Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/294

 288 Southern Historical Society Papers.

mercury and nitric acid. The nitric acid was made at the arsenal of nitre and sulphuric acid the nitre was made under the manage- ment of special officers from artificial nitre beds, and the sulphuric acid was made in North Carolina. There were no private manu- factories, and these essential materials were all made during the war by the officers of the Confederate Government. Towards the close of the war our supply of mercury, of foreign importation, became exhausted. This was an extremely serious situation, as no mercury could possibly then be obtained in the limits of the Confederacy. We began to experiment in substitutes, and fortunately found in Richmond two chemicals, chlorate of potash and sulphuret of antimony, which, when properly combined, we found answered our purposes satisfactorily, and the battles of the last few months of the war were fought with caps filled with this novel substitute. Our lead was obtained chiefly, and in the last years entirely, from the lead mines near Wytheville, Virginia. The mines were worked night and day, and the lead converted into bullets as fast as received. And the amount used, as shown by the reports, confirmed the old state- ment made in reference to the wars in Europe that for each man killed in battle his weight in lead is used. The old regulation shrap- nel shells were filled with leaden balls and sulphur ; we had neither lead nor sulphur to spare and used instead iron balls and asphalt.

The Tredegar Works made very superior cannon, field and siege, and when the copper was exhausted we planned a light cast-iron (banded with wrought-iron") i2-pounder, that, in all respects, was equal to the bronze Napoleon. But our best field guns, and in large numbers, were taken from the Federals captured in battle.

We had no private manufactories to assist, and frequently every- thing had to be done by the department and the army. During the winter men from General Lee's army cut the timber and shipped it to Richmond, with which artillery carriages were made on which to mount the guns to fight the battles in the spring.

Men followed the army and collected the hides of the slaughtered animals, with which to cover the saddle-trees made of timber cut by details from the men in the field.

The out-put of the army, brought from Harpers Ferry to Rich- mond, was wholly inadequate. Our arms were of foreign importa- tion somewhat, but mostly captured from the enemy. At the close of the war the Richmond arsenal, the main one in the Confederacy, could not have armed five thousand troops.

To make nitre a special bureau was organized; and on a large