When I was a mere high school kid, I made gun
powder using salt peter I bought under the
name potassium nitrate at the local drug store.
It was white.
Warren Wolff
-----Original Message-----
From: wnapier <[log in to unmask]>
To: VA-ROOTS <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 8:14 pm
Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] Salt - western Virginia
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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