Battle of Nashville's Peach Orchard Hill ... and peppers?

Sloping terrain near the crest of Peach Orchard Hill.

Are there Civil War relics in this ground?

Lifelong Nashvillian Jim Cooper, who used to be an avid relic hunter, examines the ground.

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I spent part of Thursday afternoon examining terrain in a neighborhood near the crest of steep Peach Orchard Hill, where regiments of U.S. Colored Troops fought courageously in their first battle of the war on Dec. 16, 1864 — the second day of the Battle of Nashville. Somewhere up here Confederates fought from behind their works.

Rick Allen briefly searched his property.

Now you must bring your imagination when you visit this site, located in a gated community. Sadly, all of Peach Orchard Hill — also known as Overton Hill — was developed for housing long ago. But if you can blot out the drone of nearby traffic, you can almost see men like former slave James Thomas of the 13th U.S.C.T. advancing up this slope.

Bonus from my visit: Gracious host Rick Allen introduced me to his uncle, Jim Cooper, a lifelong Nashvillian. He’s knows this battle. Back in the day, he found quite a few artifacts in Nashvile while relic hunting around the city, which looked before development exploded. Today's Nashville features a lot of find neighborhood restaurants ... and construction cranes.

(Double bonus: Rick gave me peppers from his garden. He warned me they are hot ... and for the record, I’d like to confirm his scouting report.)

Rick briefly brought out a borrowed metal detector to see what he could find in his yard. Nothing ... yet. Let’s keep history alive.

Warning: These peppers are HOT!

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-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

Death, heroes and ghouls at a Springfield cartridge factory

Pinfire cartridges manufactured by C.D. Leet & Co. of Springfield, Mass. 
(Aaron Newcomer via Wikimedia Commons)

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As soon as he heard the explosion, Charles M. Atwood knew his greatest fear had been realized.

“There goes Leet's cartridge factory,” the young man said to himself. Then he sprinted from his boarding house toward his former place of employment blocks away, in the heart of Springfield, Mass.

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'Human gore': More on deadly Civil War explosions on my blog

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BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

At 2:30 p.m. on March 16, 1864, a series of major explosions at the C.D. Leet & Co. cartridge factory on Market Street reverberated in town, not far from the national armory that supplied the U.S. Army with thousands of Springfield muskets and other weaponry. Leet's employed 23 women and girls and 24 men for the production of metallic cartridges for Joslyn and Spencer carbines and other weapons.

Headline in the Springfield Union
  on March 16, 1864.

Small explosions and accidents often occurred at the three-story factory leased by 40-year-old Charles Dwight Leet. A week or two earlier, Atwood quit his job, as others also had recently, because he dreaded the potential for disaster. Perhaps the accident at Leet’s factory the previous month pushed him over the edge. That day, roughly a half-pound of gunpowder blew up, frightening more than a dozen female employees, burning five of them and filling a room with smoke.

But that accident paled in comparison with this tragedy, which underscored dangers faced by ammunition workers on the home front. The final death toll reached nine — four in the explosions and subsequent fire, five afterward. Nearly a dozen suffered injuries.

The next day, officials convened a coroner's inquest to determine what caused the catastrophe — the second such disaster at a Civil War munition factory in a little more than a year. On March 13, 1863, more than 40 female workers died in an explosion at a Confederate arsenal on Brown’s Island in Richmond. More than 130 workers, mostly female, died in explosions the year before at the Allegheny Arsenal near Pittsburgh, an arsenal in Jackson, Miss., and a fireworks-turned-cartridge factory in Philadelphia.

A label for metallic Spencer carbine cartridges made at the C.D. Leet factory in Springfield, Mass.
(Wood Museum of Springfield History)

The Springfield tragedy revealed the best — and worst — of humanity.

Atwood and 10th Massachusetts Lieutenant Lemuel Oscar Eaton and Private John Nye — soldiers who just happened to be in the neighborhood — dashed into the burning factory to aid victims. Atwood knew where workers stored gunpowder, and to avoid an even greater disaster, he rushed to help remove it. As Eaton tossed powder cases out of harm's way, another explosion rocked the building, briefly knocking the 32-year-old officer senseless. He was due to return to his regiment the next day.

Lieutenant Lemuel Oscar Eaton of the
10th Massachusetts dashed into
the burning factory.
(The 10th Regiment Massachusetts
 VolunteerInfantry, 1861-1864)

After removing four cases, Atwood and Eaton proceeded to move another when it exploded, burning Atwood on the face and hands. Miraculously, both escaped without serious injuries. (Two months later, Eaton suffered a  serious leg wound at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse.) Nye suffered burns but also recovered to return to his regiment.

Upon their arrival shortly after the first blast, Springfield firemen discovered a grim scene: flames leaping from shattered windows, huge columns of smoke, wailing victims, scores of gawkers and friends and family searching for loved ones employed at the factory.

