THE past month has seen the merits of the Confederate flag - that flown by the rebel states in the US Civil War - debated in the wake of shootings at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

But a little-known link with Gwent and Virginia, one of the states which attempted to break away from the US and fight under the ‘Stars and Bars’, became a key factor in sustaining the South in their struggle during the civil war.

The American Civil war is often spoken of as the first truly modern war - one that was fought by both sides with rifles, cannon, machine guns and armoured ships. The name of the foundry which made these weapons reveals this link with Wales – ‘Tredegar’.

Tredegar was one of the first places in the world to produce iron in quantity and with neighbouring sites like Blaenavon was a pioneer in metal-working. The skills developed in northern Gwent in the late 18th and early 19th century made this place akin to silicon Valley today, so ground-breaking were its techniques. The town was then one of the biggest centres of iron making in the world.

Peter Morgan Jones, Vice-chairman of Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum, says that the link was made by a Tredegar engineer, Rhys Davies. An intriguing character, he travelled to France in the early 1800s to work with one of Napoleon's marshals, Maumont to build an ironworks there before returning to Tredegar.

Rhys travelled to the United States in 1833 with his father and other Tredegar iron workers and helped build an ironworks near Richmond in Virginia.

A group of Richmond businessmen led by Francis Deane were looking to capitalize on the railroad boom in the United States. They hired Rhys Davies to build a foundry to make the engines and rail to profit from that boom.

The foundry he built was named in honour of his home town of Tredegar and was opened in 1837. Permission for the naming was given by the iron master of the Welsh Tredegar Samuel Homfray.

Peter says Davies is believed to have lived and trained in Tredegar from 1800 as an ironworker, but a chance discovery in the Hereford Times (which then covered Tredegar) in 1838, which quoted a report from an American newspaper said that he had died in Virginia. “If I hadn’t seen this report, we may not have found out about him” he says.

By 1860, the Tredegar Iron Works was the largest of its kind in the south, Peter says, adding this fact played a significant role in the decision to move the capital of the Confederacy from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond in May 1861.

In effect, Tredegar was the powerhouse of the rebel states and supplied the Confederate forces with high-quality weaponry throughout the war.

Guns made at Tredegar fired the opening shots of the war in the First Battle of Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861, when Confederate artillery bombarded the Union garrison.

The Brooke rifle, a type of muzzle-loading naval and coast defence gun was produced in quantity by the ironworks and was used at Fort Sumter.

The most famous single action involving Tredegar iron was the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862.

Here the CSS Virginia a (formerly the CSS Merrimack) fought against the North’s USS Monitor in the most important naval battle of the US Civil War. The Confederate navy was desperate to break the Union’s blockade which had cut off the South’s biggest cities, including Richmond from international trade. It was also the first naval battle in history between two iron ships.

Iron plates manufactured at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond were used to convert the USS Merrimac into the CSS Virginia.

Over two days, the squat Monitor with its guns in a turret pummelled the Virginia. But the iron that was rolled in Tredegar and clad the Confederate ship held firm and it kept firing back. The battle ended inconclusively, with both ships retiring, battered but still afloat.

Peter Morgan Jones campaigned for a plaque to be erected in Welsh Tredegar to remember Rhys Davies. In 2012 the memorial was unveiled which commemorated the part he played in the history of the South. The building of the works, he says, “changed American history”.

The Tredegar works enabled the South to fight and that led to the great convulsion of the US Civil War.

“The plaque helps to remind us that people from Tredegar went on to have a huge impact on world history” he adds.

The works’ contribution to the southern economy continued: “After the civil war ended the South was able to rebuild infrastructure destroyed during the war and just as Tredegar powered the production of war goods – so it helped rebuild the South for peace.”

While Peter Morgan Jones and the Blaenau Gwent Heritage Forum have tried to publicise the link on their side of the Atlantic, its importance in US history is fully recognised in that country. That recognition was cemented when the ‘American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar’ was opened in 2006. The museum aims to tell the story of how the Civil War “shaped the nation” while recognising the sides of that story, be they “Union, Confederate, and African-American”.

As the fevered dispute around the Confederate flag shows that debate over flag and race is very much a live one, and a place called Tredegar across the Atlantic plays centre stage in that debate to this day.