67th Tigers
A quick question. Several people, of whom the best informed has been you I think, have mentioned that in a Anglo-American war during the civil war a British blockage would cut off supplies of gunpowder to the north and its position would be gravely weakened as a result.
In discussion on a naval site I'm a member of you get occasional AH scenarios and one occuring at the moment is about French intervention in favour of the south. I raised the subject of gunpowder in the event of a French blockage. Apart from the question of still getting supplies from Britain in this case, say via Canada, it was argued that the US actually had substantial potential supplies from natural caverns in the north. It was just that it was cheaper to import from British India.
I asked for some further information and received the following:
" It was stated in the book " Why the South Lost the Civil War" by Richard E. Beringer,Herman Hathaway,Archer Jones, and William N. Still Jr.. There are a couple of websites about this topic too. I'll get back with that later. Now the Union did import most of thiers HOWEVER the South produced quite a bit of thiers and could have produced much more but for lack on infrastructure to carry it out not that local supplies weren't availiable. The North imported much of thiers because it was just much cheaper & easier to do it. The US was worried for a long time about supplies from overseas getting cutooff so looked to these deposits as being strategically valuable.
In fact I think Mammoth Cave all by itself supplied the US in the War of 1812. It was also mined at one time in my small community and in the community right across the Ohio River in small caves behind the towns. It was also found to exist in large quantities in earlier colonies(other then the ones I mentioned earlier) in the NorthEast . The Eastern US (east of the Mississippi) had huge cave systems which were rich in saltpeter deposits though not really commercially feasible like those in India or Chile but were definately used when needed,i.e. by the whole country in War of 1812 & South in the ACW.
so in fact the US was as close to an autarchy as there was back then.
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/links/links13.htm
http://www.hagley.org/library/exhibits/civilwartech/index.php?page=Home
"
Just wondering your views on this? If accurate it would make the north a significantly more difficult to defeat opponent. Or has the source underestimated some of the problems in using US supplies? [I realise that the 1812 conflict is no real comparison as forces and hence demand for powder were much smaller then].
Steve