Fourteen screaming girls leaped from the third floor of the factory onto the roof of the shop next door. They "were removed by ladders," the Springfield Republican reported, after firemen and others made "the most frantic threats” to keep them from jumping to the ground.

"The conduct of the firemen and all those who volunteered to enter the burning building was heroic in no light sense of the word," the newspaper wrote. "Among the most active and efficient of all the attendants were eight or ten of our city physicians, who were unceasing in their efforts to relieve the sufferings of the unfortunate men and women."

Rescuers wrapped a burning victim in a blanket and took her to a nearby house after she leaped or was blown out of an upper-story window. In one of the most heartrending sights, a severely burned female victim, crying and groaning in agony, begged for arsenic or any other deadly concoction to end her misery.

   
    GOOGLE STREET VIEW: Approximate location of long-gone C.D. Leet & Co. factory.

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"The appearance of those who were worst injured was shocking beyond description," the Republican reported. "Every garment of their clothing was blown or burnt off, and some of them were literally a blistered and blackened mass from head to foot. So badly were they burnt that it is surprising that they were not instantly killed."

Calista Evans, a widow from New York, suffered burns over her entire body and died the next day at her sister’s house in Springfield. It was only her second day on the job. Laura Bishop, who only recently had returned to work after an accident at the factory, also died. The 22-year-old's injuries, the newspaper wrote, were of the same “shocking character” as the other horribly burned women.

Gravesite at Saxton's River Cemetery
 in Vermont for Laura Bishop, who was killed
 in the Springfield cartridge
factory disaster. (Find A Grave)

The tragedy crushed one family. John Herbert Simpson, a 27th Massachusetts veteran, stood near the loading room when the first explosion rocked the building. “Shockingly burnt,” the 19-year-old died the next morning. His 15-year-old sister, Anna, also suffered severe injuries.

“The suddenness of the affliction has prostrated Mrs. Simpson,” the Republican wrote about the siblings’ mother, “and the best of medical care can only restore her to health.”

Leet business partners Willard Hall and Horace Richardson also died the day after the explosions. Hall, who supervised 20 men and women, suffered  severe burns on his head and chest; Richardson, who managed the gunpowder and supervised three young women, fell through a set of stairs and into the cellar after the final explosion. He was attempting to save girls on the second floor.

Jane E. Goss also suffered severe burns in the explosion — her first day at work at the factory — and died nearly three weeks later. At the depot, Joshua Bellows — who later enlisted in the 4th Massachusetts Heavy Artillery — identified the remains of his adopted daughter, 17-year-old Frances.

The injured, meanwhile, suffered terribly.

“Nearly all of those who were burned have complained of being cold,” the local newspaper wrote, “and have fainted upon breathing cold air.” The disaster drove a young female factory worker from West Springfield "insane," according to a report.

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Underscoring the horror, depraved onlookers picked up ghastly souvenirs: pieces of burnt flesh and fingers of victims. The following day, a crowd gathered to examine the disaster area. Some of the ghouls among them snatched “any piece of a partially burned dress, or other scrap." the Republican reported, “as a memento of the terrible scene.”

Unsurprisingly, intense heat and fire caused the discharge of bullets from completed cartridges. Two went through the hat of contractor Jesse Button, who aided victims inside the factory and escaped with only minor injuries. Another narrowly missed the head of a woman who was sewing at her workplace on Main Street. Yet another zipped into a nearby dental office but caused no injuries.

At the coroner's jury of inquest, a six-person panel vigorously questioned Leet employees about safety procedures, potential causes of the explosions and more.

A close-up of the weather-worn memorial in
Springfield (Mass.) Cemetery for
John Herbert Simpson, a victim of the
disaster at the C.D. Leet & Co. cartridge
factory. (Find A Grave)

The first floor of the factory included the engine room and a spice manufacturer. Leet’s office and the cartridge loading and packing room occupied the second floor. Workers had stacked 25-pound cases of gunpowder at the bottom of the main stairwell leading from the first to second floor.

Cartridge production started on the third floor — employees kept the highly combustible fulminating powder there wet in a paste form to prevent accidental explosions. After the fulminate dried, workers married it to the cartridges, which female employees charged with powder from flasks in the second-floor loading room. The cartridges were eventually prepared there for shipment in cardboard boxes.

Minnie Russell worked in the loading room, where workers inserted bullets into cartridges. She testified that on the morning of the explosions, Leet urged female employees to sweep up excess gunpowder, even “if it took half their time.” Charles Smith called his employers “very careful men, none more so. [I] have heard them talk very hard to the hands.”

But Leet himself testified about a questionable practice at his factory: Although he did not allow cigar smoking, he was OK with friends lighting up as they left, passing cases of gunpowder in the process. Paradoxically, Leet — who had been involved in cartridge manufacturing since 1857-— emphasized the strict safety measures in place to prevent explosions.

