Timeline for Why wouldn't the South make salt from seawater during the American Civil War?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 29, 2020 at 11:19 | comment | added | Evargalo | @PatriciaShanahan : this transportation problem is no more an obstacle for coastal-produced salt than for Wales-imported salt... | |
| Oct 26, 2015 at 22:11 | comment | added | Oldcat | @ClintEastwood - the problem with the South using slaves on the coastline for salt production, is that that was where the US Navy hung out. This results in neither salt nor slaves. | |
| Jun 5, 2015 at 10:41 | comment | added | Mike | @njuffa Reading that publication was quite interesting. I did not realize that a professor in South Carolina would have such a knowledge of physical chemistry (at what concentration different salts precipitate out) and of the techniques used in France and in Venice. | |
| Jun 4, 2015 at 5:40 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackHistory/status/606334573828567040 | ||
| Jun 3, 2015 at 22:05 | vote | accept | Mike | ||
| Jun 3, 2015 at 20:30 | comment | added | Patricia Shanahan | There may have been a transportation problem - you could accumulate a mound of salt on the coast. Now what? The railways were breaking down. Many draft animals were being used by the military. How do you get the salt from the coast to all over the confederacy? | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 17:59 | comment | added | njuffa | It was at least considered, see this 1862 publication: docsouth.unc.edu/imls/lecontej/menu.html | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 12:01 | answer | added | Brian Z | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 11:51 | answer | added | T.E.D.♦ | timeline score: 34 | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 11:18 | comment | added | Clint Eastwood | Hmmm. If only the south had huge numbers of unpaid laborers, they could harvest salt rather cheaply. | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 8:32 | comment | added | MCW♦ | Technology certainly existed, but as I recall it is very labor intensive. Stick vertical stakes in the tidal basin then send someone to scrape every stake after every tide. You get a bucket full of salt; perfectly adequate for your use or your families. If you want to produce enough to ship you need (a) scale labor, which should have been off fighting and (b) shipping capacity, that the South didn't have. I have no citations, so this is a comment, not an answer. | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 5:38 | comment | added | Steve Bird | I suspect it was simply that the technology to extract salt from seawater on an economically viable, industrial scale didn't exist at the time. | |
| Jun 3, 2015 at 3:24 | history | asked | Mike | CC BY-SA 3.0 |