City Point supply depot explosion August 1864

[John Wideman]

The classic time bomb found a use in the Civil War. In late July 1864, Captain Zere McDaniel, Confederate Army Secret Service Company commander near Richmond provided a time bomb to John A. Maxwell, a well-known Confederate saboteur and spy. Maxwell traveled to the vicinity of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, and sought suitable targets. He was accompanied by a local guide, R. K. Dillard. On August 9, 1864, they arrived at City Point, Virginia, at the confluence of the Appomattox and James Rivers. This was the major Union depot in Virginia and General Grant’s headquarters. [SEE FIGURES 137 THRU 140]
Maxwell took the time bomb to the ordnance wharf on the river. There, he gave the time bomb to a Negro workman and directed him to place it aboard a boat. The time bomb was placed aboard the only ammunition barge at the wharf. An hour or so later, the bomb exploded. When the smoke cleared, over 55 people were dead and over $2 Million in damage had been done to Union supplies. A board of inquiry concluded that the explosion had been caused by negligent workmen smoking near the boat. Only after the war, was Maxwell’s report to McDaniel discovered and the true nature of the explosion known.
The magnitude of the explosion can be gained by looking at the map at Figure 138. According to the scale of that map, Grant’s headquarters was a straight line distance of about 3,500 feet from the ordnance wharf. Contemporary accounts report saddles and other objects flying over the area of Grant’s headquarters, some impacting near the general.
Newspaper reporters, on the scene, and suffering the effects reported,
“Your humble correspondent, with many others, has just come very near being blotted out. In fact, he is not sure that he has not been, and that this is not his spirit, from the force of habit and a sense of duty, trying to communicate with you. But he feels his head physical, and thinks he still has one (though a little shaky, perhaps,) and that he is unscathed from head to foot, except a little torn raiment; and he devoutly -- as Christian or Mohammedan ever did -- thanks God for his deliverance. He accepts the awful call, so clearly and so loudly made, as a terrible warning of the uncertainty of human life, and that in the midst of life we are in death.
I will endeavor to give some idea of the terrible scene that I am about to record by first relating my own sensations. I will first, however, endeavor to describe the relative locality of things, so that you may more clearly understand what I undertake to relate. In the first place, then, at the main steamboat landing here, where the mailboat lands, there is (what's left of it) a substantial new pine wharf, a third of a mile or so in length, along the river.
Back on this, ten or twelve feet from the edge of it, ran a mammoth new pine Government warehouse, nearly the length of the wharf, along the river, built in the most substantial manner, and which I had just made a note of, as being over a quarter of a mile in length, sixty feet wide, and twenty-five feet high, from floor to apex, and capable of standing the wear and tear of war for at least a quarter of a century.
Back of this warehouse, from the river, runs the railroad track along the platform of the warehouse, making the transition of freight from the boats to the railroad trains simply through the warehouse. Beyond the railroad track, from the warehouse at the foot of the hill upon which the town is situated, was a new pine row, in which the Post-office, Adams' Express office, and a Quartermaster's office were kept, and a few old buildings, occupied as sutlers' establishments, etc., while upon the hill, beside the city of tents, there were scattered about a dozen or more substantial frame residences, occupied now mostly for various military purposes.
The mail boat has been landing about the middle of this wharf and warehouse, one of the middle sections of the warehouse being fitted up into offices and devoted to fine commissary stores and such freight as is usually carried by the mail boats, while adjoining this section of the warehouse above is another section left as an open court for the passage of horses, passengers, &c., to and from the boats.