Ultimately, the investigation determined the chain-reaction catastrophe began in the second-floor loading room. A cartridge apparently exploded, its sheet of flame touching off another blast fueled by fulminate and gunpowder. Then a massive blast momentarily lifted the third floor. In the chaos, some panic-stricken employees descended the stairs, their burning clothes igniting cases of gunpowder. Lucy S. Howland, who worked in the loading room, testified she was sent tumbling into the cellar — “all afire and burned awfully" — when the stairs collapsed. She somehow crawled from the burning building.

Officials reprimanded Leet, who was not in the factory when distaster struck, for woeful safety procedures.

“Hazardous,” “highly censurable,” “highly reprehensible,” the coroner’s investigation called his operation. In a subsequent investigation by the U.S. government, an inspector called Leet’s copper cartridges and the compounds used inside them “exceedingly dangerous for magazines and transportation.”

But Leet, who wasn’t charged with a crime, re-opened his factory weeks later.

The war — and cartridge making — dragged on.

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-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

SOURCES

• Fall River (Mass.) Daily Evening News, April 13, 1864
• Hartford Daily Courant, March 28, 1864
• Springfield Republican, Feb. 20, March 17, 19, 22, 1864
• "The Market Street Explosion," The Gun Report magazine, Alan Hassell, 1989. (U.S. government investigator quoted by Hassell from National Archives records group 156, no. 21.)
• 1860 U.S. census

'Peace to their ashes': Horrific deaths on Richmond home front

A sixth-plate ruby ambrotype of Richmond chemist and drug store owner Joseph Laidley.
(Image courtesy of Jeffrey S. Evans & Assoc., Inc., William McGuffin, Photographer)

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Midway through 1861, well-known Richmond chemists Edward T. Finch and Joseph Laidley lent their expertise to the Confederacy in a risky venture: percussion cap and gunpowder production. Each was among the most respected in his field in Virginia, but working with highly combustible material may have been outside their comfort zones.

Before the war, Finch boasted in the city's newspapers of his discovery of "very delicate chemical process, a new and beautiful liquid" that would remove grease and paint from clothes. He lived with his wife, five small children and a Black female servant/slave in a two-story, brick house on Clay Street, near a Methodist church.

Chemist Joseph Laidley's advertisement
in the Richmond Dispatch in March 1861.

Laidley ran a drug store on North Main Street, selling "all new and rare" medicinal remedies as well as toilet mirrors, handkerchief extracts, pomatums and more. The 32-year-old Irishman, who married into a prominent Virginia family, graduated from the prestigious Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1850.

At about 8 a.m. on June 6, 1861, Finch was working in his house with about a pound of highly explosive fulminating powder for use in percussion caps for the Virginia Ordnance Department. The material wasn't dangerous wet, but when dry and combined with heat or friction, well, that could be a recipe for disaster.

Assisted by his servant, Finch spread some of the moistened powder on a newspaper for drying in a second-floor room and then placed it on a hot grate near a wood fire. Moments later ....

Kaboom! 

A massive explosive rocked the house, cracking side walls, severely damaging the roof, blowing out a rear wall, tearing off window sashes and sending the rest of Finch's family in a room below into a panic amid fallen timbers and bricks. "A complete wreck," the Richmond Dispatch called the Finch dwelling. The blast, which startled neighbors, broke windows and bent piping in the church nearby.

Miraculously, one of Finch's daughters in the blast room escaped physical injury although for a time she lay trapped under a fallen rafter. Rescuers initially feared the 38-year-old chemist's servant, buried under debris, might be dead. But responders revived her and she received treatment for serious cuts on her legs at a hospital. The horribly mangled Finch, however, suffered life-threatening injuries.

     GOOGLE STREET VIEW: Clay Street neighborhood where 1861 explosion occurred.
    The Methodist church of that era is the present-day Hood Temple A.M.E. Zion Church. 

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At a neighbor's house, four doctors examined the bruised, blinded and burned "nearly black" chemist. The explosion lacerated his face and tore the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. "The situation of Mr. Finch was so critical," the Dispatch wrote, "that it is possible that he may not survive his injuries."

To aid Finch and his family, Richmond newspapers advocated for the establishment of a relief fund, which citizens "liberally met." A day after the tragedy, the Dispatch praised the chemist and suggested Virginia should come to his family's aid if he were to die.

"Being a practical Chemist, Mr. Finch was well aware of the attendant danger," the newspaper wrote, "but from patriotic motives and a desire to aid our common cause, he was induced to undertake the operation, hoping by care and watchfulness he might escape without injury, and that should he fall a victim, the State would not let his family suffer."

But there indeed was no saving Finch, who died a week after the explosion.

