Black Powder

[Jim Cook]

Where did the colonialists obtain their black powder? I assume they imported some, but did they make their own and how did they do it?   

[Jerry V Lape]

The imported it, and they made it locally.  For example the Ferree family operated a powder mill in Peters township, just upriver on the Monongehela from Pittsburgh a few miles.  This was shortly after the Revolution about the time of the Whiskey Rebellion.  They would  have set up a mill to grind the ingredients fine and pressed  into a moist cake  before pressing and drying it and breaking it up again into granules.  Don't know if they would have graphite coated it, probably not, making it very important to keep your powder very dry.  Just don't do anything to ignite the stuff during this process or your family business might be your family's end.  

[northmn]

I remember reading about Southern powder manufacturing in the Civil War as the Union blockaded the South.  Was not said to be very good powder.  Also hear about homemade "red" powder.  Towards the end of the Black Powder period we had many brands of American Powder.  The best powder seemed to be considered European in the colonial days.

DP

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

The  black powder for the Confederacy manufactured in a purpose-built mill in Augusta, Georgia which supplied nearly all the Southern military wartime  powder  was in fact SUPERIOR to the powder used by the Union as Union powder was manufactured by the lowest bidders, poorly inspected, and frequently adulterated, occasionally spoiled, in addition to being made into cartridges by numerous sub contractors. Union  troop equippage shoddiness and supply corruption is well documented.   

The mill in Augusta was  superior  in production and the capturing Union troops nearly completely destroyed it late in the war, but its ruins still exist.  There was plenty of powder in the supply chain when the mill was destroyed. I note also that the Virginia lead and nitrate works remained in Confederate hands till the end.    Lon 

[Candle Snuffer]

I watched a documentry not so long ago on the History or Military Channel about this very thing of the grade of black powder used by the South during the Civil War and they said pretty much the same as Pvt. Lon Grifle says in his post.

As far as the American Revolution - I don't know?  I kind of figured we made some and that the French supplied us with some.  Seems to me that there were always shortages of powder for the Americans according to quotes from George Washington at different times throughout the war.

[JohnnyM]

"The Colonists in America were the greatest weapon-using people of that epoch in the world."  Charles Winthrop Sawyer Firearms in American History

In spite of this, or because of it, gun powder as well as lead were always in short supply, relying almost exclusively on importation.  It wasn't until the American Revolution, 1776, that domestic gunpowder production was established in every state with a couple of exceptions(Georgia and, ironically, Delaware).  It should be noted that Pennsylvania's gunpowder production exceeded that of all the other states combined at that time.

During most of the war, France and The Netherlands supplied the Americans with 1.5 million pounds of black powder and another 700,000 lbs of individual components.  Unknown quantities also came from Spain and still more unknown amounts were purchased by these "Big Three" from other entities in Europe much of it covertly through shell  companies and shipped to the West Indies where American blockade runners would bring it to the U.S. 

It still was not enough.

Patriot printing presses ran handbills and broadsides with detailed instructions on how to make gunpowder  or how to obtain the raw ingredients.  Communities "pooled" their urine, from homes and barns,  so that the nitrates could be collected from it.  The soil from the few known sulphur springs was collected and the water was distilled.  Colliers, an occupation obscure today, were stoking kilns 24 hrs for the charcoal.

And as bad as it was in the east, it was doubly so in the southern and western frontiers.  George Rogers Clark had to beg Virginia to give him 500lbs after convincing them that the safety of Va relied on the safety of the Kentucky settlements.  And thus, the "hair-raising" saga of McClelland's Station and Harrodsburg.  Just one example.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

Volume V of the original Foxfire series has a description of small lot BP manufacturing worth acquiring and preserving as a matter of old time life skills.  Lon

[nosrettap1958]

It takes time but black powder’s main ingrediant, potassium nitrate is not all that hard to make. Into the 19th century, niter-beds were prepared by mixing manure with either mortar or wood ashes, common earth and organic materials such as straw to give porosity to a compost pile typically 1.5×2×5 meters in size. The heap was usually under a cover from the rain, kept moist with urine, turned often to accelerate the decomposition and leached with water after approximately one year. Dung-heaps were a particularly common source: Ammonia from the decomposition of urea and other nitrogenous materials would undergo bacterial oxidation to produce various nitrates, primarily calcium nitrate, which could be converted to potassium nitrate by the addition of potash from wood ashes.  A variation on this process, using only urine, straw and wood ash, is described by LeConte: Stale urine is placed in a container of straw hay and is allowed to sour for many months, after which water is used to wash the resulting chemical salts from the straw. The process is completed by filtering the liquid through wood ashes and air-drying in the sun.

