WHERE JAMES SPENCE WORKED
James Spence (Half-3rd Great-Granduncle) went to work at the Tredegar Iron works, Richmond, Virginia,
where Charles and Henry Hagan (4th Great-Granduncles) (brothers of James Hagan (4th GreatGrandfather)) were employed. He learned his trade as a machinist under Charles Hagan. (Spence-Hagan
Family History)
Tredegar Iron Works in 1865
The Tredegar Iron Works is a historic iron foundry in Richmond, Virginia. The site is now the
location of a museum called The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.
In 1833, a group of Richmond businessmen and industrialists hired Rhys Davies, then a young
engineer to construct the furnaces and rolling mills that later became the Tredegar Iron Works and Belle
Isle Iron Works. Rhys Davies died in Richmond in September 1838 as a result of stab wounds received in
a fight with a workman.
By 1848 the foundry was doing work for the United States government, and it began introducing
slave labor to cut production costs. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, half of the 900 workers
were slaves, including many in skilled and well-paid positions. Tredegar became a leading iron producer
in the country. It supplied high-quality munitions to the South during the war and also manufactured
railroad steam locomotives in the same period. The importance of the facilities at Tredegar was one of the
most compelling reasons for making Richmond the Capital of the Confederacy at the outset of war in
1861.
Tredegar Iron Works made the iron plating for the first Confederate ironclad warship, the CSS
Virginia which fought in the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862. Tredegar is also credited
with the production of approximately 1,100 artillery pieces during the war which was about half of the
South's total domestic production of artillery between the war years of 1861-1865. It also produced a giant
rail-mounted siege cannon during the conflict.
As the war continued with more and more men conscripted into the Confederate armies, Tredegar
experienced a lack of skilled laborers. Scarce supplies of metal also hurt the company's manufacturing
abilities during the war and as the conflict progressed it was noticed that Tredegar's products were
beginning to lose quality as well as quantity.
After Bombardment – Near the End of the War
During the evacuation of Richmond by the Confederates on the night of April 2-3, 1865, the
retreating troops were under orders to burn many of the munitions dumps and industrial warehouses that
would have been valuable to the North. Joseph Anderson, the owner of the Tredegar Iron Works,
reportedly paid over 50 armed guards to protect the facility from arsonists. As a result, the Tredegar Iron
Works is one of few Civil War-era buildings that survived the burning of Richmond and it was back in
business before the end of 1865.
The Iron Works and Museum Today