Did confederate iron makers try and produce any steel rails for Railroads?

atlantis

Sergeant Major
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
The first steel rails for railroads were imported to the US in 1864. Question did confederate iron makers try and produce any steel or is this another case of the big industrial advantage over the confederacy.
 
The first steel rails for railroads were imported to the US in 1864. Question did confederate iron makers try and produce any steel or is this another case of the big industrial advantage over the confederacy.
Steel was used only where its high labor costs justified it -- drill bits, for example. The Confederacy made some, but imported most of its requirements. Of course, no steel rail was made in the South (almost no iron rail either).
 
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Steel was used only where its high labor costs justified it -- drill bits, for example. The Confederacy made some, but imported most of its requirements. Of course, no steel rail was made in the South (almost no iron rail either).
Dave, somewhere in my documentation I have a report that Charlotte Naval ironworks were making steel but in what for quantities or what for I don't know.
 
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Steel rails we not made in the US until May of 1865, so not until nearly the end of the Civil War. In the 1860s Bessemer steel production required unusually high quality iron ore. This type of iron ore was coming from some Michigan iron mines and the Eureka Iron Works was established in Wyandotte Michigan (near Detroit) in 1857. In 1865 Eureka Iron Works steel was sent to North Chicago Rolling Mill where it was turned into steel rails.

At the time Michigan was harvesting large quantities of low cost hard wood needed and mining unusually high quality iron ore. Once you add in the inexpensive water transportation from the iron mines and timber areas, and the water movement of the steel to Chicago lowed the cost of making steel Detroit. This allowed the production of of steel and shipping that steel by boat to Chicago available at a price that allowed iron rails to be made.
 
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Sirs, according to https://todayinsci.com/Events/Railways/SteelRailsFirstBessemer.htm#:~:text=The first steel rails ever rolled in the,New York, then owned by Winslow & Griswold.

The first steel rails ever rolled in the United States upon order, in the way of regular business, were rolled by the Cambria Iron Company, at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in August, 1867, from ingots made at the works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and by the Spuyten Duyvil Rolling Mill Company, at Spuyten Duyvil, New York, early in September of that year, from ingots made at the Bessemer steel works at Troy, New York, then owned by Winslow & Griswold.

Please also see - https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-24D

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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