Telegraph lines, which had been few before the war, were now placed along each railroad, and several cross-country lines were put up. The first important new line was along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, from Mobile to Meridian.[382]
Private Manufacturing Enterprises
Both the state and the Confederate government encouraged manufactures by favorable legislation. The Confederate government was always ready to advance half of the cost of the machinery and to take goods in payment. A law of Alabama in 1861 secured the rights of inventors and authors. All patents under the United States laws prior to January 11, 1861, were to hold good under the state laws, and the United States patent and copyright laws were adopted for Alabama.[383] Later, jurisdiction over patents, inventions, and copyrights was transferred to the Confederate government. A bonus of five and ten cents apiece on all cotton and wool cards made in Alabama was offered by the legislature in December, 1861.[384] All employees in iron mills, in foundries, and in factories supplying the state or Confederate governments with arms, clothing, cloth, and the like were declared by the state exempt from military duty.
Factories were soon in operation all over the state, especially in central Alabama. In all places where there were government factories there also were found factories conducted by private individuals. In 1861 there were factories at Tallassee, Autaugaville, and Prattville, with 23,000 spindles and 800 employees, which could make 5000 yards of good tent cloth a day.[385] And other cotton mills were established in north Alabama as early as 1861.[386] The Federals burned these buildings and destroyed the machinery in 1862 and 1863. There was the most “unsparing hostility displayed by the northern armies to this branch of industry. They destroyed instantly every cotton factory within their reach.”[387]
At Tuscaloosa were cotton and shoe factories, tanneries, and an iron foundry. A large cotton factory was established in Bibb County, and at Gainesville there were workshops and machine-shops. In addition to the government works, Selma had machine-shops, car shops, iron mills, and foundries, cotton, wool, and harness factories, conducted by private individuals. There were cotton and woollen factories at Prattville and Autaugaville, and at Montgomery were car shops, harness shops, iron mills, foundries, and machine-shops. The best tent cloth and uniform cloth was made at the factories of Tallassee. The state itself began the manufacture of shoes, salt, clothing, whiskey, alcohol, army supplies, and supplies for the destitute.[388] Extensive manufacturing establishments of various kinds in Madison, Lauderdale, Tuscumbia, Bibb, Autauga, Coosa, and Tallapoosa counties were destroyed during the war by the Federals. There were iron works in Bibb, Shelby, Calhoun, and Jefferson counties, and in 1864 there were a dozen large furnaces with rolling-mills and foundries in the state.[389] However, in that year the governor complained that though Alabama had immense quantities of iron ore, even the planters in the iron country were unable to get sufficient iron to make and mend agricultural implements, since all iron that was mined was used for purposes of the Confederacy.[390] The best and strongest cast iron used by the Confederacy was made at Selma and at Briarfield. The cotton factories and tanneries in the Tennessee valley were destroyed in 1862 by the Federal troops.[391]
Salt Making
Salt was one of the first necessaries of life which became scarce on account of the blockade. The Adjutant and Inspector-General of Alabama stated, March 20, 1862, that the Confederacy needed 6,000,000 bushels of salt, and that only an enormous price would force the people to make it. In Montgomery salt was then very scarce, bringing $20 per sack, and speculators were using every trick and fraud in order to control the supply.[392] The poor people especially soon felt the want of it, and in November, 1861, the legislature passed an act to encourage the manufacture of salt at the state reservation in Clarke County.[393] The state government even began to make salt at these salt springs. At the Upper Works, near Old St. Stephens, 600 men and 120 teams were employed at 30 furnaces, which were kept going all the time, the production amounting to 600 bushels a day. These works were in operation from 1862 to 1865. The Lower Works, near Sunflower Bend on the Tombigbee River, for four years employed 400 men with 80 teams at 20 furnaces. The production here was about 400 bushels a day. The Central Works, near Salt Mountain, were under private management, and, it is said, were much more successful than the works under state management.[394] The price of salt at the works ranged from $2.50 to $7 a bushel in gold, or from $3 to $40 in currency. From 1861 to 1865, 500,000 bushels of good salt were produced each year.
To obtain the salt water, wells were bored to depths ranging from 60 to 100 feet,—one well, however, was 600 feet deep,—while in the bottom or swamp lands brine was sometimes found at a depth of 8 feet. The water at first rose to the surface and overflowed about 30 gallons a minute in some wells, but as more wells were sunk the brine ceased to flow out and had to be pumped about 16 feet by steam or horse power. It was boiled in large iron kettles like those then used in syrup making and which are still seen in remote districts in the South. Seven or eight kettles of water would make one kettle of salt. This was about the same percentage that was obtained at the Onondaga (New York) salt springs. About the same boiling was required as in making syrup from sugar-cane juice. The wells were scattered for miles over the country and thousands of men were employed. For three years more than 6000 men, white and black, were employed at the salt works of Clarke County, from 2000 to 3000 working at the Upper Works alone. All were not at work at the furnaces, but hundreds were engaged in cutting and hauling wood for fuel, and in sacking and barrelling salt. It is said that in the woods the blows of no single axe nor the sound of any single falling tree could be distinguished; the sound was simply continuous. Nine or ten square miles of pine timber were cleared for fuel.
The salt was sent down the Tombigbee to Mobile or conveyed in wagons into the interior of Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. These wagons were so numerous that for miles from the various works it was difficult to cross the road. The whole place had the appearance of a manufacturing city. These works had been in operation to some extent since 1809. The wells were exhausted from 1865 to 1870, when they began flowing again.
Besides the smaller works and large private works there were hundreds of smaller establishments. When salt was needed on a plantation in the Black Belt, the overseer would take hands, with pots and kettles, and go to the salt wells, camp out for several weeks, and make enough salt for the year’s supply. All private makers had to give a certain amount to the state.[395] People from the interior of the state and from southeast Alabama went to the Florida coast and made salt by boiling the sea water. The state had salt works at Saltville, Virginia, but found it difficult to get transportation for the product. Salt was given to the poor people by the state, or sold to them at a moderate price. The legislature authorized the governor to take possession of all salt when necessary for public use, paying the owners a just compensation; $150,000 was appropriated for this purpose in 1861, and in 1862 it was made a penal offence to send salt out of the state.[396] A Salt Commission was appointed to look after the salt works owned by the state in Louisiana. A private salt maker in Clarke County made a contract to deliver two-fifths of his product to the state at the cost of manufacture, and the state purchased some salt from the Louisiana saltbeds.[397] As salt became scarcer the people took the brine in old pork and beef barrels and boiled it down. The soil under old smoke-houses was dug up, put in hoppers, and bleached like ashes, and the brine boiled down and dried in the sunshine.[398]