The City Point Explosion
by Bruce L. Brager

Saturday, July 30, 1864, Federal forces besieging Petersburg, Virginia, completed tunneling under Confederates lines, blew a giant hole in the lines, stunned their enemy in the area, and then sit and waited before attacking. The net result was a lot of dead soldiers, and a new phrase "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," created by Abraham Lincoln.

The Petersburg front did not stay quiet for long after the disastrous Federal failure at the Crater. One particularly loud incident occurred just over a week later, at City Point, Virginia, ten miles northeast of Petersburg. The noise no longer echoes today, but it in an incident with chilling current day relevance.

The small village of City Point, Virginia, was located where the Appomattox River joined the James River. In 1838, a rail line was constructed connecting Petersburg and City Point. Though Petersburg was on the Appomattox River, the James was far more navigable. City Point, with regular steamboat service to New York City, became a port of entry for goods being shipped to Petersburg. Most of this commerce ended with the start of the American Civil War, and the increasingly effective Federal blockade – particularly of the James River, with the Federals never losing control of Fort Monroe, at the base of the river. What was left of City Point's commerce ended on May 5, 1864.

On May 5th, the same day that the Army of the Potomac entered the Wilderness, Benjamin Butler's Army of the James landed at Bermuda Hundred. Some black troops were detached and sent to occupy City Point. On June 15th, General Grant arrived and made City Point his headquarters. A small village became the 1864 equivalent of the Pentagon.

By August 1864, City Point was not just Grant's headquarters but was also the central supply depot and distribution point for supplies for the campaign against Petersburg and Richmond. Sending supplies by ship was more efficient than by land. The sea was also safer, with the near total Federal control of the coastal waters. Land routes ran into danger from Confederate guerillas. The quiet village had become a very busy port and supply distribution center for two armies. And these armies needed huge amounts of supplies. For example, each day army animals alone required 600 tons of grain and oats.

City Point would not have been mistaken for a civilian port. Two lines of defensive positions protected the docks and supplies from an attack by land. Several ironclad gunboats were anchored in the James River north of City Point with their guns pointing upriver, towards Richmond. As might be expected in a large military port, one soldier complained of heavy pilfering of supplies; another complained of the lice. But a third remembered hearing black troops in the area, at religious services, singing "their quaint but soulful melodies."[1]

The army quartermaster and other supply departments had remembered something about sieges. The attacker, as well as the defender, has supply problems. Federal storage facilities at City Point always kept on hand 20 days supply for forage for the animals and a 30-day supply of rations for the soldiers. The Federals also constructed a railroad, starting at the City Point docks, below a bluff from most of the village, and running in back of the Federal trenches at Petersburg, to carry supplies directly to the armies at the front.

City Point was the center of a major war effort. It was one thing more. City Point was a very tempting target. On July 26, 1864, John Maxwell, a Confederate secret agent, set out from Richmond. This was before the explosion of the Mine and the Battle of the Crater, so Maxwell's efforts were not in retaliation for that incident.

Another agent accompanied Maxwell; a man named R. R. Dillard. Maxwell carried what he called a "horological torpedo." This was a time bomb he had invented, and was under orders to use against Federal vessels on the James. The agents' roundabout route brought them to Norfolk, about 50 miles southeast of City Point. At Norfolk, they learned about the massive amounts of Federal supplies at City Point. They decided to go to City Point and blow up one of the Federal supply vessels.

August 9th was a Tuesday. The day was also going to be exceedingly hot, noticeable even during a very hot and dry summer. One Federal soldier noted the temperature at 98 degrees, and this was at 6:30 in the morning. Perhaps the heat helped Maxwell and Dillard as they slipped through Federal lines. Everyone would be sweating, not just nervous enemy agents. They passed undetected through the Federal picket line at City Point. Dillard hid at the outskirts of the port, while Maxwell went on with his torpedo – actually a large box, though probably not otherwise noticeable, containing somewhere between 12 and 15 pounds of explosives.

After arriving in the dock area, Maxwell noticed the captain of one supply barge leave his vessel on an errand. Maxwell headed towards the vessel. He told a sentry, who stopped him, that the captain had ordered him to put the box on board. There is no indication that the sentry thought of the elementary security move to ask Maxwell the name of the captain, or that the sentry even knew the name of the captain.

Maxwell activated the bomb, and gave it to a man from the barge to put on board. Maxwell and Dillard found a place to hide, in view of the barge but far enough away to be safe from the resultant explosion. Maxwell had chosen well. The supply barge, the J.E. Kendrick, was loaded with ammunition.

