Saltville Defenses

Saltville Defenses. Saltville and Salt Manufacturing. As the Confederacy's leading producer of salt, Saltville was a major Federal target. Confederate Gen. Sam Jones proposed defenses at Saltville in June 1863, and construction began that year., The defenses consisted of a half dozen earthen forts, hundreds of yards of trenches, several arsenals and camps for the troops. Picket posts guarded the roads radiating out of Saltville, and additional posts guarded the bridges and culverts of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the Saltville branch line. Well-preserved remains of hilltop forts and hundreds of yards of trenches still exist on the hills surrounding Saltville Valley. (Town code prohibits the removal of artifacts.), (sidebar) , The Saltville Valley was once part of an ancient riverbed. Bones and teeth of Ice Age animals that became extinct 10,000 years ago have been collected here since the late 1700s. Salt, one of the world's most essential substances became the town's namesake. The salt water has drawn giant mammals Native Americans, colonial settlers, Confederate and Union armies, and the industrial development that ushered the town into the 20th century., The commercial development of salt occurred in the 1780s. The early "salt works" consisted of open wells from which brine was drawn, furnaces in which the material was boiled in iron kettles, and salt buildings that stored the salt., Before the Civil War, the salt works operated with only a few furnaces. During the war, three dozen furnaces operated, firing 2,600 kettles. Salt production grew from 150,000 bushels per year before the war to four million bushels in 1864., The kettles in this replica salt furnace, and at sites throughout the town of Saltville, were used during and after the Civil War. You are standing a few feet from the Smyth/Washington County Line that was drawn in 1832 between the original Preston/King Saltworks so both counties could share the revenues. This is also the site of the first attempt to mine salt in the United States. That attempt failed, as operators continued to rely on wells., (caption) , View of a Saltville furnace from Harpers Weekly magazine 1857.