386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the enemy, and more than once military movements were ham- 

 pered owing to the scarcity of ammunition. We have it upon the 

 authority of Colonel Rains that "but one man Wright could be 

 found in the Southern States who had seen gunpowder made by 

 the incorporating mill, the only kind that can make it of the first 

 quality ; he had been a workman at the Waltham Abbey Govern- 

 ment Gunpowder Works in England." During the period that 

 the Augusta mills were in process of construction a small powder 

 factory was run at Manchester, Tenn. The output of this was 

 very limited, and it was conducted mostly as a school of instruc- 

 tion, and as soon as the Augusta works were completed the opera- 

 tives and machinery were transferred there. At the same time, 

 at a refinery in Nashville, workmen were being taught to refine 

 saltpeter and distill charcoal. Notwithstanding these methods of 

 obtaining competent labor, it was with the greatest difficulty that 

 a sufficient supply could be procured, and as a consequence every 

 sort of labor-saving device possible was adopted. Among the 

 improvements introduced by Colonel Rains in this way was a 

 crystallizing machine of his own invention for refining saltpeter, 

 the main constituent of gunpowder, and which has to be brought 

 to a high state of chemical purity. By means of this machine 

 eight or ten thousand pounds of saltpeter, used by the works daily, 

 which had to pass through many stages and undergo much ma- 

 nipulation, which at first required a large force by manual labor, 

 was prepared by two or three workmen. Other improved meth- 

 ods of powder-making were brought into use for the first time, 

 and the Confederate powder works were pronounced among the 

 finest in the world, and the London Times and other foreign 

 papers gave lengthy and commendatory descriptions of them. 



The Confederacy was furnished with one thousand three hun- 

 dred and seventy-five tons of gunpowder from these works. Colo- 

 nel Rains is authority for the statement that " notwithstanding 

 the admirable serving of the heavy artillery at Fort Sumter dur- 

 ing that engagement, it would have fallen and Charleston been 

 captured had any but the strongest gunpowder been used. The 

 armor of the ironclads, though constructed expressly to withstand 

 the heaviest charges and projectiles, gave way before its propel- 

 ling force." General G. J. Rains, a brother of Colonel Rains of 

 the powder works, was the inventor of the sub-terra shells, that 

 were first used after the battle of Williamsburg, and which proved 

 effectual in retarding the advance of the Federal forces. At the 

 time that McClellan was in command below Richmond, in 1862, 

 and his vessels in James River, General Rains was placed in com- 

 mand of the submarine defenses by the Confederate Government. 

 Here, opposite Drury's Bluff, the first submarine torpedo used 

 in the war was made. This mode of defense had been previously 



