It was used by the James W. Carr Foundry, later the O. G. McGee& Son Foundry and finally Capital Foundry, Inc., and was probably last fired around 1964. When traveling around the city, notice the many manhole and water meter covers cast by O. G. McGee. Ironmolders were one of the many groups of skilled workers at Tredegar who were organized into craft unions in the metal trades. Local Number 128 of the Ironmolders Union represented Tredegar's foundrymen, as well as molders in Richmond's stove works, machine shops, and foundries. Unions provided some sickness and injury benefits, important to workers with no other source of health benefits."
37. TRED_060503_315.JPG: Tredegar office building
38. TRED_060503_319.JPG: Enterprise and Iron By 1844, Tredegar Iron Works managers used this building for an office and as a residence. After the Civil War, it became the principal iron works office. It was rebuilt after being damaged by fire in 1903. During most of the history of Tredegar, the company was owned and operated by Joseph Reid Anderson and members of his family, with a few skilled workers and managers. Ownership by families or limited partnerships was not unusual for industrial organizations in the 1800s, but it became increasingly rare in large industries by the 20th century. The main section of this structure originated as a three-story brick currying shop and dwelling, part of a series of tanyard operations in this vicinity from about 1799 to 1827. Tanned leather provided belting for early industries, and harness, seat coverings, and strapping for the carts, drays, and wagons that moved products in the industrial city.
39. TRED_060503_330.JPG: The new American Civil War Center goes up
40. TRED_060503_356.JPG: Tredegar Iron Works By 1861 the Tredegar Iron Works were the largest in the Confederacy. The sprawling complex seen in this plan produced much of the ordnance used by the Confederate army and navy. But in 1863, a devastating fire destroyed the Crenshaw mill (site of the current visitor center) and several shops on the lower level. As the firm rebuilt some of these facilities, a change in production occurred. Instead of casting the large cannon that required a large work force and high-grade iron ore, both of which were difficult to secure, Tredegar began producing more profitable railroad materials such as cars, axles, wheels and trucks. After the war, Joseph Anderson and his Tredegar partners received presidential pardons and reopened the plant. Tredegar's work force now consisted of former slaves and white workers who were paid equal wages. Most of the peacetime production related to the railroad industry, but during both world wars Tredegar received lucrative military contracts to cast artillery shells. The doors closed in 1957, when some of the rolling equipment was moved to neighboring Chesterfield County where operations continued until 1986.
41. TRED_060503_402.JPG: The remaining Tredegar city from the war memorial on the hill
Wikipedia Description: Tredegar Iron Works
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tredegar Iron Works is a historic iron foundry in Richmond, Virginia, United States of America. The site is now the location of a museum called The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

"Founding" and management under Davies (1833-1838):

The foundry was named in honor of the town of Tredegar, South Wales, United Kingdom, where iron works of the same name were constructed in the early 1800s, and which was also the hometown of Rhys Davies, the man originally in charge of constructing the facility. In 1833, a group of Richmond businessmen and industrialists hired Davies, then a young engineer, along with a number of fellow iron workers from the Welsh valley town, to construct the furnaces and rolling mills that later became the Tredegar Iron Works and Belle Isle Iron Works.

Rhys Davies died in Richmond in September 1838 as a result of stab wounds received in a fight with a workman and was buried on Belle Isle in the James River.

Management under Joseph Reid Anderson (1841-Civil War):

In 1841, the owners turned management over to a 28-year-old civil engineer named Joseph Reid Anderson who proved to be an able manager. Anderson acquired ownership of the foundry 1848 and was soon doing work for the United States government. The commissioning of 900 miles of railroad track in Virginia, largely financed by the Virginia Board of Public Works between 1846 and 1853, offered a market in steam locomotives and rail stock.

One of those attributed with starting the Tredegar Locomotive Works with John Souther was Zerah Colburn, the well-known locomotive engineer and journalist. By 1860, Anderson's father-in-law Dr. Robert Archer had joined the business and Tredegar became a leading iron producer in the country. The company produced about 70 steam locomotives between 1850 and 1860. From 1852 to 1854, John Souther also managed the locomotive shop at Tredegar. Its locomotive production work is sometimes listed with combinations of the names Anderson, Souther, Delaney, and Pickering.

