Salt

[18thVirginia]

Many women's diaries from the Civil War era mention the scarcity and the problem of getting enough salt. Although there were several saltworks in the eventual Confederate states prior to the Civil War, the South had relied on cheaper imported salt to preserve its meat and fish, tan leather, and for household use in recipes.

The saltworks in West Virginia were captured early on in the War. Saltworks at Avery Island in Louisiana were captured after the fall of New Orleans. Although each Confederate state had some method for producing or acquiring salt, it was often too scarce or too high in price for individual households. Women's diaries of the era often mention one home-made method for acquiring salt.

"We dug up the dirt where the smoke houses were burned and put it in hoppers as is done in soap-making and boiled down until there was a residue of salt."Confederate women of Arkansas in the civil war: 1861-'65, United Confederate Veterans. Arkansas Division.

 

[18thVirginia]

Saltworks for boiling and evaporating salt, sketch from Harpers Weekly, September 1862

 

[Allie]

You can also find recipes from the period for brining meat with less salt. Scary, and experiments with improperly cured meat probably led to some deaths.

From "The Confederate Receipt Book," 1863. A couple of bonus recipes for other situations.

.
PRESERVING MEAT WITHOUT SALT.--
We need salt as a relish to our food, but it is not essential in the preservation of our meats. The Indians used little or no salt, yet they preserved meat and even fish in abundance by drying. This can be accomplished by fire, by smoke or by sunshine, but the most rapid and reliable mode is by all these agents combined. To do this select a spot having the fullest command of sunshine. Erect there a wigwan five or six feet high, with an open top, in size proportioned to the quantity of meat to be cured, and protected from the winds, so that all the smoke must pass through the open top. The meat cut into pieces suitable for drying (the thinner the better) to be suspended on rods in the open comb, and a vigorous smoke made of decayed wood is to be kept up without cessation Exposed thus to the combined influence of sunshine, heat and smoke, meat cut into slices not over an inch thick can be thoroughly cured in twenty-four hours. For thicker pieces there must be, of course, a longer time, and the curing of oily meat, such as pork, is more difficult than that of beef, venison or mutton.

To cure meat in the sun hang it on the South side of your house, as near to the wall as possible without touching.

Savages cure fish by pounding it fine, and exposing it to the bright sun.



TO CURE BACON WITH LITTLE SALT.--
Take five gallons water, seven pounds salt, one pound sugar, or one pint molasses, one teaspoonful saltpetre, mix, and after sprinkling the flesh side of the hams in the salt, pack in a tight barrel, hams first, then shoulders, lastly middlings. Pour over the brine, and if not enough to cover, make another draft of the above, and repeat till all is covered, leaving the meat in brine from four to seven weeks, according to size.



TO PREVENT SKIPPERS IN HAM.--
In order to avoid the skipper, and all worms and bugs that usually infest and destroy bacon, keep your smoke house dark, and the moth that deposits the eggs will never enter it. Smoke with green hickory, this is important, as the flavor of the bacon is often destroyed by smoking with improper wood.



METHOD OF CURING BAD BUTTER.--
Melt the butter in hot water, skim it off as clean as possible, and work it over again in a churn, add salt and fine sugar, and press well.



TO CLARIFY MOLASSES.--
To free molasses from its sharp taste, and to render it fit to be used, instead of sugar, take twelve pounds of molasses, twelve pounds of water, and three pounds of charcoal, coarsely pulverized, mix them in a kettle, and boil the whole over a slow wood fire. When the mixture has boiled half an hour, pour it into a flat vessel, in order that the charcoal may subside to the bottom, then pour off the liquid, and place it over the fire once more, that the superflous water may evaporate, and the molasses be brought to their former consistence. Twelve pounds of molasses will produce twelve pounds of syrup.

 

[USS ALASKA]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_in_the_American_Civil_War

Salt was a crucial resource during the Civil War. Salt not only preserved food in the days before refrigeration, but was also vital in the curing of leather. Union general William Tecumseh Sherman once said that "salt is eminently contraband", as an army that has salt can adequately feed its men.

