Salt

[18thVirginia]

Old Sentry is a 250 year old live oak that was standing at the time of the Civil War at St. Andrew. It stands a few steps away from the Salt Kettle.

 

[AndyHall]

View attachment 101727

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.

View attachment 101732

Coastal salt works were frequent targets of U.S. Navy landing parties. They were usually lightly defended, but were a critical part of the Confederacy's logistical base.

 

[18thVirginia]

Acting Ensign Edwin Crissey, commander of the steam gunboat USS Bloomer, described a raid on saltworks in West Bay that happened on December 20, 1863:

". . . a fog hung over the water, preventing them from seeing which way to go. As soon as we lay on our oars, we thought we heard voices on shore. Pulling in that direction, we soon ascertained that we were near quite a number of people, and as we came nearer we not only heard voices, but we heard dogs barking and horses neighing, and we felt quite sure that we had stumbled upon a company of soldiers, for day was breaking, and what we afterwards found out were canvas-covered wagons, we mistook them for tents. I thought I would startle them and ordered a shell to be sent over their heads, and in a minute there never was heard such shouting and confusion. They seemed not to know which way to run. Some of their mules and horses succeeded in harnessing to the wagons and some they ran off to the woods beyond as fast as they could be driven, a shell every now and then over their heads making them hurry the faster. The water was so shoal that our men had to wade over 200 yards through the water, over a muddy bottom, to the shore, and before they reached it, the people had all left and we could just see them through the woods at a long distance off. We threw out the pickets, and Acting Master Browne, with the men belonging to the Bohio took one direction, and I, with my men and officers, took the other, and with top mauls, axes, sledge hammers, and shovels, we commenced the destruction of salt kettles and salt pans and mason work, for we had got into a settlement of salt-workers….To render everything completely unfit for future use we had to knock down all the brickwork, to destroy the salt already made, to knock in the heads and set fire to barrels, boxes, and everything that would hold salt, to burn the sheds and houses in which it was stowed, and to disable and burn up the wagons that we found loaded with it. The kettles being such as are used in making sugar, we know the capacity of by the marks on them, but the salt pans we could only tell by measurement, which we had no time to do, so that our total estimate of the amount of sea water that was boiling in them when we arrived is far short of what it really was."
http://civilwarnavy150.blogspot.com/2013/12/st-andrews-bay-salt-works-raids.html

 

[War Horse]

Can you imagine trying to sustain an army in the 1800's without salt! Rancid bacon, maggots and worse. Absolutely a necessity.

 

[18thVirginia]

Here's another Salt Pot, just down the road in Asbell Park.

 

[18thVirginia]

Asbell Park is just across the street from St. Andrews Bay, as you can see here. This is closer to downtown Panama City, but probably in the area of the original settlement of St. Andrew. The community was burned during one of the raids on the saltworks.

 

[CW Watch & Sword Guy]

Great thread! I hadn't realized that salt was in such short supply in the South.

 

[18thVirginia]

The kettles for salt boiling had often been used as syrup kettles prior to the War. A closer view of the one in Asbell Park.

 

[18thVirginia]

Great thread! I hadn't realized that salt was in such short supply in the South.

Glad you're enjoying it, CW Watch Collector. Salt was about the only preservative for meat and large armies required a lot of bacon and salted pork. On the home front, salt was also used in dying fabrics, to set the dye.

Prior to the war, it could be imported from New Orleans and purchased for around $.50 a bag. During the ACW, prices were sometimes as high as $140 a sack.

 

[18thVirginia]

Can you imagine trying to sustain an army in the 1800's without salt! Rancid bacon, maggots and worse. Absolutely a necessity.

Imagine scraping the smokehouse floors for salt or boiling the dirt from underneath the floor to recapture salt.

General Sherman declared salt to be so important as to be considered contraband. Salt is eminently contraband because of its use in curing meats, without which armies cannot be subsisted," he wrote.

 

[18thVirginia]

Description of the process for capturing smokehouse salt.

