Tredegar Iron Works: The Arsenal of the Confederacy

The brick buildings along the James River at Tredegar had been making iron since eighteen thirty-seven. A group of Richmond businessmen named them after a Welsh ironworking town, because they recruited their founding craftsmen from Wales. By eighteen sixty, Tredegar was the largest iron works in the South and one of the most capable foundries in the entire country.

It was that industrial reality that influenced the Confederate decision to move their capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond in May of eighteen sixty-one. Virginia's industrial output was nearly equal to that of all other Confederate states combined, and Tredegar was the centerpiece. During the Civil War, Tredegar produced approximately half of all the artillery used by the Confederate Army, somewhere around eleven hundred guns over four years.

By eighteen sixty-one, half of the foundry's nine hundred workers were enslaved people, including many in skilled positions. The works also manufactured the seven hundred twenty-three tons of iron plate that armored the CSS Virginia, the converted frigate that fought the USS Monitor in the first battle between ironclad warships in March eighteen sixty-two in Hampton Roads. Joseph Reid Anderson, who had taken management of Tredegar in eighteen forty-one and eventually purchased it outright, made a critical decision as Union forces closed in on Richmond in April eighteen sixty-five.

He kept the works from being burned. While Confederate forces set fire to warehouses and the evacuation fire swept through much of downtown, Tredegar survived. Anderson surrendered the foundry to Union officers and it continued operating.

The site is now a National Historic Landmark District and houses the American Civil War Museum. The old brick buildings, some dating to the eighteen forties, still stand above the river. You can walk the grounds where the war was largely forged.