Anderson was a strong supporter of southern secession and became a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army as the American Civil War broke out. He was wounded at Glendale during the Seven Days Battles of the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 and served in the Ordnance Department for the duration of the Civil War.

Tredegar Iron Works supplied high-quality munitions to the South during the war. The company also manufactured railroad steam locomotives in the same period.

* Tredegar Iron Works made the iron plating for the first Confederate ironclad warship, the CSS Virginia which fought in the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862.
* Tredegar is also credited with the production of approximately 1,100 artillery pieces during the war which was about half of the South's total domestic production of artillery between the war years of 1861-1865.
* Tredegar also produced a giant rail-mounted siege cannon during the conflict.

As the war continued with more and more men conscripted into the Confederate armies, Tredegar experienced a lack of skilled laborers. Scarce supplies of metal also hurt the company's manufacturing abilities during the war and as the conflict progressed it was noticed that Tredegar's products were beginning to lose quality as well as quantity. In the summer of 1861, after the beginning of the Civil War, the initial quantity of metal was so scarce that the iron works failed to produce a single piece of artillery for an entire month.

Tredegar survives the evacuation of Richmond:

During the evacuation of Richmond by the Confederates on the night of April 2-3, 1865, the retreating troops were under orders to burn many of the munitions dumps and industrial warehouses that would have been valuable to the North. Joseph Anderson, the owner of the Tredegar Iron Works, reportedly paid over 50 armed guards to protect the facility from arsonists. As a result, the Tredegar Iron Works is one of few Civil War-era buildings that survived the burning of Richmond.

At the outset of hostilities, Anderson had wisely secured Tredegar assets overseas for the duration of the Civil War and, therefore, was able to restore his business when the Confederate currency collapsed. He petitioned U.S. President Andrew Johnson for a pardon for himself and Tredegar and was back in business before the end of 1865, regaining full ownership in 1867.

Reconstruction Era:

By 1873, Tredegar Iron Works was employing 1,200 workers and was a profitable business. The neighborhood of Oregon Hill cropped up as a company town-like development.

When Joseph Anderson died on a vacation in New Hampshire in 1892, he was succeeded by his son Colonel Archer Anderson. The Tredegar company remained in business throughout the first half of the 20th century, and supplied requirements of the armed forces of the United States during World War I and World War II. It was destroyed by fire in 1952.

Post-Industrial uses:

The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar:

In the 1990s, the Tredegar Iron works was host to the short lived "Valentine on the James" extension of the Valentine Richmond History Center. The idea of a museum on the site was later revived and on Saturday, October 7, 2006,The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar opened to the public. James M. McPherson described the museum as "a truly comprehensive exhibit and education center weaving together Union, Confederate, and African-American threads ... much needed for future generations to understand how the Civil War shaped the nation." The Center contains interactive theaters, plasma-screen maps, and artifacts. The museum's exhibits were put together by an eminent team of historians including James M. McPherson of Princeton, Bill Cooper of Louisiana State University, John Fleming of the Cincinnati Museum Center, Charles Dew of Williams College, David W. Blight of Yale, and Emory Thomas at the University of Georgia.

Lincoln statue:

In 2000, the former Tredegar Iron Works facility overlooking the James River near downtown Richmond became the site of the main Visitor's Center of the Richmond National Battlefield Park. In April 2003, a statue was dedicated there to commemorate Abraham Lincoln's historic 1865 tour of the burnt-out city 10 days before his assassination. Dignitaries at the installation ceremony included Douglas Wilder, former Mayor and Lt. Governor Tim Kaine, Mayor Rudy McCollum, and former governor Gerald L. Baliles.

Protesting the event were Sons of Confederate Veterans including Brag Bowling, Virginia SCV Commander; Fred Tayor, president of the Heritage Preservation Association; and Elliott Germain, chairman Virginia League of the South.

Fiction:

In Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 alternate history series, in which the South wins the Civil War, the Confederate Army's standard rifle is called Tredegar, presumably after the Iron Works.
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