Ruins of the Richmond Arsenal in 1865 near the James River. In a wooden shed near this complex,
 Joseph Laidley made powder and percussion caps. (Alexander Gardner | Library of Congress)

Joseph Laidley received a receipt for 73 pounds of highly combustible fulminating powder in 1861. (fold3.com)

Weeks before Laidley officially began work for the Rebel government, he was making percussion caps of "unsurpassed quality," the Dispatch wrote, noting, "We invite the attention of the proper authorities to this fact. It certainly deserves consideration at their hands." And so he became a chemist at the Confederate Labs cartridge factory.

Confederate authorities constructed a wooden outbuilding for Laidley's percussion cap work on the slope of a hill behind the Richmond Arsenal, near the Thomas cartridge factory. The popular, Irish-born chemist and a young assistant named Robert B. Clayton were making cap powder there the day before the Fourth of July 1861. Some saw Laidley smoking a cigar, a risky activity for anyone working with gunpowder.

An account of Laidley's horrible death
in the Richmond Dispatch
on July 4, 1861.

Sometime between noon and 1 p.m., a huge blast at the shed — like the sound of a six-pounder cannon, according to a report — reverberated in the Confederate capital. First responders found a scene of "rare horror" inside what little remained of the demolished structure. In an extremely graphic account published the day after the tragedy, the Dispatch wrote:

Mr. Laidley was found lying on his back, one of the most horrible objects of mutilated humanity which it is possible to conceive. Within a few yards of the body was found a portion of the poor man's brains, looking as if they had been torn by a superhuman agency from the skull and splashed upon the floor. The entire head, except the lower jaw, had been blown off, and nothing remained to mark the features of a man, except a pair of whiskers and a portion of the neck. The right arm was torn off below the elbow, and from the bloody stump hung the fragments of nerves, veins and sinews which were left behind. 

One of Laidley's hands landed 200 yards away in the yard of the arsenal; responders found a portion of his face 300 yards from the explosion, near the banks of the James River. In the debris, someone found the chemist's watch, its crystal and minute hand missing and hour hand pointed to noon. Hanging on a hook, Laidley's coat still had a cigar in a pocket.

A sixth-plate ruby ambrotype of Sarah "Sallie" Cabell Laidley,  
Joseph's sickly wife. She died Jan. 20, 1862. 
(Image courtesy of Jeffrey S. Evans & Assoc., Inc.,
William McGuffin, Photographer)  

Unconscious but remarkably unscathed, Clayton lay against a nearby post, "doubled up as if he had suffered a fearful contortion." Physicians had confidence he would recover. No one knew the cause of the explosion.

Rescuers gathered what was left of Laidley, placing it in a metallic coffin at a house behind the cartridge factory. Mourners held his funeral the next afternoon, presumably attended by his sickly widow, Sarah.

"He was an estimable man in all the relations of life," the Dispatch wrote, "and a valuable citizen. His untimely death is much deplored."

In the account of Laidley's death, the newspaper also referenced the demise weeks earlier of fellow chemist Finch. "Both gentlemen were working for the benefit of the Southern States," the Dispatch wrote. "Peace to their ashes."

Days later, the Dispatch reflected further on the tragedy:

"We are daily entering upon new and praiseworthy enterprises. Our people are bravely setting themselves to the production of articles which a little experience will prove can be easily obtained among us, and while supplying our wants, will enrich our citizens. But at the same time new experiments are always attended with danger."

Continued the newspaper:

"Some are risking their lives on the battle-field -- others in furnishing the means to fight with. Sad as is the death of Joseph Laidley, and valuable as were the services he was rendering to his State, yet, if he be the means of saving others, the awful dispensation will not have been in vain."

"The victims of Lincoln's cruel war by accident," the Dispatch concluded, "have far outstripped the number of those who have fallen before the enemy."

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-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

SOURCES

• Richmond Enquirer, June 13, 1861
• Richmond Dispatch, July 16, 1859, March 14, May 20, June 7, July 4, July 8, 1861
• Richmond Whig, June 7 and July 4, 1861

'Frightful': A deadly munitions factory blast rocks Philadelphia

A cropped enlargement of an 1862 lithograph shows the grim aftermath of the munitions factory explosion  in Philadelphia. (Artist John L. Magee | Library Company of Philadelphia)

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At about 8:45 a.m. on March 29, 1862, neighbors of Professor Samuel Jackson's fireworks-turned-munitions factory heard a low rumble like the sound of distant thunder. Moments later came the roar of an explosion, followed by an even louder blast, as gunpowder and cartridges ignited in the south Philadelphia factory across the street from a prison.

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'Human gore': More on deadly Civil War explosions on my blog

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Many of the 78 factory workers, mostly women and girls, never had a chance to escape the conflagration unharmed. Eighteen employees died — including Jackson's own son, 23-year-old Edwin. Dozens of survivors suffered from burns or other injuries in the catastrophe — the Civil War's first munitions factory accident involving a major loss of life.

