With its relative safety and convenient proximity to significant resources including iron, timber and labor, railroad lines and year round water transportation, during the war the little cotton town of Selma Alabama grew to become a great center of Confederate manufacture and business.

    The Selma Arsenal began operation sometime in the Spring of 1862 initially with machinery evacuated from the old U.S. Arsenal at Mt. Vernon, Ala. However, it quickly grew in importance and size with personnel and machinery from private foundries and the Government Ordnance facilities evacuated from New Orleans, Memphis, Baton Rouge and the Columbus, Miss. (Briarfield) Arsenal. In a short period of time, the Selma Arsenal was built up from simple cotton sheds into some twenty-four machine shops, rail car shops, iron mills, foundries, cotton and wool factories and harness shops generally located in one area on the western edge of town along the Alabama River. In addition, a Confederate Powder Works and the Nitre Works manufactured artillery and small arms ammunition and powder on the site. In all, the arsenal facilities covered some 5 acres and may have employed up to 3,000 hands by 1865. Selma also contained a great Naval Works and foundry covering 50 acres and employing some 3,000 additional hands. At its zenith, there may have been as many as 10,000 Confederate job-holders in Selma.

    In general, the Selma Arsenal served the troops in Alabama, Mississippi and West Tennessee. During its tenure, it manufactured, repaired and/or stored for distribution cast artillery field pieces, small arms, all types of ammunition, siege guns, carriages, caissons, cartridge and cap boxes, percussion caps, friction primers, gun powder, shot and shell, knapsacks, clothing, shovels, pikes, wagon axles and gear, harness, trace chains, canteens and even horseshoes. The Selma Arsenal, shops, Powder Works, Laboratory, Naval works and many private dwellings and property were destroyed in their entirety by Gen. James H. Wilson’s Raiders on April 6, 1865.

The Selma Arsenal Pattern Saddle & Horse Equipment: To obtain more detailed information about Selma Arsenal horse equipment patterns, production and issue numbers including Confederate Ordnance Manual specifications for leather and hardware send $10 to Ken R. Knopp, Confederate Horse Equipment, P.O. Box 1322, Hattiesburg, Miss. 39403.

*****    Please be sure to request Selma Arsenal Production specs!