As Union armies marched on Tennessee to strike the “heart of the Confederacy,” the Confederate weapons manufacturers shifted operations deeper into the South. The Confederate government utilized the Atlanta Arsenal as its primary military weapon production and storage center. The arsenal was originally located in Nashville, but when the Union troops closed in on Chattanooga, the Confederates moved it farther south to Atlanta. The arsenal transformed the city into the “premiere supply center for the army.” It was built by John C. Peck, who previously produced long pikes for Governor Joe Brown.

Colonel Moses H. Wright, a highly respected artillery commander whose services were sought by both the Union and Confederate Secretaries of War, led production with a $1.5 million annual budget. Some 5,464 employees created percussion caps, saddles and harnesses, cartridges, and artillery. The Arsenal produced 41 million percussion caps for muskets and 5 million percussion caps for pistols between 1862 and 1864.

The arsenal required wood, lead, and numerous other metals to produce a variety of items, from the wheels of cannons to a variety of small arms munitions, and these requirements led to huge shortages of lumber around Atlanta. Building fortifications around Atlanta, along with private industries that required wood for numerous projects, further exacerbated lumber shortages. Because of this, citizens of Atlanta lacked adequate firewood to warm their homes in the winter. The fires were necessary for the well-being of both the families in the home and the animals that were brought inside to prevent their freezing and theft.

As the Union Army continued its march through the South, the Confederates decided to move the Arsenal beginning in July 1864. They first relocated the facility to Macon, then Columbus, and on to Augusta in Georgia, and then finally to Selma, and Montgomery in Alabama. The doom of Atlanta’s Arsenal foreshadowed the fall of the city itself, which followed on September 2, 1864.

Credits and Sources:

Researched and written by Collins Cotton, Al Hill, and Joe Oliver, students at the Westminster Schools.

Davis, Robert Scott. Civil War Atlanta. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011.

Dickey, Thomas S., and Peter C. George. Field Artillery Projectiles of the American Civil War: Including a Selection of Navy Projectiles, Hand Grenades, Rockets, and Land Mines. Atlanta, GA: Arsenal Press, 1980.

Moses H. Wright Civil War letters, MSS 386f, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Digital Library of Georgia. Accessed January 14, 2015.

Norman, Matthew W. Colonel Burton's Spiller & Burr Revolver: An Untimely Venture in Confederate Small-arms Manufacturing. Macon, GA: Mercer University

Press, 1996.

Singer, Ralph Benjamin. “Confederate Atlanta.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia, 1973.

Vanatta, Sean H., and Dan H. Du. "Civil War Industry and Manufacturing." New Georgia Encyclopedia. Last updated September 9, 2014.             http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war- industry-and-manufacturing.

Venet, Wendy Hamand. A Changing Wind: Commerce and Conflict in Civil War Atlanta. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.