Salt Makers of the Gulf Coast
How an Ordinary Kitchen Staple Became a Wartime Industry
Salt was the only reliable way to keep meat and fish through a long campaign.
In the autumn of 1862, men stood ankle-deep in salt marsh mud along Florida’s Gulf coast, feeding fires under enormous iron kettles that burned day and night. For the Confederacy the salt was as essential as a rifle. Salt was the only reliable way to preserve meat and fish, and by 1862 its shortage threatened the army’s ability to eat.
Why an Army Needs Salt
Before refrigeration, salt was a preservative, not a seasoning. President Lincoln proclaimed the blockade on April 19, 1861, and it cut off most imports as it tightened. Without salt, hog-killing time was pointless because the meat could not be cured, leather could not be tanned and fish could not be preserved for the commissary.
Florida’s Salt Coast
Florida’s long, remote and lightly settled Gulf coastline offered unlimited seawater and natural concealment in its bays and inlets. By 1863 the state had become the most important salt-producing region left to the Confederacy. Works sprang up at Cedar Key, Tampa Bay, St. Joseph Bay and St. Andrew Bay.
The largest concentration was on St. Andrew Bay, where Union raiders were told in 1863 and 1864 that about 2,500 men worked the marsh, an estimate and not a payroll. Florida Humanities estimates as many as five thousand people were employed in salt-making statewide, and the state historical marker in Tampa estimates the major works may have produced as much as 7,500 bushels a day by 1863, also an estimate.
Who Made the Salt
The workforce was a complicated mixture. Many workers were free men exempt from conscription, an exemption that invited abuse. Governor John Milton complained that some men claimed to be salt makers only to avoid the army. In 1864 salt workers were made liable for the draft again, but few left the coast, and the exemption was later restored. The Union treated anyone at a salt works as an enemy liable to capture.
Enslaved laborers were also a significant presence. Planters leased enslaved workers to salt operators in the slack farming season and were paid in cash or in salt. Historian Robert Taylor notes that some enslaved workers may have sought the assignment, aware that the coast put them within reach of Union ships, though their choices were sharply limited and the evidence is thin. Some did reach Union vessels and gave officers information about hidden works. In one raid on St. Andrew Bay in December 1863, Union forces reported liberating forty-eight enslaved people.
The Union Response
Raids began as early as 1861, and by 1863–64 the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, headquartered at Key West, treated salt works as deliberate targets. Landing parties sometimes warned workers to leave, then destroyed the kettles, furnaces and stockpiled salt.
One well-documented raid struck a works under construction near St. Joseph Bay in the fall of 1862. The USS Kingfisher gave the workers two hours to leave, and then crews broke up the machinery and burned the site. Harper’s Weekly illustrated the raid as “Destruction of a Rebel Salt Factory, on the Florida Coast.”
A War of Repair and Return
The salt war was repetitive. Union navy records describe raids on St. Andrew Bay stretching from September 1862 to February 1865, and operators rebuilt after each one. In a ten-day campaign in December 1863, Acting Master William R. Browne’s force reported destroying some 290 salt works on the bay. Salt that sold cheaply before the war reached as much as fifty dollars a bushel. The industry was at once a patriotic necessity, a dangerous job and, for some, a lucrative business.
Quick Facts
Why salt mattered
The only reliable way to preserve meat and fish before refrigeration
Blockade proclaimed
April 19, 1861
Main production areas
St. Andrew Bay, St. Joseph Bay, Cedar Key and Tampa Bay
Method
Seawater boiled in large iron kettles until salt crystals remained
St. Andrew Bay workforce
About 2,500 men (estimate)
Statewide workforce
As many as 5,000 people (estimate)
Peak output
Possibly 7,500 bushels a day by 1863 (marker estimate)
Labor
Free workers exempt from conscription, plus enslaved laborers leased by owners
Union response
East Gulf Blockading Squadron raids, 1861–65
Prices
Up to fifty dollars a bushel during the war
Did You Know?
- Union sailors could find a salt works by the smoke from its boiling kettles.
- Harper’s Weekly showed a Florida salt raid to a national audience in late 1862.
- Salt workers were exempt from the Confederate draft, and some men claimed the job just to avoid the army.
Vocabulary
Conscription: the compulsory enlistment of people into military service.
Brine: very salty water.
Commissary: the department that supplies an army with food.
Discussion Questions
1. Why did the Union treat salt works as military targets?
2. Why do historians describe the evidence about enslaved workers’ choices at the salt works as thin?
Related Articles
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- FLH-0097 — Florida During the Civil War
- FLH-0102 — Florida’s Blockade Runners
- FLH-0056 — The Florida Smokehouse
- FLH-0099 — The Battle of Olustee
- FLH-0094 — The Mullet Men
- FLH-0045 — Captain James McKay and the Cuba Cattle Trade
Sources
Lincoln, Abraham. Proclamation of Blockade, April 19, 1861.
Florida Memory. State Library and Archives of Florida. “Destruction of a Rebel Salt Factory, on the Florida Coast,” Harper’s Weekly, 1862; “Needs More Salt.” floridamemory.com
Florida Department of State. “Civil War Salt Works.” dos.fl.gov
Florida Historical Marker Program. “Tampa Confederate Salt Works” (F-850) and “The St. Andrew Bay Saltworks” (F-477).
Taylor, Robert. “A Salty Story.” Florida Humanities, 2023. floridahumanities.org
Tampa Historical Society. “Tampa’s Salt Showdown.” tampahistorical.org
Copyright © 2026 Wm. E. McMullen II. All rights reserved. Published by Florida Learning Hub.