The most important saltworks for the Confederacy were at Saltville, Virginia. In late 1864, the Union army twice advanced to capture the saltworks, as it was the last prominent source of salt for the eastern Confederate states. The October 1864 Battle of Saltville I saw the Confederate able to repulse the charge, but the next December in the Battle of Saltville II Union forces under George Stoneman managed to destroy the vital saltworks. Two months later the salt works were back to work for the Confederacy, although the destroyed railroad system around the area hampered its distribution.

*edited for copyright

everything from the original post was off wiki...USS ALASKA

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[diane]

Our good friend @1SGDan has done some fantastic pieces on salt's involvement in many a battle of the CW! It was used so much and so needed it was absolutely worth fighting about.

 

[USS ALASKA]

That dastardly compound that my doctor warns me to stay as far from as possible...a war winning strategic reserve item. Who knew!

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[DaveBrt]

The Western & Atlantic Railroad locomotive Texas (of Great Locomotive Chase fame) spent much of the war hauling salt from Saltville to Georgia. Several states earned a right to salt at Saltville by providing their trains to haul wood to the boilers. A four-mile extension of the railroad serving the boilers was put in to bring wood from the nearest sources as the local wood was consumed.

 

[18thVirginia]

As you've noted, allie, salt was really the only way to preserve meat, so it was important to housewives, plantation owners as well as armies. Here's another woman out of Arkansas,

"Some men in Louisiana made salt there and peddled it out in Arkansas at the rate of $10 a bushel. I was able to buy some on every trip made to my house. Mrs. M. C. Livingston, Hope," Confederate women of Arkansas in the civil war: 1861-'65, United Confederate Veterans. Arkansas Division.

An often overlooked area for salt making, even apparently to wikipedia, judging from the article posted here by USS Alaska, was St. Andrews Bay in Florida, located near the town of St. Andrew, now known as Panama City. Estimates are that some 2500 men were engaged in salt processing in Florida, including individuals from Georgia and Alabama. Part of the attraction likely was that salt making was a protected category of work, enabling men to avoid conscription.

I stopped by and shot some photos of two monuments to the saltworks at Panama City, Florida.

This is an original salt boiling kettle in a park next to St. Andrews Bay in Panama City, Florida.

 

[18thVirginia]

SALT KETTLE used by the Confederacy during the War Between the States to recover salt from sea water. The salt works were located along the bays of the Northern Gulf Coast, perfect areas for producing salt. They were secluded areas, surrounded by pine trees for wood to boil the sea water, but allowing enough visibility to see approaching Union vessels.

This is St. Andrews Bay directly in front of the Salt Kettle location. The cut that leads out to the Gulf is directly across from this location.

One of the Naval commanders mentions how shallow the Bay was in the 1860s, you can see how far out the shallows extend in this photo.

 

[18thVirginia]

Looking at the Bay again, downtown Panama City is to the left, the Bay goes on to the right. The salt works were at West Bay, East Bay, North Bay and Lake Powell. The salt was transported to Eufala, AL and then distributed to the Confederacy from Montgomery.

 

[18thVirginia]

1855 Coast Guard Map of St. Andrews Bay
http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/StAndrewsBayFlorida-uscs-1855

 

[1SGDan]

Our good friend @1SGDan has done some fantastic pieces on salt's involvement in many a battle of the CW! It was used so much and so needed it was absolutely worth fighting about.

Diane,
How kind of you to remember this.
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/lead-salt-and-the-fight-for-southwest-virginia.16310/
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/floridas-long-war.23978/

Dan

 

[18thVirginia]

Thank you for the links, @1SGDan. Your articles didn't come up in the "search" when I was looking on the forum for past articles about "salt," so it's good to have the links available here. For those wanting to know more about Florida in the Civil War, your history of the conflict in the Sunshine State is terrific. Thanks to @diane for pointing them out.

Here's a portion of 1SGDan's history on the Salt Wars in Florida about St. Andrew's Bay:

In December, 1863, an even more intense effort was made against the works at Lake Ocala and in St Andrew's Bay. Acting Master W. R. Browne, commanding the Restless, sent a boat under the command of Acting Ensign James Russell to Lake Ocala. After a five mile march inland the party destroyed the works there. Russell claimed 6 large boilers, 7 kettles, a large quantity of salt, 2 flatboats, and 6 ox carts "were demolished."