Like a scene from an Edgar Allan Poe horror story, dazed, burned and blackened survivors stumbled from the flaming and smoking ruins of the one-story building on Tenth Street. Others writhed in agony. "Their clothes all aflame," several female victims ran about "shrieking most pitifully."

Hundreds of curiosity-seekers rushed to the site, followed by firemen, who extinguished the blaze. Alerted by telegraph, the mayor soon arrived with the police chief. The city had not seen such an "intense state of excitement," the Philadelphia Press reported, since a huge fire at the Race Street wharf in 1850.

"Frightful calamity," the New York Herald called the disaster.

Frantic parents and friends of factory workers searched for loved ones among the crowd or in the ruins — "looking shudderingly," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, "among the fragments of clothing which still clung to the almost quivering remains of the mutilated dead." Rescuers commandeered several milk and farm wagons that happened by for use as ambulances. To keep gawkers at bay, police roped off the scene.

An artist's impression in Frank Leslie's Illustrated of ruins of a Philadelphia munitions factory
 after explosions on March 29, 1862.  (House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College)

Some injured received care in nearby tenements, but most were sent to the city's Pennsylvania Hospital. Several even had bullet wounds from exploding cartridges. Covered with soot, a badly burned young survivor ended up at a segregated hospital's area for Black patients. "[I]t was some time," the Inquirer reported, "before the mistake was discovered and rectified." He died the next day.

At least five of the victims were teens; one was 12. When the blast rocked the building, 14-year-old John Yeager was carrying a box of bullet cartridges that also exploded, knocking out his eyes. His sister, Sarah, also suffered injuries. They helped support a widowed mother.

Twenty-two-year-old Richard Hutson spent the last hours of his life at the house of Margaret Smith, who lived on Wharton Street, near the factory. His face was as "black as a man's hat" because of severe burns. "He seemed to be troubled with the idea that he had caused the mischief," recalled Smith, "but we tried to comfort him."

The Philadelphia Inquirer provided extensive
coverage of the disaster.

Widows Margaret Brown and her sister, Mary Jane Curtin, suffered terribly. Five of Brown's children who worked in the factory suffered injuries. Blown across the street into a wall of Moyamensing Prison by the blast, Mrs. Curtin — the superintendent of children at the factory — somehow escaped physical injury. But Mary Jane lost the $60 in gold she was carrying. Her three children, also munitions workers, suffered severe burns.

Rescuers found Edwin Jackson's body, "shockingly burned and multilated," among the charred factory ruins. He was overheard the previous evening saying he was unafraid of any explosion at his father's facility. Also employed in the factory, Samuel Jackson's daughters, 20-year-old Josephine and 18-year-old Selina, suffered severe burns.

Thankfully, heroes emerged to aid the sufferers: A woman cut her shawl in two, wrapping the pieces around two "half-naked" young girls, both factory workers. A court officer put his coat around a burning girl, putting out the flames and perhaps saving her life. And a Union cavalry officer, who happened to be riding past the factory, picked up a horribly burned victim and dropped him off at a drug store for medical aid. (When the soldier returned to his camp, he found a detached hand in his carriage.)

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But the catastrophe also brought out the worst in humankind: In the chaos, scoundrels snatched clothes from Mrs. Conrad's explosion-battered tenement on Austin Street, a block or so from the blast. A ragpicker offered fragments of clothes from the explosions for 25 cents. And when two victims sought aid at a residence in the neighborhood, the lady of the house indignantly slammed the door in the women's faces, telling them "she did not keep a house for working girls to enter." The local newspaper heaped scorn on the door-slammer: "Was the woman insane, or a fiend, or was it merely an instance of what utter vulgarity is capable of?"

Heard a great distance away, the explosions shattered windows, damaged shutters and sashes, blew doors off hinges, wrecked plaster and toppled furniture in nearby homes. The blast catapulted a man cleaning a lamp in front of a tavern headfirst through the building's doorway. He survived, but the lamp got "broken to atoms." Even inmates in gloomy Moyamensing Prison — the castle-like structure nearby where Poe once slept off a bender — got rattled.

Grisly discoveries put an exclamation point on this Saturday horror show.

A 1901 photo of Moyamensing Prison. Mary Jane Curtin, superintendent of children at Jackson's factory, 
was sent sailing into the prison wall by the blast. (Philadelphia Prison Society)

An illustration of the disaster in the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 31, 1862.

Blood of the victims streaked the walls of houses in the neighborhood. A cheek from a victim's face stuck to a building on Tenth Street. A portion of a thigh plopped in a yard, near where it left a bloody mark on the rear brick wall of a tavern. A stomach landed atop a tenement building, A severed arm hit a woman in the head, knocking her down, and a scorched and fractured skull with gray hair landed in the street. It probably was from Yarnall Bailey, a 60ish factory worker from West Chester.

