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I found this article completely by accident when looking for something else, but found it interesting and thought others might enjoy it as well.
This from the Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, GA., January 27, 1864, page 1, column 1.
AUGUSTA POWDER MILLS
A correspondent of the London Times gives a very interesting account of the Augusta Powder Mills, and pays a deserved tribute to the skill and untiring energy of Colonel Rains and the officers connected with the Government Works in this city. Col. Rains is a native of North Carolina, and the Old North State should feel justly proud of one who, by his indefatigable exertions, scientific researches and admirable tact and skill, has contributed so much to further the great cause in which we are engaged.
A long conversation with Col. Rains, the Superintendent of the Government Powder Mills in Augusta, and also the manager of the Arsenal of Construction and of the cannon foundry in this city, has taught me more than ever to admire the ingenuity and energy which the Confederates have brought to bear upon their struggle. Starting without any powder mill in the Southern States, except a small one at Nashville, which soon passed out of their hands—without any large establishments for making machinery, and without a single trip hammer between the Chesapeake and the Rio Grande—deficient in iron, lead, copper, tin, saltpetre, cannon, small arms, everything save food, they have taught the world a lesson in regard to the impossibility of subjugating a brave people, which will point a historical moral for ages to come.
There are two men whose names are seldom heard in connection with the history of this war, but who have probably contributed more to the Confederate success than any other persons, with the exception of Lee, Jackson and Longstreet—I mean Colonel Rains and Captain Brooks. Each of them modest and unobtrusive men, absorbed in scientific researches, inexhaustible in the fertility of their resources, indefatigable in energy, they have presented during the last thirty months a record for the study of their countrymen, which will everywhere be read with profit whenever the history of this great revolution is fairly told. I have seldom had the advantage of encountering any man whose conversation was so instructing as that of Colonel Rains. His recapitulation of the difficulties which he has every day to supplement and circumvent by ingenuity, and the results of his work, as evidenced by his contributions to the Confederate armies, is such as to awaken amusement.
In a former letter, written some months ago from this town, I gave a short sketch of the Augusta Powder Mill. From that time up to the present hour the efficiency has been constantly on the increase, and as evidence of its prolific working, I may mention that since its opening on the 27th of April, 1862, Col. Rains has sent a million and a half pounds of powder to Richmond alone, exclusive of his contributions to Vicksburg, Charleston, Mobile and the armies of Gens. Bragg and Johnston. From his Arsenal of Construction he has sent off six million cartridges for small arms and 50,000 round shot and shell, to say nothing of caps, hand grenades and torpedoes. From his cannon foundry he is continually turning out 12 pounder Napoleons, 20 pounder Parrotts and howitzers; but the wealth of artillery already possessed by the Confederates is such that he has ceased to produce Napoleon guns with the rapidity which at one time characterized his proceedings, his rate of production having been one Napoleon gun per diem. The daily yield of the powder mills is now at the rate of 3,400 pounds a day, which might, if occasion required, be indefinitely increased.
But, with every important station in the Confederacy already surfeited with powder, with large supplies in the hands of Generals Beauregard, Bragg, Johnston, and at Mobile and Wilmington, (Gen. Lee, of course, draws his supplies from Richmond,) and with two other powder mills in active operation, it is of little importance that even this rate of production should be maintained. The ordinary consumption of powder in the Confederacy is rated at two thousand pounds per day; that is, of course, greatly increased by such sieges as those of Vicksburg and Charleston, which bring up the average to ten thousand pounds a day, occasioned by the large demands of the heavy artillery employed. It is a singular commentary upon this war, that a nation which, two years ago, produced not a pound of powder, should now think nothing of a daily consumption of ten thousand pounds, produced entirely from their own resources.
The rest of the story:
When the war ended, the Augusta Powder Works reportedly held a surplus of 70,000 pounds of powder. The Federal Government confiscated it, along with the land and buildings. Sometime between 1868 and 1871, it was sold. By 1872, what remained was deemed useless and the canal was widened, necessitating demolition. Rains requested that the the smokestack be left standing as a memorial to those who fought for the Confederacy. Around 1880, brick from the demolition was used to construct the Sibley cotton mill which was in operation until 2006. The chimney still stands.