Just above this open section, and above where the small-boats landed, opposite an ammunition section of the warehouse, this morning, lay, next to the wharf, the barge Major-Gen. Meade, loaded with condemned stores (Including condemned ammunition outside of her the ammunition barge J.R. Kendrick, loaded with fixed ammunition for distribution, and, outside of or near the J.C. Campbell, loaded with commissary stores, with other boats and vessels close around and above and below.
After mailing my poor letter this morning on the 10 o'clock, mail-boat, and looking around the town an hour or so, I took the 11:30 freight train, as is now my wont, for the front, where my headquarters and horse are. We first went into the only open car immediately opposite the ammunition section of the warehouse, but along came one of the freight agents, and said he was ordered to close that car (which had barrels of whisky in it) as well as the rest. We consequently had to get on top of the train, which we frequently do.
I walked well back on the train, (up-riverwards,) so as to avoid the cinders and smoke of the locomotive in going out, (a precaution which experience had taught me,) and sat down on the walk-board along the top of the car, and commenced perusing a letter I had just received from a fraternal youngster in the Prairie State. I had gotten about half through this when, the first thing I knew, I did not know much of anything. A stunning and deafening shock, as if of the terrific explosion of a monster shell near me, and the concussion of the air, were bending me involuntarily over on the deck of the car, as a plant bending before the storm, and it seemed that the concussion would never cease ringing and swaying until it bred more and more danger.
My first thought was that an ammunition car had exploded just ahead of the one I was on, and that it would be of little use to try to escape the storm that had gone up and would come down-that one was bout as safe at one place as another. But the dread storm did commence coming down, and oh! how it did rain and hail all the terrible instruments of war. We felt that we were in the hands of a merciful Providence, and that if our time had come, it had come, and there was no help for it. We could only shelter our heads with our hats and our hands as we walked aft.
It was not a railroad car, but the ammunition barge J.E. Kendrick, that had exploded from the careless handling of percussion shells, or some other kind of ammunition, it is supposed. No one that was aboard of the boat remains to tell the tale of her destruction. The splinters that strew the river may be here or they may not. The section of the twisted ribs of a keel that lie in the most frequented part of the town, on the hill, two hundred yards distant, may be here or they may belong to one of her disappeared consorts.
You have read of eruptions of Vesuvius, such as buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. You have seen illustrations of them in the books. This must have been such an explosion as one of these, except that instead of lava and dust and ashes, it rained over the circle of a mile, in whole packages and by piece-meal, everything you can imagine at a military depot. Entire boxes of fixed ammunition came down among the tents in the town, a quarter of a mile distant, and scarcely a tent or house, or boat can be found within the circle of a mile that is not riddled by shell and shot, or small ammunition.
The massive pine wharf in front of where these boats lay, which was bolted down upon piles and sleepers of pine trees, is brushed aside for about a third of its length, as if it had been made of the paper I write on, while the substantial plank wharf-house, with massive beams, built for at least a quarter of a century, has been crushed nearly its entire length, as if it had been a lady's band-box. The freight train that was just ready to start when the explosion happened, is shattered in nearly every car, though not past repair, and I had the uninteresting satisfaction of seeing where my remains would probably have, lain on the heads of the whisky barrels if I had remained in the car I first occupied.
The pine board row in which were the Post-office, Adam's express office, and a Quartermaster's office, was also crushed by the concussion and the heavier forces brought against it, like a band-box, but fortunately, or rather, miraculously, none of its occupants were seriously injured. The neighboring sutlers, while equally unfortunate in the demolition of their establishments, were equally fortunate, I understand, in the safety of their persons, with, perhaps, one or two exceptions, which will be found in the accompanying list of casualties.
