Nitre Bureau and Operations

[rebelfirefighter07]

I am considering a new impression to use at living histories and I'm digging for information. I hope to research enough so that one day I can have a Confederate saltpeter miner impression. This is an area we hear hear little if nothing about in the reenacting community. Truth of it is though without black powder, and a lot of it, it would have been tough to conduct a war. So I'm throwing this out in hopes that someone might have some information or could point me in the right direction to get started.

[Mississippian]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

Thomas Green Clemson, founder of Clemson University, worked in the Trans-Mississippi Dept for the Nitre Bureau, I think some of his papers at the university deal with his work there.

Will MacDonald

[Citman05]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

Bullets for Johnny Reb: Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau in Arkansas

James J. Johnston and James J. Johnson

The Arkansas Historical Quarterly
Vol. 49, No. 2 (Summer, 1990), pp. 124-167
Published by: Arkansas Historical Association

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/confederate-boys-and-peter-monkeys.htm

[Huck]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

I google this and found this book: http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-Ni.../dp/B005KBE1Q8 Confederate Nitre Bureau, Operations in Alabama

These link

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/30148788?uid=3739792&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47698783121867

[Citman05]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

one day I can have a Confederate saltpeter miner impression.

I wonder how much slave labor was used...

[Calum]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

There's also CS reference in the song "John Harrolson, John Harrolson". I don't have the CD jacket with me, but it's on Bobby Horton's Homespun Sons of the CSA #5 and he has the origins of the song documented. Although it's not specifically about mining nitre, but rather getting it from chamber pots...

Calum

[Hank Trent]

Re: Nitre Bureau and Operations

There's also CS reference in the song "John Harrolson, John Harrolson". I don't have the CD jacket with me, but it's on Bobby Horton's Homespun Sons of the CSA #5 and he has the origins of the song documented. Although it's not specifically about mining nitre, but rather getting it from chamber pots...

If anyone's interested in that part of nitre bureau work, I still have some stuff in a folder marked "Selma." Some of the links are dead now, but here's a link to the three poems, from Wetmore, Harrelson and a woman's reply: http://genforum.genealogy.com/harals...sages/272.html

There's also some more serious information on making nitre beds, leeching, etc., but it's more targeted to getting it from chamber lye than mining, and I'm not sure how much overlap there was, though of course at some point the processes would have become similar.

Here's Instructions for the Manufacture of Saltpetre, 1862: http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/lecontesalt/leconte.html

Making nitre beds, 1867, and may have more information too: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OC...90&output=html

More on nitre and nitre beds, a little post-period: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OC...90&output=html

Information on pre-war making of nitre: http://books.google.com/books?vid=OC...90&output=html

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com