Expired Image Removed
Photo from http://www.visitaugusta.com/Things-to-Do/Civil-War/Confederate-Powderworks-Chimney2
This from the Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, GA., January 27, 1864, page 1, column 1.
AUGUSTA POWDER MILLS
A correspondent of the London Times gives a very interesting account of the Augusta Powder Mills, and pays a deserved tribute to the skill and untiring energy of Colonel Rains and the officers connected with the Government Works in this city. Col. Rains is a native of North Carolina, and the Old North State should feel justly proud of one who, by his indefatigable exertions, scientific researches and admirable tact and skill, has contributed so much to further the great cause in which we are engaged.
A long conversation with Col. Rains, the Superintendent of the Government Powder Mills in Augusta, and also the manager of the Arsenal of Construction and of the cannon foundry in this city, has taught me more than ever to admire the ingenuity and energy which the Confederates have brought to bear upon their struggle. Starting without any powder mill in the Southern States, except a small one at Nashville, which soon passed out of their hands—without any large establishments for making machinery, and without a single trip hammer between the Chesapeake and the Rio Grande—deficient in iron, lead, copper, tin, saltpetre, cannon, small arms, everything save food, they have taught the world a lesson in regard to the impossibility of subjugating a brave people, which will point a historical moral for ages to come.
There are two men whose names are seldom heard in connection with the history of this war, but who have probably contributed more to the Confederate success than any other persons, with the exception of Lee, Jackson and Longstreet—I mean Colonel Rains and Captain Brooks. Each of them modest and unobtrusive men, absorbed in scientific researches, inexhaustible in the fertility of their resources, indefatigable in energy, they have presented during the last thirty months a record for the study of their countrymen, which will everywhere be read with profit whenever the history of this great revolution is fairly told. I have seldom had the advantage of encountering any man whose conversation was so instructing as that of Colonel Rains. His recapitulation of the difficulties which he has every day to supplement and circumvent by ingenuity, and the results of his work, as evidenced by his contributions to the Confederate armies, is such as to awaken amusement.
In a former letter, written some months ago from this town, I gave a short sketch of the Augusta Powder Mill. From that time up to the present hour the efficiency has been constantly on the increase, and as evidence of its prolific working, I may mention that since its opening on the 27th of April, 1862, Col. Rains has sent a million and a half pounds of powder to Richmond alone, exclusive of his contributions to Vicksburg, Charleston, Mobile and the armies of Gens. Bragg and Johnston. From his Arsenal of Construction he has sent off six million cartridges for small arms and 50,000 round shot and shell, to say nothing of caps, hand grenades and torpedoes. From his cannon foundry he is continually turning out 12 pounder Napoleons, 20 pounder Parrotts and howitzers; but the wealth of artillery already possessed by the Confederates is such that he has ceased to produce Napoleon guns with the rapidity which at one time characterized his proceedings, his rate of production having been one Napoleon gun per diem. The daily yield of the powder mills is now at the rate of 3,400 pounds a day, which might, if occasion required, be indefinitely increased.
But, with every important station in the Confederacy already surfeited with powder, with large supplies in the hands of Generals Beauregard, Bragg, Johnston, and at Mobile and Wilmington, (Gen. Lee, of course, draws his supplies from Richmond,) and with two other powder mills in active operation, it is of little importance that even this rate of production should be maintained. The ordinary consumption of powder in the Confederacy is rated at two thousand pounds per day; that is, of course, greatly increased by such sieges as those of Vicksburg and Charleston, which bring up the average to ten thousand pounds a day, occasioned by the large demands of the heavy artillery employed. It is a singular commentary upon this war, that a nation which, two years ago, produced not a pound of powder, should now think nothing of a daily consumption of ten thousand pounds, produced entirely from their own resources.
The rest of the story:
When the war ended, the Augusta Powder Works reportedly held a surplus of 70,000 pounds of powder. The Federal Government confiscated it, along with the land and buildings. Sometime between 1868 and 1871, it was sold. By 1872, what remained was deemed useless and the canal was widened, necessitating demolition. Rains requested that the the smokestack be left standing as a memorial to those who fought for the Confederacy. Around 1880, brick from the demolition was used to construct the Sibley cotton mill which was in operation until 2006. The chimney still stands.
Expired Image Removed
Photo from http://www.visitaugusta.com/Things-to-Do/Civil-War/Confederate-Powderworks-Chimney2
Bringing the