"Heads, legs and arms were hurled through the air, and in some instances were picked up hundreds of feet from the scene." the Inquirer reported. "Portions of flesh, brains, limbs, entrails, etc. were found in the yards of houses, on roofs and in the adjacent streets." A policeman filled a barrel with human remains.

On April 7, 1862, the Philadelphia Inquirer
 wrote of the death of another munitions
 factory worker.

"I picked up a bit of skull, with the hair adhering to it, more than a block (an eighth of a mile) from the place," a  Herald correspondent wrote, "and a whole human head, afterwards recognized as that of John Mehaffey, was found in an open lot against the prison wall."

In perhaps the ghastliest news from this awful day, a man told an Inquirer reporter that he saw a boy going home with a human head in his basket. The lad said it was his father's.

Two days after the disaster, more than 2,000 people sought admission to Pennsylvania Hospital to check on the injured. "Such a rush to this institution," the Press wrote, "was never before known."

This illustration of the disaster appeared in a German publication in Philadelphia.  
(Free Library of Philadelphia,  Print and Picture Collection |  "Castner Scrapbook v.19, Disasters,
 Criminal Prisons 1, page 10")

         
        GOOGLE STREET VIEW: Present-day view of  long-gone munitions factory site.
        Moyamensing Prison site at left; it's now site of a supermarket and a parking lot.

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Authorities worked quickly to determine the cause of the explosions. The fire marshal convened a coroner's jury, whose gruesome tasks included examining remains of victims at the First Ward police station, some "blown literally to atoms." In the vest pocket of one of the victims, it found a note: "J.H. Mooney, No. 440 Walnut St. Brotherly Love Section."

The day after the explosions, the six-person jury also stopped at the home of Professor Jackson, who was not in his factory when the blasts occurred. The 45-year-old pyrotechnic wizard had to be strong this day: The jury examined his son's battered body in Jackson's Federal Street house before Edwin's burial in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

On April 3, 1862, the Philadelphia Inquirer
told readers about
funerals for victims of the explosions. 

After the war broke out, the U.S. government had contracted Jackson's fireworks factory to make  millions of "Dr. Bartholow's solid water-proof patent cartridges," a "peculiarly made" ammunition for cavalry pistols.

"Innocent labors upon visions of beauty and delight have thus been diverted towards preparing necessary means for the destruction of demon-impelled men who have involved the country in war, from which it can only be rescued by their death or disperson," the Inquirer wrote.

In the three weeks previous to the tragedy, Professor Jackson reportedly suffered from the strain to produce 1.5 million cartridges for the Army of the Potomac.

The factory, which made about 7,500 cartridges a day, consisted of frame structures and a brick structure about 10 x 12 feet. Boards covered the powder magazine — "merely a large hole dug in the ground," the Press reported.

Workers stored about 50,000 cartridges in the factory moulding room, where eight men and four boys worked, and a finishing room, where women and girls placed bullets into cartridges. Fifty pounds of loose black powder and several kegs of the highly combustible material occupied other areas in the tight quarters.

Samuel Jackson's factory produced Bartholow's
cartridges for cavalry pistols.

The day after the disaster, the fire marshal concluded the first explosion occurred in the moulding room, where the strike of a mallet may have caused the spark that set off a 30-second chain reaction of death and destruction. But he didn't know for sure — all the witnesses in that area were either dead or too badly injured to aid the investigation. Ultimately, the jury determined the detonation of a scale of dry powder caused the castastrophe. 

"[M]any obviously essential precautions to prevent [the] accident," it concluded, "seemed to have been entirely neglected." But no one faced charges for the disaster.

Wrote the Herald about the tragedy: "It is a solemn and terrible warning to those working in similar establishment, and we trust that its effect will be to make [munitions workers] more careful of their own safety by the strict observance of those cautions, the neglect of which may consign hundreds to untimely graves and carry suffering and desolations into many homes."

Well into June 1862, the Philadelphia Inquirer
 reported, victims from the munitions factory
 explosions remained hospitalized.

Two weeks after the disaster, a concert was held in Philadelphia to aid explosion victims. Those who attended paid 25 cents for the event, which raised nearly $400.

Professor Jackson's factory eventually re-opened in nearby Chester, Pa., along the Delaware River. Jackson storied black powder for the operation on a boat offshore, a safe distance from the factory. Despite the deadly accident, the professor had no trouble filling his ranks with female workers, who earned the princely sum of 40 cents per thousand cartridges made.

 "[T]hey would rather earn a living salary, at risk of their lives," the Inquirer wrote in a sad commentary of the era, "than endure the indignities and hardships to many forms of female occupation."

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Post-Civil War view of the Allegheny Arsenal in
the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh.
(University of Pittsburgh Historic Photographs)

POSTSCRIPT: Were any other lessons learned from the Philadelphia disaster? Perhaps not. On Sept. 17, 1862, 78 workers, mostly women, were killed in an explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal near Pittsburgh. Within the next five months, dozens were killed in arsenal explosions in Jackson, Miss., and Richmond. And on June 17, 1864 — a brutally hot day in the U.S. capital — 21 women died in an explosion at the Washington Arsenal. Most of the victims were young, Irish immigrants. President Lincoln attended their mass funeral.

