the remainder being bonded out by plantation owners. Often, manual labor performed by slaves was combined with skilled white artisans to better compete with northern and foreign industry. The total number of factories in the antebellum South numbered 20,600 (100,500 in the north), 11,000 non-slave workers (1.1 million in the north) and a total value of products amounting to $155 million ($1.5 billion in the northern states). Because of the profitability of slave industry, Southern industry had been undercapitalized for years by the time of the outbreak of the war. Besides a social preference for the lifestyle that accompanied plantation slavery, agriculture in staple goods was considered the easiest route to profitability; thus agriculture always outbid industry when it came to capital allocation. As early as 1830, Southern industry was a generation behind, and by the Civil War, was vastly inferior to Northern and foreign manufacturing. When the war turned negative, many industries in the South faced exponentially growing struggled shortages of raw materials and skilled labor, as well as worsening financial opportunities. In Wilmington, North Carolina, Louis Froelich (1817–1873), a German immigrant, opened the Confederate States Arms Factory. His firm made bayonets, sabers, Bowie knives, and sheathes or scabbards for these weapons, as well as thousands of metal buttons for military uniforms. Shipbuilding At the outset of hostilities, only two government-owned naval yards were located in the South. Between 36–145 private shipyards existed, of varying capacity and skill. While sawmills were readily available to supply the construction of wooden boats, iron processing in the South was limited. The result was that few ships were built. The most famous was the CSS Virginia, a steam-powered ironclad warship built in 1861-62 using the raised and cut down original lower hull and steam engines of the scuttled . Virginia fought in the Battle of Hampton Roads against the Union's in March, 1862, in what was the world's first battle between ironclads. Iron Industry The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the third-largest iron manufacturer in the United States by 1860. During the war it was the primary iron and artillery production facility of the Confederacy. Birmingham, Alabama, although an important industrial center of the South after the war, did not produce iron until 1864. Production from this region was minor throughout the war. Gallego Flour Mills The Gallego Flour Mills in Richmond gained international reputation for the superior type of flour which