Eight days later Browne, with the assistance of the steamer Bloomer and her tender Caroline, made an attack on the government works at West Bay. Browne claimed that 27 buildings holding 22 boilers and 200 kettles were destroyed. Continuing the mission to the private concerns that extended a total of seven miles along the shore nearly 300 buildings, 27 wagons, and 5 flatboats were ruined. Shelling of the town, believed to hold a Confederate force of undetermined size, started a fire that consumed 32 additional buildings. Browne, however, was forced to concede that his work was not yet half done.

Lake Ocala is what's called a "coastal dune lake," a natural lake that is located right next to the Gulf of Mexico. Because coastal dune lakes open and close to the Gulf, the lake water is most always brackish. These lakes are quite rare, only existing in North Florida and South Africa. Most of them are quite small, but Lake Ocala, now called Lake Powell, was quite large at 650 acres.

 

[18thVirginia]

http://www.thomaslegion.net/americancivilwar/wikifloridacivilwar.html

A map of Florida where you can see St. Andrew's Bay at Panama City. The other major salt making operations were at St. Joseph's Bay, a shallow bay at Port St. Joe on the map.

 

[diane]

Thanks for this thread, 18thVirginia! Great information.

 

[18thVirginia]

A plaque that goes with the Salt Kettle from above.

A significant contribution by the citizens of northwest Florida to the Confederate States of America was salt. A necessary preservative in those times. It was extracted from area bays by boiling until the water evaporated leaving salt. The salt was transported to Eufaula and Montgomery, Alabama, for distribution throughout the Confederate States. It sold for as much as $50 per bushel. The importance of the salt works to the Confederacy made them a target of the Union Navy. Union soldiers and sailors destroyed the works, and Confederates rebuilt them during most of the War Between the States. This kettle was probably used for making syrup before the war but a "salt kettle" between 1861-65. The deep indentions on it were made by hammer blows when Union soldiers attempted to destroy it.

The salt kettle and this marker are located in Oaks by the Bay Park in Panama City, Florida. http://www.lat34north.com/HistoricMarkersFL/MarkerDetail.cfm?KeyID=03-11&MarkerTitle=Salt Kettle

 

[Patrick H]

Congratulations on another really neat thread. I'll include a link about a salt works not too far from my home that was operated by the sons of Daniel Boone. It's why this region of Missouri is called the Boonslick Area. People mis-pronounce that as "Boon-slick", but it's "Boons-lick".

 

[diane]

Congratulations on another really neat thread. I'll include a link about a salt works not too far from my home that was operated by the sons of Daniel Boone. It's why this region of Missouri is called the Boonslick Area. People mis-pronounce that as "Boon-slick", but it's "Boons-lick".

We have a lot of salt licks around here - they aren't used anymore and many are lost - but that was part of your wealth back in the day. The game came there! Salt was a major trade commodity, too up and down river.

 

[18thVirginia]

Diane, we attended a seminar on the Mayans a few years ago where one of the professors was doing archaeological work in the Yucatan on salt works along the Atlantic coasts--where they evaporated or boiled the water for salt. She mentioned at the time how valuable salt had been as part of trade routes all over the world and how it was valued close to gold in the ancient world. It was sometimes called "white gold."

 

[18thVirginia]

An engineer aboard the Union gunboat U.S.S. Albatross, James Boyd wrote to his wife about destroying salt works at St. Andrews.

". . . .Well we left Pensacola on the 14th of this month, for this place [St. Andrews Bay], we arrived here on the 16th. The object of this Expedition was to destroy Salt-Pans, which the Rebels have to make Salt in. Since we have been laying here we have fit out some four or five Small Boat Expeditions, which has proven very successful. We have destroyed more Salt-Pans than all the other Expeditions put together. The Salt-Pans that I speak of are generally Situated in Small Creeks and Swamps. We cannot get to them in the Steamer [the Albatross], therefore we have to go in small Boats.

The manner in which those Expeditions are arranged are that we would leave the ships about four o'clock in the morning, and proceed up the Bay until we would discover Smoke, for that is the only way that those pans can be found by a stranger. As soon as we would get near enough we would then fire at them with a Small Cannon we have and such Skidaddeling you never seen in your life. They would leave everything behind them. We went in Several of there camps and found there Breakfast cooked and on the Table ready for eating, which our boys would soon demolish, after rowing So early in the Morning. We would then set about breaking up their pans and works. . . ."

http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2012/07/25/needs-more-salt/