Both the Confederate and Union troops relied on salt that was found in the Kanawha River valley.  Per Wikipedia (gasp!), they used red salt.  I don't know if it's red salt or not, but I do know that there was a lot of salt mining along the Kanawha in the Charleston area that was done by solution mining -- drilling wells to the salt layer, pumping in water, bringing it to the surface by another well (at least that's how I understand it). 

According to the W.Va. Geological and Economic Survey, the northern panhandle and north central West Virginia have huge salt deposits that are several thousand feet down.



 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sally Phillips <[log in to unmask]>
To: VA-ROOTS <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 3:05 pm
Subject: Re: Saltpeter Revisited


Sorry!  Of course there's Saltville.  Never mind.  I think my exhausted brain 
needs to go home.  --Sally

--- On Mon, 5/23/11, Sally Phillips <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Sally Phillips <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [VA-ROOTS] Saltpeter Revisited
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, May 23, 2011, 3:31 PM

Saltpeter again!  If a slave was tasked with "mining salt" in Virginia from 
1863-1865, is it fair to assume he mined saltpeter?  Do we have other salt 
mining sites in Virginia?
Many thanks for all the help with saltpeter in Virginia.  I now know more about 
saltpeter than I ever thought I'd care to know!
Sally Phillips

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