A doctor, James Otis Moore, assigned to a field hospital, was visiting City Point to pick up medical supplies. Moore noticed the extensive activity at the port, as did other observers that morning. Moore, and a companion, boarded the next train headed back to the front. After some debate over whether they should sit inside in the heat, or get some relief by riding on top of the car – the train clearly did not move very fast – Moore declared he was not moving. Both stayed inside. Other passengers sat on the roof.

Morris Schaff, a Federal staff officer, has been in his office near the wharf when an old friend came to visit. They decided to walk the 100 yards to Grant's headquarters to visit an officer with a well-stocked liquor cabinet. They found and joined in a card game. A female passenger, waiting for departure to Fort Monroe, decided it was too hot to stay inside. She headed up toward the open deck.

Ulysses S. Grant had just returned to City Point from a trip north. He was working outside in the morning heat, and heard a report on alleged Rebel infiltration of City Point. The Union officer, from the Provost Marshall's Office handling counterintelligence, promised to catch the infiltrators.

About twenty minutes before noon, a Federal hospital attendant, half a mile away but headed towards the wharf, had a woman on a white horse catch his attention.

The time bomb then exploded. The J.E. Kendrick was totally vaporized. Another nearby barge blew up, as did a building on the wharf. A newsman at City Point literally felt the blast, reporting a sound like that of a cannon going off close to his ear. A soldier in the trenches, ten miles away, thought it sounded like a thunderclap – on a bright, clear day. Another soldier saw a huge column of smoke.

Dr. Moore and his friend were looking in the direction of the explosion. Their eyes were filed with cinders from the blast before they could "hit the deck." Moore and his companion, another doctor, emerged from the car to a horrible landscape of wreckage, bodies, and body parts. They immediately began to give medical aide where they could. The next day Moore wrote his wife that his decision to stay inside the car probably saved his life.

A news reporter on the top of a railroad car was buffeted by the explosion, but curiously not knocked off the car. Another observer noticed what today we would call the shrapnel effect of the blast – weapons, bullets, wood, and other scrap shot through the air with tremendous, and deadly, force. This observer, who had taken shelter under his wagon, devoted most of his attention to avoiding the hoofs of the panicked horse.

The woman passenger, seeking comfort on deck, arrived just a few seconds after the explosion to watch bodies and equipment flying through the air. And then a man's severed head fell at her feet. She picked it up by the hair and placed in a nearby bucket of water. The woman later reported that a big bakery had been totally destroyed. All that remained was a chimney, with an anchor and chain perched on top.

Schaff's card game came to an abrupt halt. A cannonball ripped into the tent, and smashed a trunk in the middle of the group of officers. They all left quickly, though at least Schaff returned to take a look at what had happened. Schaff saw "a staggering scene, a mass of overthrown buildings, their timbers tangled into almost impenetrable heaps."[2]

Grant's aide Horace Porter recalled an explosion, with a sound, "which vividly recalled the Petersburg mine. . . Then there rained down upon the party a terrific shower of shells, bullets, boards and fragments of timber. The general was surrounded by splinters and various kinds of ammunition, but fortunately was not touched by any of the missiles."[3]

Aides remarked that Grant's composure did not change at all, that he seemed the only one unaffected by the explosion. Later estimates were that two million (1864) dollars worth of supplies and property had been destroyed in the explosion. At least 43 people were killed, though the number was probably higher. There was no way of counting the number of black laborers, unregistered, vaporized by the force of the blast. 126 people were wounded.

Soon after the explosion, a court of inquiry ruled the explosion to have been an accident. However, security was tightened. The ordinance depot was rebuilt far away from the main wharf. The explosion, in a manner reminiscent of the mine explosion less than two weeks earlier, had little long-term impact on operations.

After the war, sometime after Grant's 1868 election as President of the United States, John Maxwell went to see Grant's aide Orville Babcock. Babcock had been on Grant's staff during the Civil War, including at City Point, and come with him to the White House. Maxwell complained to Babcock about the treatment he was getting from the patent office. Trying to convince Babcock of his skill as an inventor, Maxwell told him of the horological torpedo he had invented, and how it worked that day at City Point. Babcock described this incident, writing that, "I told him that his efforts, from his standpoint, had been eminently successful."[4] There is no indication as to whether Maxwell got help with the patent office.

Article adapted from:
Bruce Brager
Petersburg
Philadelphia: Chelsea House, Publishers, 2003.

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