5. Niter and Gunpowder

On March 15, 1959, John Salling died in Slant, Virginia, his lifelong residence in the far southwestern quarter of the state (Fig. 5.1). Salling claimed that he was born in 1846 and served in the 25th Virginia regiment of the Confederate Army where he was assigned to help dig out the local saltpeter deposits for the manufacture of gunpowder. At age 14 or 15, Salling said, he went to work collecting “peter dirt” in his home area of Scott County for the army’s Niter Corps. He told one reporter that he never wore a service uniform: “There just warn’t enough to go around” [57]. Although niter-rich limestone caverns known to have been active in the war abound in this vicinity, Salling stated that he did not work in the caves. Instead, his unit “…got dirt from the floors of chicken houses, tobacco barns, stables, and under houses” [57]. Toward the end of his long life, he attended many veterans’ meetings where people who saw him invariably were struck by his thick shock of unruly dark hair standing out amid his white-headed comrades. When asked how his hair had stayed that way, he replied it was because he never touched it with water.