Grand Saline C.S.A.
Grand Saline, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The large saline deposit was a major source of salt in Texas during the Civil War. Salt was first obtained by the Indians. In 1854, works were built. Sam Richardson, the owner in 1861, went to war and left his wife to run the works until the Confederate government took over production. Because salt was considered a strategic industry, salt workers were exempt from army service for a time and many wells were sunk to obtain the more than 10,000 pounds of salt made daily for the civilians and army west of the Mississippi River. Mule-powered pumps drew the brine from the wells. Gum logs, hollowed out and pinned together formed a pipeline to huge iron evaporating kettles. Salt was then sacked, purchased and hauled away on horseback, in wagons and oxcarts. During the Civil War, the demand for salt, the only known way to preserve meat, increased to supply the Southern army. Meat was salted, smoked and then packed in salt for the long, hot trips to army camps. Horses and mules used by cavalry, artillery, and quartermaster units required the vital mineral, too. Salt also preserved hides for making shoes, harnesses and saddles. When the Confederate government levied a meat tithe on farmers, the demand for salt increased and often cattle and cotton were exchanged for salt which itself became a medium of exchange. When salt became scarce, women dug up smokehouse floors to extract salt from the soil. Other Civil War salt works were operated along the coast and in other East, Central and West Texas counties. Erected by the State of Texas 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The great salt deposit at Grand Saline, first worked by Native peoples and developed into salt works by 1854, became a strategic source of salt for the Confederacy during the Civil War. When owner Sam Richardson went to war, his wife ran the operation until the Confederate government took over production, exempting salt workers from the army and drawing brine through hollowed gum-log pipelines to iron evaporating kettles that yielded over 10,000 pounds a day. With salt the only means to preserve meat and cure leather, it grew so scarce that women dug up smokehouse floors to reclaim it.
Why it matters
Grand Saline reveals how an ordinary mineral became a war-winning necessity, exposing the desperate logistics behind the Confederacy's effort to feed and equip its armies west of the Mississippi.
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Related people
- · Sam Richardson
Themes & tags
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