NP, CM 8/16/1861

From the Charleston Mercury
 
August 16, 1861
 
Notes of the War
From Our Own Correspondent
Richmond, Va. August 13
   ***** 
   I had the pleasure of visiting, yesterday, the great Southern foundry, known as the Tredegar Iron Works; an establishment of which the whole South may be justly proud, and to which we are mainly indebted for the ordnance necessary to prosecute this war with energy and success.
   It happened to be a busy day, and I was about given up my proposed inspection for want of a cicerone, when Dr. Archer, a polite and cultivated gentleman, interested in experiments connected with the laboratory and ordinance department, kindly volunteered to act as my guide and interpreter through the mazes of the many detached shops which make up this monster establishment.
   The traveller, entering Richmond by night, catches a glimpse, as he rolls slowly over the bridge which spans the James River, of the most picturesque sight which has relieved the monotony of his journey through pine forest and corn field for many a hundred miles. Far below him the shadow haunted stream, broken by jutting rocks and deep foliaged islands, brawls along, and as he looks over towards the left bank, where the clanger of a hundred anvils assails his ear, he sees the broad red glare of innumerable fires flashing out upon the ware, and dimly descries the dark forms of men moving seemingly through the flames which shoot up myriads of sparks into the smoke-obscured atmosphere. The next morning, if his curiosity so inclines him, a short walk along the canal banks to the armory grounds will bring him vis-a-vis with the smutty forges and blackened shops into which daylight transforms the unearthly looking works of the previous night.
   Entering the first of these he will find himself in a Rolling Mill, surrounded by furnaces for melting and converting pig iron, and ponderous machinery for rolling it, into bars and axles and bolts and chains for railroads. "Step this side," says the polite conductor, you can see the process by which this piece of carbonized and crystallized iron is converted into the fibrous material which the skillful workman can shape into any form he pleases. "First as long slab or bar of ordinary cast iron is placed ijn the furnace and brought to a white heat. Armed with a powerful pair of forceps, a gigantic negro seizes it by one extremity and carrying it rapidly to the roller -- which consists of a series of revolving wheels, whose broad edges are at equally decreasing distances from an iron bed below -- thrust it over the top of the machine to his fellow-workman opposite, who passes one end with equal dexterity between the first wheel an d the bed, through which it is squeezed out with diminished thickness. Seized again as it emerges it is again handed over, to pass between wheel No. 2, and so da capo until the requisite degree of compression has been attained. Next, the bar is cut up into a number of small pieces and roasted in a second furnace, where, as it begins to melt, it is continuously stirred and conglomerated into a large amorphous mass about a foot and a half in diameter. This process is graphically called puddling. Here there are a half dozen workmen, stripped to the waist and reeking with perspiration, one of whom catches up this lump of glowing metal, transfers it to a kind of truck, ladle-shaped opposite the handles, and by a very skillful maneuver thrusts it into the open jaws of a revolving, stove-like machine. What the intestinal arrangements of this iron-feeding devil may be, I cannot say, but in a single second he spits out the white hot morsel, reduced in size by at least one half. This lump is again rolled, brought once more to a welding heat, and the work is done.
   A few yards further on you come to the second Rolling Mill, where all kinds of large and small iron are made; and attached to this mill is the extensive Spike Factory, four stories high, where rods are fashioned into spikes by three powerful machines, each of which turns them out at the rate of one a second, or about twenty five tons a day; these, falling into the lowest story, are carefully inspected, packed, marked and stored, ready for transportation.
   On e of the most interesting objects in this part of the building is an enormous punch, whose power is equal to about twenty tons to the square inch. A long iron plate is carefully adjusted; two men stand by the machine -- one to govern its movements, which is done with all ease by a simple lever, and the other to bring the plate accurately to the spot where the hole is to be cut. A motion of the handle, and the immense mass rises noiselessly a few inches; another motion, and the hard steel punch quietly, and without the slightest apparent resistance presses out a circular plug, an inch thick and an inch and a quarter in diameter. The plates they were punching when I visited the works are intended for ---, a purpose which will rather astonish some good people when they find it out.
   I have not time to take you through the cooper shop, or the brass foundry, or the machine shop, with its powerful hydraulic press for forcing car wheels on their axles, and as indicator to show the exact power required to effect it; or the locomotive, or boiler or blacksmith shops, in the latter of which twenty-five fires are blasting, and a large steam hammer, with innumerable younger brothers, are running a tilt, and making the day hideous with sound. ***** 
J. D. B.

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