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.
