The Civil War was the first major conflict in American history in which mineral resources took center stage. Iron was the raw material for more than two million rifles, several hundred thousand pistols, and thousands of pieces of artillery. Iron provided not only weapons, but also canteens, cauldrons, canned rations, skillets, axes, saws, shovels, surgeon’s tools, and countless pieces of miscellaneous hardware. There were at least one million horses involved in the war, requiring four million iron horseshoes. And there was no end to new and gruesome contrivances, groundbreaking menaces such as land mines and Gatling guns, as well as monstrous cutting-edge machines of war — steam locomotives and ironclad warships, even a submarine. Iron completely re-defined warfare, top to bottom. In addition, hundreds of millions of lead bullets were expended during the conflict, along with untold tons of gunpowder. Copper provided for 15,000 miles of military telegraph wires. Coal fueled the munitions factories, as well as military railroads and steam-powered warships. Salt was absolutely critical for preserving food, both for the soldiers and sailors in combat, and across the home front. Gold from the American West helped finance the Federal war effort.
Each fact sheet will focus on the resource contributions of an individual state or territory. A companion web site is in the planning stages. We hope that this project will showcase the enduring value of the long-term natural resource databases collected by State and Federal geologic surveys. It will also illustrate the critical importance of understanding our resource base, a challenge as important to our Nation today as it was in the nineteenth century.
Preferred Presentation Type: Either Oral or Poster