The Niter and Mining Corps was a military unit within the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Their original task was to keep the Confederacy supplied with minerals and metals needed for the war effort, but as the conflict dragged on, they were at times assigned to field and combat duty.
Niter (saltpeter), a key ingredient in gunpowder and other explosives, was mined in caves in various places in the South.
Niter for the manufacture of gunpowder, copper, lead, iron, coal, zinc, and other such materials as might be required for the prosecution of the war.
[1] The Bureau opened new coalfields in North Carolina and Alabama and coordinated the flow of mineral fuel to Confederate naval stations along the coast.