The Confederates were unable to build a single locomotive during the Civil War.
How would they have been able to build that contraption.
The Confederate submarine H.L.Hunley did manage to sink the Union vessel Housatonic. Hunley itself sank more than once while in service—submarines are tricky in that way. It is a fine line between doing it on demand, or just because!
The Confederacy had extreme difficulty in making any industrial metal products, such as firearms and heavy equipment. I picked up what I believe is one of their more successful attempts to manufacture handguns during the Civil War a few months ago, a Dance Brothers .44 revolver from an auction selling Chinese ceramic antiques for a song because no one bidding on their items knew what it was. They had it listed as “an old gun”. . . But I looked at it and said “Oh, my God, that’s a Dance Brothers Dragoon!”
That’s neither here nor there, but in it’s entire existence, Dance Brothers, were able to turn out less than 500 guns, despite having some of the most sophisticated Confederate machine tools and forging equipment. (Mine is Serial #460, the highest Dance Brothers surviving number known, which causes me some concerns as to authenticity).
Of the other companies in the Confederacy which tried to produce firearms, only one was able to produce more than Dance Brothers. . . And it sold the majority of its product out the backdoor to private buyers rather than sending them to fulfill it’s contract with the Confederacy, before declaring bankruptcy on its $10,000 contract.
Never the less, the Confederacy did do some amazing innovation, including the building the CS Hunley, a submarine, re-building USN Merrimack as the CS Virginia, the first ironclad ship, and innovating Torpedos, using balloons as firing platforms, etc. The Confederacy was very creative in finding ways to leverage what it did have.
Its wartime production included the iron plating for the first Confederate ironclad warship, the CSS Virginia which fought in the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862; credit for approximately 1,100 artillery pieces during the war, about half of the South's total domestic production of artillery between the war years of 1861–1865, including the development of the Brooke rifle;[4] a giant rail-mounted siege cannon. The company also manufactured railroad steam locomotives in the same period.