Every frame house in the town was jarred by the concussion alone to the extent of having its inside plastering knocked off, beside other damages by missiles, &c. Against the houses and other obstructions near the wharf, and even upon the hill, hundreds, and, perhaps, thousands, of broken, twisted and splintered muskets and such debris lay in drifts like straw drifted by the wind, and all over the ground for at least a quarter of a mile from the scene of the explosion the shell, solid shot, grape, canister, musket and minie balls, pieces of shells, nails, screws, bolts and bolt-heads, and fragments of almost everything wooden, iron and leaden you can think of, are strewn and drifted like hail and chunks of ice immediately after a dreadful hail storm.
One of the Sanitary Commission clerks, who has a post at the edge of the water, two hundred yards above where the explosion occurred, picked up a wash-basin full, (perhaps fifty or sixty pieces.) of shot and pieces of shell, that fell within a few feet of him. Up on the bill, 200 yards from the scene of the explosion, I noticed one shattered musket, among many others lying round, stuck muzzle first into the hard street to the depth of more than a foot, and so tight that it could not be pulled out by any one man. This was near where the twisted section of a boat keel lay. Everywhere are seen the rents, dents, deep abrasions and scarred furrows of the iron and leaden storm. The thousandth part cannot be told.
And now for the casualties. How many were blown in atoms into the river, from the Kendrick, never to be heard of, is not known. Probably they will not exceed a dozen or so. The Captain of the Kendrick is safe, having been absent at the time of the explosion on another boat. The other boats entirely destroyed and sunk were the Gen. Meade, of the J.C. Campbell. Capt. L. Balley of the Meade, of Somerset County, Md., and his steward, Wm. Coleman, (colored) of Washington City, all the persons on board, are both safe, the former somewhat bruised. Of the fate of the crew of the Campbell I have yet heard nothing. The dead and wounded taken out of the ruins of the wharf and warehouse will be found in the appended list of casualties.
So with the killed and wounded on the railroad train. I only saw one man dead on the train -- Solomon Leonard, One Hundred and Seventy-ninth New-York. Poor fellow! He was a convalescent just going to the front. Several others of these were wounded by being blown off the cars and otherwise. The unfortunate of the Kendrick, monthly colored laborers, is in supposed, were not all blown into the river. Hands and feet and scalps of colored men were rained about the town. I saw several, and heard of more.
One sight was particularly unpleasant. Up in the most frequented part of the town, where the part of the boat hulk lay, there was an object like the entrails of a beef rolled over in the dust. It was recognized as human by a hand and foot being attached. I noticed one noble horse wounded as if by a long Whitworth solid shot coming down through his back. Oh, how pitiably he groaned and throed, when a soldier put his cruel, death-dealing musket to his head. Other generous steeds shared the iron storm, and many a poor, patient mule was sadly repaid for his long fidelity.
I don't know how many names of killed I will be able to append. I saw twelve collected at one place on the hill, some identified and some not. Enough names will be found, however, to make enough hearts sick.
City Point, Wednesday Morning, Aug. 10, 1864. The morning's sun shines brightly upon the shattered, riddled and blackened town, wharf and shipping. The only wonder, this morning, is that many more were not killed and wounded by the terrific storm of lead, iron and ragged spikes, exploded timbers, yesterday, than there were. But a thousand or two laborers are at work this morning clearing away the debris of the explosion, and flags and martial music are afloat to soothe the pang of yesterday's desolation.
Various theories are afloat as to the cause of the explosion. Some say the careless handling of ammunition boxes, others an old-time torpedo; some surmise a rebel spy in the matter, while others attribute the disaster to a rebel shell or shot from across the river. The matter will be thoroughly investigated today. The Government stores in the big warehouse were considerably injured by water and otherwise, but to no very great extent.
