GDG- RE: GDG - Jackson Pushing Lee

[Margaret D. Blough]

David,

If they wanted to hit the bituminous mines of Western Pennsylvania, they probably would have been well advised to take a different route, possibly the one Braddock took during the French and Indian War.  The western route over the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania, even with roads that weren't there during the Forbes expedition, also during the French and Indian War, is formidable (there's a pullover on the current day Route 30 at the top of Laurel Mountain, where it is mandatory that westbound trucks check their brakes. Even with that, they put a runaway truck ramp in part-way down the slope after a truck's brakes failed going down the mountain towards Pittsburgh and smashed into a building in Laughlinstown with fatalities.  Furthermore, the Pittsburgh Seam or field is massive. I used to work for District Five, UMWA, whose jurisdiction included all of Allegheny and Washington counties plus portions of Mercer, Lawrence, Butler, Beaver, Westmoreland, Greene, Fayette, Armstrong and Indiana
 Counties.  In the heyday of the region, many of our miners worked their entire working lives in a single mine. In addition, District Five is bordered in Pennsylvania by District Four, which covers further west in Pennsylvania, and District Two to the east around Johnstown.  In any event, the bituminous fields of Pennsylvania in addition to their size simply didn't have the significance during the Civil War that they would attain starting a mere five years after the war with the rise of the process to make coke from coal.  Western Pennsylvania's coal was highly cokeable to the point that a substantial number of the coal mines in District Five were so-called "captive" mines, wholly owned by steel companies, whose entire production went to the steel mills (and the collapse of steel making in the Mon Valley in the 1980s had a devastating effect on employment in these mines.)  The coke plant at Clairton, PA, at one point was the largest in the world. However, this was all in the future
 during the Civil War. 

Regards,

Margaret
-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Smith, David [USA]" <smith_david_g at bah.com> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> There's a very good book on the anthracite coal mines during the Civil 
> War, "Another Civil War" by Grace Palladino. In the struggles of the 
> Republican Party to keep the mines operating during the war (vs. labor 
> which wanted better working conditions, higher pay, etc.), she sees 
> precursors of the party's GIlded Age pro-business evolution. 
> 
> Tom, regarding whether Lee would have sent troops to interfere with the 
> coal mines, I'm kind of with Margaret on this one. But tongue in cheek I 
> would say, "Perhaps, after they finished burning Lancaster" which Jubal 
> Early claimed after the war was his objective if he got across the 
> Wrightsville Bridge. The question of what the Confederates would have 
> done next after capturing Harrisburg remains one of the intriguing what 
> if questions of the war. 
> 
> Whether the Confederates could have interfered with the coal mines 
> around Pittsburgh is a different story. After all, isn't that roughly 
> where Beauregard wanted to attack in in 1861 as well, in his plan to cut 
> the Union in two? 
> 
> 
> David 
> 
> Message: 8 
> 
> Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:30:50 +0000 
> 
> From: mdblough1 at comcast.net (Margaret D. Blough) 
> 
> Subject: RE: GDG- Jackson pushing Lee 
> 
> To: GDG 
> 
> Message-ID: 
> 
> <030820082230.23022.47D3139A0008AE1B000059EE2200761064CE08099A01040D0B03 
> @comcast.net> 
> 
> Content-Type: text/plain 
> 
> >>If the Union army had delayed in following Lee into Pennsylvania in 
> 1863, 
> 
> you have to wonder whether Lee would have decided to send a detachment 
> to 
> 
> blow up and/or set fire to the coal mines after he captured Harrisburg, 
> 
> since there were mines just a few miles further to the northeast. 
> 
> Regards, Tom<< 
> 
> Easier said than done, including the issue of whether lines of 
> communication could be maintained with the Confederacy. Scranton, for 
> instance, is about 120 miles from Harrisburg. As for blowing up coal 
> mines or setting fire to coal mines, don't forget that this was before 
> dynamite and, while methane gas naturally occurring in coal mines and 
> coal dust itself can be highly explosive, that is even trickier, even if 
> you are an experienced underground coal miner (my late grandfather was a 
> miner, mine foreman, and certified to use dynamite. I keep some of my 
> personal records in one of his old dynamite boxes). In addition, mine 
> fires are complex things, very dangerous and often next to impossible to 
> put out, but I haven't actually heard of instances of fires being 
> intentionally set. A lot also would depend on the size of the 
> detachments; I don't think you would have seen Pennsylvania anthracite 
> miners passively stand by and watch their livelihoods destroyed. Don't 
> forget that those anthracite fields were the birthplace of the Molly 
> Maguires. 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Margaret 
> 
> 
> David G. Smith, Ph.D. 
> (703) 807-2849 
> smith_david_g at bah.com 
> 
> 
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