Abney was a general agent for the Texas Military Board who worked especially on the board’s efforts to support Salt Works around Jordan’s Saline in Van Zandt County, from around April 1864 to June (or September?) 1865. He was also occasionally directed by the Board to buy cotton as part of its cotton-purchasing program.

Abney served as a representative of Upshur County in the Ninth Legislature.

Work at Jordan’s Saline

In April 1864, Abney received $25,000 in Confederate currency from the Board in Austin to invest in “salt furnaces, kettles, and the necessary appliances for making salt including all proper expenses.”¹ Not long after that (on June 9) he received another $18,750 of public funds. A letter written to Abney by the Board on August 16 expressed how “desirous” the Board was “that as much salt be made, and as rapidly as possible, as the works will admit.”²

By September 30, his records showed that he had produced 40,986 pounds of salt, all but 8000 of which he had used to purchase supplies like corn, bacon, flour, corn meal, potatoes (presumably to feed laborers). He had used 530 bushels of corn “on foraging teams and hands in State Service.” 1620 pounds of bacon, 1800 pounds of beef, 90 bushels of corn meal, 225 lbs of flour, and a small number of potatoes and peas had been consumed “by hands and employees.” Other receipts indicate that Abney used salt to pay for turpentine and wagon and furnace repairs, and gave salt for the use of families “in the Indian Territory.”³

Receipts show a possible expansion of operations in early 1865, as Abney exchanged cash for six ninety-gallon kettles in January, two thousand lbs of salt and some cash for around 350 bushels of corn in February. But he later exchanged kettles for beef to be consumed by the hands.⁴

In the end, however, Abney’s efforts never seem to have produced real revenue for the state. Out of the approximately $45,000 he had to begin with, Abney finished 1864 with only about $66 cash on hand, and continued until mid-1865 to pay debts owed to people from whom he had hired hands or supplies.⁵ In a final accounting of his work to postwar provisional governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton in September 1865, Abney explained that he had hired about 35 “negroes” and justified his low production.⁶

Tension with Military Board

Letters exchanged between Abney and the Board in 1864 show evidence of conflict between the Board and their agent, caused (no doubt) by his lack of success in producing revenue. Some of it seems to be because of Abney’s disorganization; in one letter the Board complains of being “in the dark” and asks for more frequent communications.⁷

Abney sought to excuse his disorganization in a November 1, 1864 letter to the Board, complaining that he did not have a “proper place for the transaction of business.” Abney also blamed the poor state of the Confederate currency for his troubles, reporting that parties with whom he contracted wouldn’t accept Confederate currency, requiring him to make payment with salt: “This I am forced to do or else stop my works.” He also reported that some of the men whom he had expected to come to the works “with their hands” would not be coming because the government had seized their teams.⁸

In general, Abney seemed embarrassed by his “want of success” but blamed the weak state of the currency, which required him even to hire hands using salt instead of money. “I can procure hands in very good terms for salt, say from two to three sacks each per months,” while others he hired for “only two sacks.” He needed 10-15 hands per furnace, and currently only had 33 hands “besides two overseers,” who were paid $100 each per month. Abney commented that such overseers had to serve day and night, requiring him to hire a very good sort of worker. And their oversight was imperative because of his busyness:

Much of my time is taken up in seeing to the wood choppers, teams, and general business, and hence I need one white man to every furnace.

Abney also reported that he had sold some salt at reduced prices to war widows who had come to him unable to find salt anywhere else, and this was apparently another source of tension with the Board. He was trying to put an end to cash sales partly because cash would do him no good and because he felt authorized to sell only to gather supplies. Receipts, however, show that he was frequently importuned by county officials from Kaufman, Titus, and elsewhere asking for salt to support soldiers’ families. Apparently, according to his November 1, 1864, letter, Abney felt pity on war widows partly because of the high prices being charged for salt by “the exempts” (presumably men like J. S. O. Brooks), who were asking for $150 dollars per sack. He expected he would have only a small amount of funds on hand at the end of the year and awaited instructions about whether to return it or exchange it for New Issue notes. His major challenge, he believed, would be getting transportation:

About Christmas I hope to get as many hands as I need, and probably teams, but if the State could furnish transportation she would supply a desideratum which is seriously felt here. The Govt. has absorbed all the transportation in this section, and private speculation has also done its share of it.⁹

The Board replied in January 1865, however, that it could not supply transportation and he would have to arrange it himself. It also emphasized that he should be taking orders from the Board alone and should not comply with Confederate officers or other official figures who showed up demanding salt. They want him to make the operation “self sustaining” and believe he “should be able now in a short time to make it a source of revenue to the state.”¹⁰

Before hearing back from the Board, however, Abney appealed directly to Governor Pendleton Murrah about his operations and his request for transportation. Abney complained to Murrah about interference from Confederate officers, who were trying both to get Abney into the field and to buy salt at reduced prices. One enrolling officer “scared off all my teams some weeks ago by telling the owner that I would not be allowed to pay the hire in salt,” and had also forced Mr. Yarbrough in Abney’s absence to sell “a lot of salt for old issue at $30 per sack, which funds I cannot use.” This officer had since been killed in battle, and had changed his tune before dying enough to get the return of Abney’s teams, but Abney still offered these conflicts as excuses for his poor showing so far and hoped the governor would use his influence to prevent further interference from enrolling officers.¹¹

Abney also hoped Murrah would prevail on the board to send him corn, which was sorely lacking in the region and needed for the forage of his teams, which had to travel long distances to bring wood to the furnaces. Abney believed that he could begin producing salt in sufficient quantities to make the back freight to Austin worth much more than the cost of sending the corn. Despite complaints from salt makers in the area that water was becoming scarce, Abney reported that he had five furnaces nearing operation and was also making troughs to transport salt water from the wells to the furnaces. “I now feel like I can promise you as much salt as you could wish from the means placed at my disposal,” Abney wrote. But how much of this was accurate reportage and how much his desire to justify his slow progress and avoid conscription, it’s difficult to tell.¹²

Hiring of Slaves

Receipts show that Abney did “hire” slaves from owners in the area during 1864 at least, sometimes for eight months or more at a time. His letter to the governor in December 1864 says that he had “just succeeded in hiring fifty negroes and nine good teams for next year,” and the rate of 2.5 sacks of salt per month per hand.¹³

A July 1, 1865, receipt shows that Abney gave 160,000 lbs of salt to a John Carlock “in payment for the hire of Twenty-seven negroes and five wagons and teams for eight months at the State Salt Works in Jordan’s Saline.” A September receipt recorded a similar exchange of 3,000 lbs of salt for the hire of “a negro man” over eight months in 1864.¹⁴

Some, though not decisive, evidence shows that refugeed slaves may have been involved: Abney swore an affidavit in 1865 showing that he had exchanged money and salt for the hire of hands with one woman who had returned to her home in Hamburg, Arkansas. T. H. Phillips, who is listed as the recipient of $100 from Abney in September 1864, appears on the Van Zandt County tax rolls for 1864 as the owner of 21 slaves but no real estate; a man by the same name appears in the 1860 Arkansas census, making it likely he too was from out-of-state.