The entire loss of property by the explosion is estimated at about two millions. The noise of the explosion was heard for many miles around, further than any artillery, and the smoke ascending was taken, thirty or forty miles down the river, for the conflagration of Petersburg or Richmond. Test water-spouts were thrown up, which, mingling with the powder, cinders and ashes, caused a black, pasty shower, with the other debris.
List Of Casualties
Killed.
Solomon Leonard, 179th New-York.
_____ Baxter, sutler's clerk, near P.O.
W.S. Van Kewran. 20th N.Y.S.M.
Ephraim Dewitt, 20th N.Y.S.M.
Sylvester Firman, 2oth N.Y.S.M.
John Eichtelman 20th N.Y.S.M.
John Foster. 20th N.Y.S.M.
Richard Ansel, 5th U.S. Cavalry.
John Metcalfe, 5th. U.S. Cavalry.
Wounded.
Lieut.-Col. D.E. Babcock. Gen. Grant's Staff, hit in his tent at headquarters -- hand, slightly.
Capt. J.W. Martin. Gen. Grant's Staff -- head, slightly,
Capt. D.H. Willey. Post Commissary-painfully.
Capt. Ames, Assistant Post Commissary -- slight.
Capt. Benedict, Post Commissary -- seriously; was founy in the warehouse under fourteen boxes soap.
_____ McKee, Clerk Post Commissary -- mortally.
_____ Wright, Assistant Superintendent of Laborers -dangerously.
Dr. Fowler Prentiss, 73d N.Y., Excelsior Brigade -foot crushed and other bruises.
Mr. Frank Fay. Sanitary Commission -- shoulder and side, painfully. In care of his friend, Dr. Calhoun, at Colored Hospital.
Dr. J.D. Nichols, Christian Commission-neck and shoulder, slight.
Wm. Beatty, boat engineer -- arm fractured.
James H. Smith, 148th Ohio, (100 day) -- mortally.
Wm. Wescott, 20th N.Y.S.M. -- head, severely.
Wm. Snyder, 20th N.Y.S.M. -- severely bruised.
About 25 others of this regiment (doing provost duty) were slishtly wounded, whose names I have been unable to obtain.
John Kennedy. 6th U.S. Cavalry -- slight.
Sergt. Jeremiah Murphy, 4th U.S. Infantry -- by shell mortally.
Jas. McGinn, 5th N.Y Duryea Zouaves -- slight.
Colin Jones. Quartermaster's Department -- severe.
David Jones, Quartermaster's Department -- slight.
Geo. King, citizen, laborer -- severe.
B.M. Sherwood, Quartermaster's Department -- severe, jaw and back of head.
Andrew Waldron, fireman steamer Wallace -- severe.
J.G. Merritt, citizen, news dealer -- fracture left leg.
Rufus Howe, 36th Massachusetts -- slight.
Matthew Dewey, 2d Penn. Cavalry -- contusion, slight.
Christopher Ward, 35th Massachusetts -- slight.
David Crosby, 30th N.Y.S.M. -- severe.
Franklin Hoover, 27th Michigan -- slight.
Michael Long, 51st New-York -- slight.
Jeremiah Murphy. 4th U.S. Infantry -- dangerously, back.
Wm. Raymond, 9th N.H. -- slight.
Henry Bradly, 4th U.S. Infantry -- leg; amputation.
Charles H. Grush, 57th Mass. -- spine, severely.
Francis Finn, 57fth Mass. -- bruised, shoulder and back.
Geo. Eaton, 60th Mass. -- bruised.
Wm. Chapman, 60th Ohio -- arm and shoulder.
Merrit Comfort, 109th N.Y. -- head.
Philo G. Coleman, 109th N.Y. -- arm.
Robert Smith, 46th N.Y. -- ankle sprained.
List of Clerks and Employees Killed and Wounded in Ordnance Department,
Mr. James Thorp, clerk in office.
Mr. Richard F. Stone, receiver of stores.
Entitled Men.
Sergt. Thomas Harris -- killed.
August Teasing, first -- class private -- killed.
Corp. Wm. Rinehardt -- wounded.
Corp. Henry Bradley -- wounded.
Colored laborers killed.
Jeremian Anthony. Henry Treat.
Joseph Weaver. Richard Barnett.
Daniel Anthony. Aquilla Magrader.
James Anthony. William Fields.
Charles Gant. John Matthews.
Daniel Johns. Randol Jones.
Adam Lightfoot. Tobias Moore.
Charles Stewart. George Reed.
Edward Jackson. Abraham Simms.
James Stevenson. Ashwill Kelly.
John Silton. Alexander Carpenter.
Obi Brown. John Hewes.
Henry Rice. Andrew Williams.
William Frasier. William Breathington.
Daniel Johnson. Edward Brown.
Edward T. Smith. Charles Brown.
Wounded.
Joseph Brown. Harrison Weight.
George Brown. John Harris.
Colored -- Wounded.
-- Harris head. Richard Poe, severe.
Three unknown speechless, badly wounded. Randall Blaud, severe.
Albert Gould, slight. Henry Warner, severe.
David Ball, severe. Fred. Can, severe.
"Rob Roy," severe. Spencer Home, severe.
Elijah Brown, severe. John A. Coman, severe.
Wm. Ricks, severe. Geo. Brown, severe.
Andrew Jackson, slight. Edmund Fitzhugh. severe.
Walter Waddy, severe. Jackson King, slight.
John Hibban, slight. David Brown, slight.
Samuel Lewis, slight.
Alex. Cooper, severe. Two amputations of leg.”
