The future looked bright for Anderson and his newly acquired company. In addition to the steady flow of work from the government, eight new railroads were commissioned in Virginia between 1846 and 1853, a total of over nine hundred miles of track offering a promising market for rail chairs, spikes, locomotives, and rolling stock. The raw pig iron from which products were manufactured was much cheaper and of better quality in the north, and in an effort to reduce costs Anderson began to import this necessity. Anderson also turned northward to find the skilled workers he needed for his rolling mills, but they did not come cheaply. The difficulty he encountered in executing this plan was the fact that many of the jobs were highly skilled.
Puddlers are a prime example.
These workers performed the first step in removing impurities from the pig iron, shaping the molten metal into a pasty ball of about 150 pounds. Skilled laborers known as rollers then took the mass of metal and rolled it between grooved cylinders on a finishing mill, producing more iron. Immigrant workers were the main people performing these tasks, having acquired the necessary skills in the Old World. All of the white workers refusing to comply with these terms were fired. Thus it was that in 1847, as the contract expired, Anderson began moving slaves into skilled positions at his furnaces.