"Salt, a necessity as a meat preservative, became almost impossible to get. The country people dug up the ground under the floors of their smokehouses in search for salt. Soil was put in hoppers and water added to it. After water was allowed to seep through, the soil was caught in a trough and boiled down to recapture the salt which had been leached out. This recycled salt, dark brown in color, was very dirty, but it could be used, and no smokehouse failed to give up its treasure." http://media.timesfreepress.com/multimediapieces/civilwar/HardTimes.php

A couple of Civil War smokehouses:

Frances Plantation Smokehouse

Antebellum smokehouse from Fairfax County

 

[18thVirginia]

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".

Thanks for the salt information, Patrick. Here are the photos from Boons-lick.

Remains of the saltworks.

from Wikipedia - Boone's_Lick_State_Historic_Site

 

[18thVirginia]

1860s Map showing St. Andrews Bay on right side - West Bay, North Bay, East Bay

http://civilwarnavy150.blogspot.com/2013/12/st-andrews-bay-salt-works-raids.html

 

[18thVirginia]

Re-enactors demonstrating raid on Confederate Salt Works at St. Andrews Bay

http://www.newsherald.com/article/20160403/NEWS/160409822

You can also see a video of the reenactment at the link

 

[18thVirginia]

Another video of the Salt Raid reenactment

 

[18thVirginia]

About the raid at St. Joseph's Bay near Port St. Joe, now in Gulf County, Florida. The Union naval officers claimed that it was capable of making 100-150 bushels of salt a day. One of Lt. Commanding Couthouy's officers on the USS Kingfisher related to Harper's Weekly that:

"About two weeks since we had a lot of contrabands come off, who informed us that there were extensive salt works at the town of St. Joseph, making 100 to 150 bushels a day, and not yet completed. We sent a flag of truce and politely informed them that they must stop, or we should destroy them. They paid no attention to us, but continued their fire day and night. We got under way at daylight, sailed up the bay with a fair wind, and came to anchor a quarter of a mile from the works. As we came in sight we could perceive an unusual excitement, and observed wagons driving inland at a furious pace. We gave them two hours to quit, and then fired a few shells into the works, which had the effect of bringing two contrabands to the beach with a salt bag which they waved most furiously. We sent a boat for them, and found out that they had removed about two hundred bags of salt and provisions, but that everything remained with this exception; and also the intelligence that there were about eighty guerillas, mounted three miles back in the country, and would probably be down to see what was going on. As soon as we obtained this information we manned all the boats, leaving enough men on board to man the battery. I had been ordered to take command of the picket-guard, and stationed them about a quarter of a mile inland, surrounding the works. You may imagine that was rather skittish work with twenty men to into the woods out of sight of the ship; but we all drew up on the beach, the pickets in front (in all about fifty men), loaded muskets and fixed bayonets--the whole under command of Mr. Hallet, executive officer We started, whistling Yankee Doodle. I advanced my men in a straight line to the other side of the works, when we entered the woods and extended our lines entirely around the place. The main body then began their work of destruction, and in less than two hours the whole place was in flames, the machinery broken up. I send you a sketch. The whole coast of Florida is lined with these works of a smaller size. This one finished, would have been capable of making five hundred bushels a day, at $10.00 per bushel. When the new military colony is fairly under way these salt factories will probably become of some national importance." http://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1862saltraids.htm

 

[jackt62]

Another intriguing subject about a commonplace commodity (salt) that probably had a decisive role in the outcome of the war.

 

[donna]

Great thread. So many interesting facts on salt.

 

[18thVirginia]

This photo gives you an idea of St. Joseph's Bay, which was isolated and would have seemed a perfect spot for salt boiling, aside from yellow flies, mosquitoes, alligators, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and the occasional panther.

 

[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.

Some photos of Lake Ocala/Lake Powell:

The lake outfall lies behind the white sand, you can see the Gulf beyond.

Photos of Lake Ocala (now called Lake Powell), showing the side of the lake outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. According to David Eckardt, who wrote an article on "The Navy's Great Salt Raids," because of three years of drought, Lake Ocala had become extremely brackish by 1863. Acting Master Browne led a group overland from St. Andrews Bay to Lake Ocala—although the coastal dune lakes exchange water with the Gulf, their outfalls are extremely shallow. The salt there was being produced by the use of steamboat boilers, up to 130 bushels a day. Browne's crew destroyed boilers, flatboats, oxcarts and dumped the salt back into the lake. http://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1862saltraids.htm