Contemporary records suggest the CS Army's Ordnance Bureau had more than a passing interest in incendiary ammunition - both field and heavy. The first pic below is page one of a December 5, 1861, letter from ordnance officer Capt. J. Henderson to Gen. Bragg. Feeling anxious about the defenses of Pensacola, I take the liberty to drop you a line to say that a new projectile has recently been invented here (i.e., New Orleans) which would no doubt be of great service to you... I refer to a shell filled with an inflammable material which sticks to almost any and everything it touches and burns so intensely that water has no effect in quenching the flame. It sounds a lot like modern napalm.
Eventually, the concept was embraced by the Richmond authorities. I'm speaking only of the army here. The Navy operated on its own track and I have few of their production records. The second picture below is an excerpt from Tredegar's Sales Book for the month of April 1863. For the Napoleons of the Army of Northern Virginia, the famed ironworks made 2,360 12 pdr. Shrapnel (case shot, I believe) followed by "1,590 12 pdr. Incendiary shells." These must have been fired at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. I don't know how much production followed because there were few entries labeled "Incendiary" during the last two years of the war. As an aside, another noteworthy entry on this April 1863 production report is "One 10 pdr. rifled Mullane gun complete" for $350. Yes, this was the same Tennessee guy who brought the concept of a disc sabot to Richmond in 1861. This was the only wrought iron 3 inch Rifle produced by Tredegar during the war. What we know is that John Mullane was a civilian ordnance agent associated with Alabama's Montgomery Arsenal. During late 1864 and early 1865, assisted by the Richmond Arsenal, he tried to set up a factory in Danville, VA, to manufacture wrought iron 3 inch Rifles. I am not aware of any finished products.
The third document below reported the Jan. 30, 1864, receipt at the Army depot at Goldsboro, NC, of various field projectiles. They could have been sent from Richmond or Georgia (or elsewhere). On the first line "40 Rounds 3 inch Rifle Case Shot." Since the production of side-loading Rifle ammunition stopped during the spring of 1863, these must have been filled thru the fuze hole as has been noted in examples dug at Petersburg by Col. Biemeck. On the second line, "280 Rounds of 3 inch Rifle shell." In January 1864, the last of the common 3 inch Reads with copper cups was being made before a switch to the rounded-nose Broun shells was required. But the third line is most important: "80 Rounds 3 inch Rifle Incendiary." Maybe that's what made the Wilderness burn.
The last document dated March 5, 1863, lists Confederate heavy ammunition delivered to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. About 2/3rds of the way down is 16 - 8 inch shells incendiary. I'm certain there are more "incendiary" listings among the thousands of CS ordnance documents available on fold3.com, but only recently did I file them as a separate category.
Woodenhead