[SCLoyalist]

And, I recall an article from Backwoodsman Mag a few years ago.  Instead of Potassium Nitrate, Sulfur and Charcoal, the recipe (said to date back to the days of the Revolution) used Potassium Nitrate, Sugar (from sorghum, molasses or syrup), and a little red rust.   Seems to me like it would have been feasible for folks out in the boonies to make up small batches of this stuff if 'store-bought' powder wasn't readily available.   The Saltpeter was obtained by filtering the dirt and manure from the chicken yard.

I tried a batch of the stuff once.  I did get a ball to clear the barrel, but obviously I would need to do a bit more experimenting to have a practical propellant.

[2ndCharter]

The Jan/Feb 09 Issue of Backwoodsman ran the article mentioned above called "The Ultimate Bug-Out Gun" which touted the flintlock as the best gun to have when the SHTF. It also described how to make black powder when there is none to be found.

[Jim Cook]

Very interesting. Thank you gentlemen for your responses.

You would think the sources of black powder would be an important target for the Red Coats. Plugging up the sources of black powder would put a crimp in the war.

[JCKelly]

My understanding of that Augusta powder mill was that the product quality was such that it was destroyed by the Union to please du Pont, who didn't want them as competitors after the war.

Guys who ran powder mills tended to be very careful, to avoid explosions. Nevertheless, humans do err, which was what destroyed the du Pont mill in Moosic, Pennsylvania round about 1970 or so.

My suggestion would be to consider making your own powder only when you live alone & have just been diagnosed with some dread fatal disease. I used to make the stuff. The ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious, for some reason He permitted me to not only survive for three score & ten, but to do so with a full compliment of digits & eyeballs. It was rather close at one time . . .

[Mad Monk]

Where did the colonialists obtain their black powder? I assume they imported some, but did they make their own and how did they do it?   

Rob Howard wrote on that subject while he was Curator Of Industry And Technology at the Hagley Museum And Library.  As far as I know it was never printed in volume but is on file at Hagley.

There were little powder works scattered around the country.  At least two were in operation in Berks County, PA around the time of the Revolutionary War.  Generally family run operations supplying the local trade.

E. Ogre

[Mad Monk]

A good amount of total nonense has been written about the respective qualities of gunpowder produced during the Civil War when comparing what was produced in the Confederate Powder Works.

That works was constructed by Col. G.W. Rains.  Until recently the only thing known about the production out of that plant came from a speech Col. Rains gave some time after the war.

In constructing the Confederate Powder Works he simply followed English technology as seen in Waltham Abbey at that time.  Col. Rains did experiment with variations in the processing of the powder as ideas migrated here from European powder makers.  One such experiment was to subject a batch of powder to a period of time in a vessel with steam before running it in a wheel mill.  This was said to reduce the amount of time required to mill a batch of powder.  It did not produce a better powder and the extra handling made it not cost effective. 

Du Pont was not the only northern producer during the Civil War.  Almost all of the powder companies produced gunpowder for the military.  In order to be accepted into stores the powder had to pass a series of proof tests.  This included actual firing from various types of arms.
The military would not accept powder that did not come up to the proof test standards.  Du Pont ran into this when they tried to produce musket type powder at the Wapwallopen plant.  This plant was located near Wilkes-Barre, PA.  Usually making only blasting powder for the near by coal mines.  When this plant tried to make a musket type powder the shipment failed proof and was not accepted.  Returned to the plant to be reworked.

As the Civil War wound down Lamott du Pont formed the "Powder Trust" with other large powder companies.  The "Trust" purchased every pound of powder the govt. sold off as surplus.  All of the 1F musket type powder sold by the govt. as surplus was bought by du Pont and re-granulated for use in the .45-70 Trapdoor rifle that came into service after the close of the Civil War.

E. Ogre

[Mike R]

As a side note--sources of saltpeter: urine was a main source traditionally, even cities in europe would collect urine for making it; however caves in the midcontinent of the US were found rich with saltpeter and it was mined for the gunpowder mills.

[Sequatchie Rifle]

The Confederates mines saltpeter throughout Middle and East Tennessee during the war.  They extracted it from bat "guano".  I White Country, TN, between Cookeville and Sparta there were several famous saltpeter mining operations in the Calfkiller Valley.  When I was in High School we would explore these caves, many had CSA soldier's names on the walls, old wooden ladders and immense catwalks.  Johnson Cave was one of the larger operations.  They had mules in that cave.  Lowered them in by rope.  They had large vats inside where they leached the Potassium Nitrate.

In Lawrenceburg, TN Davy Crockett had a gunpowder mill.  It was washed away during a flood and he lost everything and had to move.