February 6, 1864---Nickajack Cave

FEBRUARY 6, 1864:  

Saltpeter (potassium nitrate) was a critical element in the production of gunpowder during the Civil War, as it remains today. Derived either from the mineral Nitre or from bat guano, large deposits of saltpeter are often found in caves. 

   

Fortunately for the Rebel Cause, the South had a huge reserve of saltpeter. Unfortunately for the Rebel Cause, most of the readily accessible saltpeter reserve was mined in caves within Union lines. Early in the war, with the Border States in flux, saltpeter mining was carried on with little more than the attendant difficulties and risks found in any kind of mining. As the war progressed, however, and Confederate lines continued to contract, the South often found its best gunpowder production facilities within enemy territory. 

The Confederate Nitre Board, the agency that oversaw explosives production, was often amazingly innovative (especially for a bureaucracy) in keeping the saltpeter mines producing. Organ Cave, West Virginia, just a few thousand feet within Union lines, contained an immense underground mining operation, a full headquarters, a church, and billeting for 1,100 Confederate troops even though Union troops were bivouacked directly aboveground. Robert E. Lee himself had operated out of Organ Cave at various times. Organ Cave produced about 70% of the South’s total saltpeter until the cave was lost in the Battle of Droop Mountain on November 6, 1863. The loss of Organ Cave meant that Nickajack Cave, just south of Whitwell Tennessee, and in view of Lookout Mountain, became the primary site of saltpeter production for the Confederacy, although Nickajack Cave never could meet Organ Cave’s production levels.

On this day, Union troops raided Nickajack Cave, seizing the production facilities, and denying the use of the cave to the Confederacy for the rest of the war. With the loss of Organ Cave and the subsequent loss of Nickajack Cave just 90 days later, the South’s gunpowder production was reduced to a small fraction of what it had been, bringing the South another large step closer to defeat.