Intact Civil War Saltpeter Mining Artifacts Discovered in a Cave

Come along with us as we explore a cave in Tennessee with some pretty amazing saltpeter vats inside it. These saltpeter artifacts are a fascinating relic of the Civil War and are over 160 years old. Workers would work inside the cave extracting calcium nitrate from the dirt that has been enriched with bat guano for many years in this cave. They would add water to the dirt filled vats and would then allow it to leech the calcium nitrate out of the bottom through a trough. Wood ash was then added to the water mix and it was boiled off. What was left was the potassium nitrate, which they then used to make gunpowder during the war.