Back in the 1860s, tools were molded and pounded on an anvil by a blacksmith. This "smithy" is showing school children how to make a nail at last year's Battle of Selma Living History Tour. Students from across Alabama annually attend the two-day event, which also features cannon firing demonstrations, 1860's music and sing-a-longs, a tour of Confederate headquarters, a medical tent and flag histories.To see more photos and the schedule of events, click here.
Update: Abraham Lincoln of the Brookville Daily Photo mentioned this smithy handling these tools with his bare hands. He (Mr. Mott) was on the tour again this year and said he either holds his fingers far enough back from the heated metal or uses tongs.
He also insists he has never combined his blacksmith work with that of a farrier, and apprentices were required to make 450 nails a day. Unlike the industrial North, Mr. Mott said the rural South did not always have barrels of nails although machinery could make them. Village blacksmiths made nails by hand even as late as the 1860s.