Maxwell’s time bomb was a wooden box. It may have been marked “Candles” or not marked at all. The box was filled with 12 pounds of blackpowder except for a small corner which contained the detonating mechanism. After the war, Lieutenant Michie, in his examination of Confederate infernal machines, drew a scale drawing of the device. One of the timing mechanisms kept by Maxwell is on display today at the City Point National Military Park.
The timing device is an ordinary 8-day clock. A lever is connected to the clock mechanism so that when a certain point in the clock gear is reached, the lever is released. The lever blocks a spring loaded plunger. When the lever is moved the plunger activates and strikes a percussion cap or other sensitive primer. This detonates the main charge of blackpowder.
It is unknown whether McDaniel or some other person made the device. It is interesting to note that a man, named William Moon, patented a horological torpedo with the Confederate Patent Office on July 11, 1864. The only known use of this device was the attack at City Point.
Maxwell’s after action report to McDaniel is the only known Confederate description of the event.
“I have the honor to report that in obedience to your order, and with the means and equipment furnished me by you, I left this city on the 26th of July last, for the line of the James River, to operate with the Horological Torpedo against the enemy’s vessels navigating that river. I had with me Mr. R. K. Dillard, who was well acquainted with the localities, and whose service I engaged for the expedition. On arriving in Isle of Wright County, on the 2nd of August, we learned of immense supplies of stores being landed at City Point, and for the purpose, by stratagem, of introducing our machine upon the vessels there discharging stored, started for that point. We reached there before daybreak on the 9th of August last, with a small amount of provisions, having traveled mostly by night and crawled upon our knees to pass the East picket line. Requesting my companion to remain behind about half a mile I approached cautiously the wharf with my machine and powder covered by a small box. Finding the captain had come ashore from a barge then at the wharf I seized the occasion to hurry forward with my box. Being halted by one of the wharf sentinels I succeeded in passing him by representing that captain had ordered me to convey the box on board. Hailing a man from the barge I put the machine in motion and gave it in his charge. He carried it aboard. The magazine contained about twelve pounds of powder. Rejoining my companion, we retired to a safe distance to witness the effect of our effort. In about an hour the explosion occurred. Its effect was communicated to another barge beyond the one operated upon and also to a large wharf building containing their stores (enemy’s), which was totally destroyed. The scene was terrific, and the effect deafened my companion to an extent from which he has not recovered. My own person was severely shocked, but I am thankful to Providence that we have both escaped without lasting injury. We obtained and refer you to the enclosed slips from the enemy’s newspapers, which afford their testimony of the terrible effects of this blow. The enemy estimates the loss of life at 58 killed and 126 wounded, but we have reason to believe it greatly exceeded that. The pecuniary damage we heard estimated at $4,000,000 but, of course, we can give you no account of the extent of it exactly. I may be permitted, captain, here to remark that in the enemy’s statement a party of ladies, it seems, were killed by this explosion. It is saddening to me to realize the fact that the terrible effects of war induce such consequences; but when I remember the ordeal to which our own women have been subjected, and the barbarities of the enemy’s crusade against us and them, my feelings are relieved by the reflection that while this catastrophe was not intended by us, it amounts only, in the Providence of God, to just retaliation. This being accomplished, we returned to the objects of our original expedition. We learned that the vessel (The Jane Duffield), was in the Warwick River, and with the assistance of Acting Master W. H. Hines, of the C. S. Navy, joined a volunteer party to capture her. She was boarded on the 17th of September last, and taken without resistance. We did not destroy her, because of the effect it might have had on the neighboring citizens and our own further operation. At the instance of the captain she was bonded, he offering as a hostage, in the nature of security to the bond, one