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-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

SOURCES

— Baltimore Sun, March 31, 1862
— New York Herald, March 31, April 1, 1862
— Philadelphia Inqurier, March 31, April 1, April 5, April 7, April 12, May 2, 1862
— Philadelphia Press, March 31, 1862

'Human gore': A catastrophic explosion at Bachelor's Creek

Accidental explosions, such as this one at Fort Sumter and the one at Bachelor's Creek, N.C., 
on May 26, 1864, occurred throughout the Civil War.  

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Shortly before one of the most horrific tragedies of the Civil War, United States soldiers eagerly gathered at the Bachelor's Creek station for the arrival of a military train from New Bern. In addition to supplies for Camp Claassen, base for the 132nd New York, the train delivered mail and newspapers — welcome news for the soldiers stuck in the backwaters of North Carolina.

The 4 p.m. train on May 26, 1864, also carried a deadly cargo: four crude mines. The U.S. military intended to deploy the "monstrous" torpedoes, built with large barrels packed with 250 pounds of black powder, with nine others already in the nearby Neuse River as a deterrent to Confederate warships.

132nd New York Colonel
Peter Claassen requested
 coffins from New Bern
after the explosion.

While soldiers clustered near the train platform, workers haphazardly removed the barrels from a boxcar. They rolled three from the train before a block of wood apparently struck the cap on the last mine, triggering a massive explosion that set off the other three. 

"Like the crush of a thousand pieces of artillery fired simultaneously," a newspaper described the sound of the blast.

Heard at least eight miles away, the explosion caused death and destruction on a massive scale. At least 40 soldiers and perhaps as many as 25 contrabands — escaped slaves — were killed. The blast obliterated a large signal tower and a 20 x 80-foot commissary building made of logs.

"The air was instantly filled with the torn and mangled remains of human bodies," recalled a 132nd New York soldier in a letter to the Niagara County (N.Y.) Intelligencer. "... Most of the victims were blown into fragments and for a distance of hundreds of yards human gore and remains were everywhere visable."

"The disaster," the New York Times reported, "was one of the the most appalling and heartrending that has happened in this country in a series of years."

Moments after the blast, soldiers frantically aided the wounded, but many of the unfortunates could not be helped. The disaster created a scene only Edgar Allan Poe might have envisioned.

The explosion scattered heads, bodies and limbs as far as a quarter mile. A distinctive ring on his detached arm identified David Jones, a commissary sergeant in the 132nd New York. Three soldiers from Company B of the 132nd New York, the hardest-hit regiment, appeared on a casualty list in the New York Herald as missing, "probably blown in pieces."

In the commissary building, a man who was bending over a barrel of rice had grains embedded in his face. He later died.

"An approximate idea may be conceived of the difficulty in identifying individuals when I state that three hard bread boxes were filled with fragments of flesh picked up on the spot," wrote Herald correspondent George Hart, "and the locomotive attached to the train was thickly covered with fragments of shattered humanity." All that remained from the four men handling the torpedoes, a witness claimed, was a small piece found 150 yards from the explosion.

The grave of torpedo explosion victim
Michael Brisco of the 132nd New York
at New Bern (N.C.) National Cemetery.
(Find A Grave)

Near the commissary building when the torpedoes exploded, a 132nd New York soldier got tossed about fifty feet. He landed on all fours but miraculously escaped without serious injury. Using the pen name "Hiawatha," he described the grim aftermath for the Buffalo Courier. 

"The train of last night brought up coffins and our men have been digging graves all night," he wrote. "Some eighteen bodies, more or less mangled, but recognizable, are now being buried. The condition of the dead ranged from a half mangled mass to a perfect jelly."

Continued "Hiawatha," who only suffered temporary deafness:

"The body of one man was thrown some two hundred yards, and on its way it passed a tree, taking a branch some three inches in diameter with it. The body fell some thirty feet beyond the tree. Another poor fellow was hurled about one hundred yards, and, the last fifty of his progress, the body grazed the ground carrying away in its passage a half rotten stump. Feet, hands and other fragments of bodies were thrown in all directions, but mostly towards the Sutler's shop three hundred yards distant. Taking it all and all, it was indeed a terrible scene of ruin, destruction and woe."

The explosion killed civilian Hezekiah Davis — “an old citizen of that neighborhood” — and seriously injured Frank Gould, a 10- or 11-year-old from New Bern. 

"Doctor," the boy pleaded, "I can stand any amount of pain, but don't take off my leg." 

The doctor saved the limb, but Gould's friend, Sergeant William Ennever of the 158nd New York, suffered a mortal wound. 

