Within The Borders Of The Confederacy, The South's Mining Needs Were Largely Met
Iron deposits were spread throughout the mountains in the slave-owning states, starting in Western South Carolina and moving south into Tennessee and Alabama. The Richmond Basin, East Tennessee mountains, North Carolina mountains, and Alabama mountains were all mined for coal. Copper mines and niter (also called saltpeter) caves can be found in Tennessee. The Confederate Mining and Niter Bureau oversaw the production and distribution of these vital resources during the conflict.
Virginia had long been the top producer of minerals inside the Confederacy. The majority of this natural wealth was concentrated in the state's mountainous southwest, where significant saltpeter, lead, salt, iron, and coal resources had been mined for more than a century. Additionally, the area's mines occasionally produced copper, zinc, gold, and silver. There were natural resources in other sections of the South, including Alabama, which had significant iron and coal operations, but none of them could compare to the richness and variety of the troves in Southwest Virginia. Federal strategists working to dismantle the Confederate war system were aware of this.
There were three household niter sources in the South: cave sediments, which were the most abundant; "dirt" beneath aging structures like outhouses, barns, and stables; and nitriaries, or man-made niter beds. Huge amounts of excellent quality niter were found in the limestone belts of the Appalachian Mountains in caves. Contrary to popular belief, the primary cause of this saltpeter is not bat guano; rather, it is a result of underground waters dissolving nitrate in soils of deciduous forests and transporting it to caverns, where it precipitates in the cave sediments. The Southeast of the United States has the best-developed soil, water, and temperature conditions to produce the resource. Therefore, the majority of North America's niter caves, from which excellent gunpowder as good as any that could be imported was derived, were found in the mountain states of the old Confederacy.