of his crew, who is now held as a prisoner of war on this condition in this city. In the meanwhile we operated on the James as the water and moon cooperated, but without other successes than the fear with which the enemy advanced and the consequence retarding of his movements on the river. We neared success on several occasions. Finding our plan of operations discovered buy the enemy, and our persons made known and pursued by troops landed from their boats at Smithfield, we deemed it best to suspend operations in that quarter and report to you officially our labors. Your orders were to remain in the enemy’s lines as long as we could do so; but I trust this conduct will meet your approval. I have thus, captain, presented you in detail the operation conducted under your orders and the auspices of your company, and await further orders.”
Maxwell, like McDaniel, had a warrant issued for his arrest for this action and the belief that the Confederate secret service had something to do with the assassination of Lincoln. A modern journalist wrote concerning a war-time photograph held by Maxwell’s family. “An inscription on a copy of the photograph [SEE FIGURE 136], written when Maxwell was 80 years old, says it ‘was made from life and then decapitated and colored in order to answer the bloody demands and satisfy the morbid wishes of Secty Stanton and Genl Halleck who offered a reward for the arrest of said John Maxwell after the war.’ ... ‘This photograph was taken in New York City by a photographer whose name I John Maxwell cannot in April 1912 recall, but he was a Southern Sympathizer.’ The War Department, after receiving the photo, declared Maxwell officially dead, according a Richmond News-Leader article from June 21, 1940, when the headless photograph was rediscovered in a deceased judge's papers. Perhaps this was a joke in kind, or simply an example of mindless bureaucracy.”
Maxwell attempted to patent the horological torpedo with the US Patent Office some years after the war. The same journalist continued,
“In 1872 he tried to patent it. When he failed to receive a response from the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, he went to the White House to try to cut through the red tape. There he met with then-President Grant's executive secretary, Horace Porter. “‘Horace Porter is very interested in this device,’ Blankenship says. ‘So Porter asked him how it worked, he asked him to give an example of how it was used. Maxwell made the mistake of bringing up the ordnance wharf explosion. Porter had been Grant's aide-de-camp in 1864, and he well remembered what had happened at City Point that day. He would make sure the rebel never made a dime off his deadly invention.’”
The Union tried to use clockwork devices but had little success as contemporary official reports show. “I have the honor to beg that you will place at my disposal a few clockwork torpedoes. I may wish to use these to break the booms around Sumter in connection with the floating mines, and also for other purposes, and would like to see them work before I make requisition for a supply from the North. Allow me to beg that you will refer the officer who hands you this letter to someone who may give him such information with regard to the working of these torpedoes as may be in possession of the Navy.”
But success was not be had as later reports indicate. “The clockwork torpedoes have in all my experiments proved a failure….I think those torpedoes may be made to work, and that some of the mechanics here may so change the machinery as to effect this purpose.”

Photo of only known original timing device at NPS City Point.
John Maxwell after the war wearing his Southern Cross of Honor.    

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Photo of John Maxwell, City Point saboteur taken after the war ... with his head and his Southern Cross of Honor ....    

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Candles for the captain ... death for others ... drawing by Lt. Peter Michie in April 1865 from an original found in Richmond.    

   

[jbarry]

Fascinating history; I had not previously heard about this explosion.

[John Wideman]

(03-16-2024 08:24 AM)jbarry Wrote:  Fascinating history; I had not previously heard about this explosion.

Here are post-explosion photos of City Point taken shortly after the blast and one artist's conception. Also a contemporary map of City Point. The explosion was on a barge anchored at the dock in Area B on map.