in Russell County’s Elk Garden, laying the foundation for what was to become the nation’s largest farm east of the Mississippi, the Stuart Land and Cattle Company.  William Alexander’s son, Henry Carter Stuart used the cattle company to propel himself into the Governor’s mansion.

          Palmer also bought into the zinc business at Austinville, and became President of the Bertha Zinc Co. there.  Zinc and lead occur in the same ore, but until the process of amalgamation, or the dipping of steel into a bath of zinc to coat it so that it would not rust, was invented after the Civil War zinc had been considered to have been a waste product of lead smelting and had been discarded as useless.

The Military Campaigns Around Saltville During the Civil War

         Modern war was born in the summer of 1863.  It was obvious to all observers that the South’s Gettysburg campaign was made possible by the cattle, horses, and wagons that the Army of Northern Virginia had gathered in its raid into West Virginia in the preceding winter.  After two years of having failed to defeat Lee’s armies, the North decided that it might be easier to defeat the Confederacy by destroying its means of war materials production.  The two most vulnerable sites were the Lead Mines of Austinville, and the salt works at Saltville.  The North had solidified its hold on West Virginia and Kentucky, which would serve as marshaling grounds for invasion forces.

         Before the Gettysburg campaign the North had drawn up plans to invade Southwest Virginia and to destroy its industrial capacity, but the plans had been discarded as having been too risky.  But with the Army of Northern Virginia incapacitated, Union high command pushed the Department of West Virginia to implement these old plans.

         Just after the Battle of Gettysburg Union Col. John Toland with 1,000 mounted infantry and cavalry came out of West Virginia via Abbs Valley, the headwaters of the Clinch, into Tazewell County.  Saltville lay just across Clinch Mountain to the south.  Confederate defenders of the route to Saltville caused Toland to divert to his secondary objective, the Lead Mines. 

        The route to Austinville Lead Mines lay through downtown Wytheville.  When she saw the Union troops divert toward Wytheville, 26 year old Mary Tynes of Jeffersonville (Tazewell) made a dangerous ride and warned the Confederates at Wythville of the approaching Union forces.

       As the available Confederate forces in the region had been positioned to defend Saltville, the only forces available to defend the Lead Mines were the old men, boys, and women of Wytheville.  They positioned themselves in the upper floors of the buildings on main street, and as Toland and his staff came riding into           ... Continue to PAGE 37

  
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