Tales from the road: A visit to site of a Rebel gunpowder mill

A couple takes a selfie with kids at the confluence of Duck and Little Duck rivers. Alas, they
didn’t know of the site of the Confederate gunpowder works.

                Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter | My YouTube videos

After a wonderful bike ride through the wilds of Middle Tennessee, I did what many (bored) Americans do on a beautiful Saturday: traveled an hour from Nashville to Manchester, Tenn., in search of the site of Confederate gunpowder works deep in the woods near the fork of the Duck and Little Duck rivers. 😆

Blame historian/military books publisher Ted Savas for this historical/hysterical diversion. Weeks ago, at his excellent talk at the Franklin (Tenn.) Civil War Round Table, he mentioned two mills near Nashville that (barely) supplied the Confederacy with gunpowder early in the war — one along Sycamore Creek and another in Manchester.

And so I vowed to visit the sites.

“I am thinking you got a small but nasty virus triggered by exposure to gunpowder history,” Savas wrote me in an email a week or so before my drive to Manchester.

Why, of course, I found a Civil War Trails marker for the Manchester Powder Mill.

Seconds after my arrival at Old Stone Fork State Archaeological Park in Manchester, I discovered (naturally) a Civil War Trails marker about the gunpowder works. Then I made my way past a man showing off animal pelts over to the Old Stone Fort museum, where I peppered a bemused docent with questions about the gunpowder works.

“Where can I find the remains?” I said almost breathlessly.

“Well, there’s not much left.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, pal,” I said under my breath.

Then he handed me a map of the Old Stone Fort (built hundreds of years ago by Native Americans) and drew a line on a map to the site of the powder mill. It’s about a 3/4-mile walk through the woods.

Native American mound at the ancient fort by the Duck River.

Remains of a paper mill on the path toward the gunpowder mill site.

And so like a sweaty jackrabbit on an adrenaline rush, I bounded through the woods on a hot afternoon — staggering over exposed tree roots and past sunbathers, Duck splashers, fishermen, panting dogs with their masters, steep cliffs, ancient Native American fort mounds and the ruins of a paper mill — to the confluence of Duck and Little Duck, supposed site of the Confederate powder works.

Map on historical marker denotes
buildings for gunpowder mill.

Did Shelby Foote ever do this?

About 25 yards from the Duck, a historical marker includes a hard-to-read map of powder mill buildings (I lost track at seven), so I figured the remains must be SOMEWHERE in the woods.

“I’m here to find the powder works,” I asked a couple taking a selfie with their kids in the water at the confluence of the Duck and Little Duck. “Have you seen anything?”

They looked at me the way your dog does when it hears a high-pitched sound.

Alas, I found no powder mill foundation stones, but a ditch near the Duck looks suspiciously like the mill race for the Confederate gunpowder complex. So I’m sticking with that.

I sure hope there’s a cure for this gunpowder virus.

Let’s keep history alive. 👊

Is this the mill race along the Duck River for the gunpowder mill?