The CSA Ordnance Center at Selma
 | The Selma Ordnance Center included the CSA Arsenal, The Naval Foundry, The Naval Shipyard, railroad shops, both government and private machine shops and foundries. Among the items produced at Selma were rifles, pistols, gunpowder, swords, muskets, ammunition, caps and cartridges, clothing, canteens, knapsacks, woolen goods, cotton goods, harness, chain, lumber, nails, horseshoes, bolts, steam boilers and engines, heavy ordinance, cannons and seagoing ironclad warships. |
Geographically positioned in the center of the Confederacy an attack on Selma would require the enemy to cross more than a hundred miles of hostile territory. By the Alabama River Selma had access to year round deep water shipping channels. Infrastructures of river docks, railroads, stage and wagon roads and cotton storage facilities made Selma an attractive location for a manufacturing and supply depot. Nearby resources of coal, iron ore, sulfur, saltpeter (potassium nitrate), cotton, wood, livestock, grain, forage and abundant spring water added to Selma's appeal.
Operations
The arsenal was first made up of machinery confiscated from the U. S. Arsenal at Mt. Vernon Alabama. It later added equipment from evacuated private and government facilities at New Orleans, Memphis, Mobile, Baton Rouge and Briarfield Arsenal at Columbus Mississippi.
From early 1862 until the end of the war The Selma Arsenal grew in importance and size. It manufactured almost every item used by the Confederate Army. Foreign goods were hard to import because of the Union’s naval blockades.
In the last two years of the war Selma supplied an estimated half the cannons and two thirds of the ammunition used by the Confederacy. By the end of the war the Confederacy's only source of ammunition was The Selma Arsenal and Tredager Iron Works in Richmond VA.
The Arsenal eventually covered 5 acres, contained 24 buildings and employed an estimated 3,000 workers. In addition the Naval Works covered 50 acres and employed an additional 3,000 workers. In all at the peak of the effort there were an estimated 10,000 workers employed in the manufacture of war materials. Some of them were German craftsmen but most were women, children and slaves.
The Naval Yard at Selma built the CSS Tennessee, a 1273-ton ironclad, the CSS Huntsville, and the CSS Tuscaloosa. In 1864 Selma launched the hand-cranked submarine “American Diver“, but after a failed attempt on a union blockade the Diver was deemed too slow to be of any use.
By the end of the war the Confederacy's only source of ammunition was The Selma Arsenal and Tredager Iron Works in Richmond.
Winslow's Report
Upon capturing Selma General Wilson ordered Brig. Gen. Edward F. Winslow to destroy everything of value to the enemy. General Winslow made a comprehensive list of the facilities that were destroyed.
From General Winslow’s report: “The following is a partial list, which was not made complete, as in many cases the whole property could not be destroyed in the limited time allowed”
The list
Selma Arsenal - Consisting of twenty-four buildings, containing an immense amount of war material and machinery for manufacturing the same. Very little of the machinery had been removed, although much of it was packed and ready for shipment to Macon and Columbus, Georgia. Among other articles here destroyed were fifteen siege guns and ten heavy carriages, ten field pieces, with sixty field carriages, ten caissons, sixty thousand rounds artillery ammunition, one million rounds of small arms ammunition, three million feet of lumber, ten thousand bushels coal, three hundred barrels resin, and three large engines and boilers.
Government Naval Foundry - Consisting of five large buildings, containing three fine engines, thirteen boilers, twenty-nine siege guns, unfinished, and all the machinery necessary to manufacture on a large scale naval and siege guns.
Selma Iron Works - Consisting of five buildings, with five large engines and furnaces, and complete machinery.
Pierces Foundry, Nos 1 and 2 - Each of these contained an engine, extensive machinery, and a large lot of tools.
Nitre Works - These works consist of eighteen buildings, five furnaces, sixteen leaches, and ninety banks. Powder Mills and Magazine - Consisting of seven buildings, six thousand rounds of artillery ammunition, and seventy thousand rounds of small arms ammunition, together with fourteen thousand pounds powder.
Washington Works - Small iron works, with one engine.
Tennessee Iron Works - Containing two engines.
Phelan and McBride's Machine Shop, with two engines.
Horse Shoe Manufactory - Containing one engine; about eight thousand pounds of horseshoes from this establishment were used by our army.
Selma Shovel Factory - This factory contained one steam engine, eight forges, and complete machinery for manufacturing shovels, railroad spikes, and iron axletrees for army wagons.
On the Alabama and Mississippi Railroad - One roundhouse, one stationary engine, and much standing machinery, together with twenty box and two passenger cars.
On the Tennessee Railroad - One roundhouse, with machinery, five locomotives, one machine, nineteen box and fifty platform cars.
In the Fortifications - One thirty-pound Parrot gun, four ten-pound guns, eleven field pieces, ten caissons, two forges, and five hundred rounds of fixed ammunition.
Epilog
The CSS Tennessee was forced to surrender to Farragut’s superior forces in the Battle of Mobile Bay after a damaged rudder made her defenseless.
The CSS Tuscaloosa and the CSS Huntsville were scuttled by the confederacy in the Tombigbee River. They can be located by depth finder in an area marked by the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
The American Diver was sunk by a storm at Mobile.
The Dallas County Historic society has preserved one of the surviving foundry buildings located on Water Ave.
The Brooks rifled cannon displayed on the lawn of the Selma City Hall was salvaged from the CSS Tennessee. 39 of them were made at Selma and 23 were made at Tredager Iron Works in Richmond.
A large machine lathe is displayed prominently on the lawn of the old Depot Museum on Selma’s Water Ave.
The site of the Selma Arsenal at the west end of Water Ave is now a quaint residential community of early 20th century cottages called Arsenal Place.
Bibliography:
Selma: Her Institutions And Her Men by John Hardy 1879
Selma, The Queen City of the Black Belt. By Alston Fitts III
Alabama Civil War Times
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