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[183]

The Laboratory for small ammunition at Richmond This photograph was taken the day the new flag of the Confederate States of America was thrown to the breeze on top of Libby prison. The entire supply of gunpowder in the Confederacy at the beginning of the conflict was scarcely sufficient for one month of active operations. Not a pound was being made throughout its limits. The comparatively small amount captured at the Norfolk navy-yard, with that on hand from other sources, was promptly distributed to the army gathering on the Potomac, to Richmond, Yorktown, Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans. Scarcely any remained for the force assembling under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston in Kentucky. In the face of these difficulties, Colonel (later General) George W. Rains was given carte blanche to take charge of the manufacture of gunpowder. He established immense works in Augusta, Georgia. So extensive were they that at no time after their completion were they worked to their full capacity. They were never run at night. They satisfied in little more than two days the urgent call of General Ripley at Charleston for cannon-powder, to replace the twenty-two thousand pounds consumed during the action with the iron-clad fleet. The Richmond laboratory made 72,000,000 cartridges in three and a half years, nearly as much as the others in the Confederate States combined.

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James W. Ripley (1)
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