A woman who lived roughly a half mile from the blast sought the aid of a military surgeon for her injured arm, struck by a piece of wood thrown in the explosion.

Some had Lady Luck on their side. 

As Adjutant Joseph Palmer of the 158th New York neared the locomotive astride his horse, the animal "showed great uneasiness, being restive and apparently terrified." A few seconds before the blast, the horse bounded away, perhaps saving his rider's life. The blast tossed Thomas Stewart of the 158th New York into the air, but he somehow survived with only a few bruises. The explosion threw a soldier drawing whiskey from a barrel headlong into the spirits. He also survived.

Spotted weeping after the catastrophe, Colonel Peter Claassen of the 132nd New York telegraphed New Bern requesting medical aid and coffins. Horribly mangled soldiers received care at a hospital in the garrison town, but many of them didn't survive.

The gravestone at New Bern (N.C.) 
National Cemetery for Stephen Sanford,
killed in the explosion.
(Find A Grave)

"This sad accident, entailing such fearful consequences, has cast a gloom over the soldiers of the outposts which will require a long time for them fully to overcome," the Herald wrote.

But the enemy didn't feel the Federals' pain.

The State Journal of Goldsboro, N.C., a Confederate newspaper, reported "great consternation" in New Bern, adding, "Such a scene of wild confusion is said to have existed in the good old town as has never been exceeded, except in the vicinity of the explosion." 

In a final, evil dig at the United States military, the newspaper concluded, "We regret that the whole infernal race was not within easy range of the torpedoes."

In the days immediately following the tragedy, commanding officers wrote to loved ones of the victims. Captain John W. Fenton of the 132nd New York advised Private Michael Brisco's widow to hire "some honest lawyer or claim agent" to help her secure a pension. (See letter and full transcript below.)

"My regiment mourns a loss of 39 killed & about 25 wounded," Fenton continued. "I have lost out of my company 6 men killed. Yourself and little family have my sincerest & warmest sympathies for the sad affliction to you."

On June 8, Captain George H. Swords of the 132nd New York wrote Sergeant Stephen E. Sanford's father that it would be "impossible" for him to retreive his son's remains "as it would be contrary to orders." Come in the winter instead, he advised, but get a permit from the commanding officer in New Bern. (See letter and full transcript below.)

Perhaps to take the sting out of that news, the officer also sent to Mr. Sanford a memento of his son: a lock of hair cut off by a friend after Stephen's death.

fold3.com

Camp Claassen, 132d N.Y.Vols.
Out Posts, Bachelors Creek, N.C.
May 27th, 1864

Mrs. Brisco,

It becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your husband, Michael Brisco, formerly of my Company, who was instantly killed last evening by the premature explosion of a "Torpedo" at the time he was in the discharge of his duty. His remains have been interred in the Regimental Grave Yard; his papers will all be made out so that you can obtain his back bounty due him & also his back pay. They will be forwarded to Washington and by your making application to the Adjutant General you can get the money. You are also entitled to a pension. Place the matter in the hands of some honest lawyer or claim agent and ...

Fold3.com

... you will have no difficulty. My regiment mourns a loss of 39 killed & about 25 wounded. I have lost out of my company 6 men killed. Yourself and little family have my sincerest & warmest sympathies for the sad affliction to you.

I am respectfully, 

John W. Fenton
Capt, 132d N.Y. Infty Vols.


P.S. His bounty due him is $75 U.S. Bounty and four months & 26 days pay. Your husband's effects will be sold & the proceeds placed to your credit on the pay rolls. Any little memento he may have I will send to you.

J.W.F.

Fold3.com

Head Quarters C Company, 132d N.Y. Inftry.

Out Posts of N.C., Bachelors Creek near 

New Berne, N.C., June 8, 1864
Mr. Stephen Sanford, 

Sir,

Your communication of 3d instant was received this afternoon. Your son's effects were forwarded June 1, 1864 per Adams Express Co. directed as follows viz.: "Mrs. Cordelia E. Champion, No. 163, York St, New Haven, Conn.

It will be impossible to send your son's remains home as it would be contrary to orders. In the winter it may be done by obtaining a permit from the Commanding Officer at New Berne. Enclosed you may find a lock of his hair which was cut off at the time of his death by one of his friends.

I wrote several days ago to Mrs. Champion and stated all the particulars of your son's death with  instructions what course to pursue in every particular.

Respectfully Your Obt. Servt.
Geo. H. Swords Jr.
Captain Commanding

---

-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

SOURCES

• Buffalo Courier, June 4, 1864
• Michael Brisco and Stephen Sanford pension records, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C., via fold3.com
• New York Herald, June 2, 8, 1864
• New York Times, June 2, 1864
• Niagara County (N.Y.) Intelligencer, June 1864
• North Carolina Times, New Berne, N.C., June 4, 1864
• The State Journal, Goldboro, N.C., June 3, 1864

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