Confederate Powderworks - History

History

Rains, a West Point graduate and chemistry teacher there who had resigned to become president of an iron works in Newburgh New York, chose allegiance to his native North Carolina and was put in charge of the Gunpowder and Niter Bureau by Jefferson Davis.

Construction began in September 1861, a 130 hp steam engine was purchased from the Atlanta flour mill owned by Richard Peters and the Powderworks was producing gunpowder in just 7 months in 1862. Rains was guided by a pamphlet written by a British artilley officer describing the powder works at Waltham Abbey in Essex County near London, and also found someone who had worked there to advise him. Customary for gunpowder mills, the buildings were separated and designed to survive explosions, with raw materials starting at one end, refined and ground with 5-ton wheels, and the finished powder loaded a mile and a half down the line. The saltpeter refinery building was the largest, and was designed in Gothic style as a replica of the British Houses of Parliament. The Confederate Powderworks was the 2nd largest gunpowder factory in the world at that time during the 19th century, producing 3.5 tons a day. More than 2,750,000 pounds of first-quality gunpowder (a majority of the powder used by the Confederacy), was produced here before its closure on April 18, 1865. It has been said the Confederacy never lost a battle for lack of powder.

Although the massive works were seized and dismantled after the war ended, the commandant, Colonel G.W. Rains, asked in 1872, that the Obelisk Chimney be spared as he had designed it to "...remain a monument to the Confederacy should the Powderworks pass away". On June 2, 1879 the city of Augusta gave custody of the Chimney to the Confederate Survivors Association of Augusta to "beautify it and protect it from injury as a Confederate Memorial". The CSA of Augusta repaired the square castellated base, protected the corners and in the face, looking towards the canal inserted a large tablet of Italian marble, bearing this inscription: "This Obelisk Chimney — sole remnant of the extensive Powder Works here erected under the auspices of the Confederate Government — is by the Confederate Survivors' Association of Augusta, with the consent of the City Council, conserved in Honor of a fallen Nation, and inscribed to the memory of those who died in the Southern Armies during the War Between the States".