1863 — March 13, Explosion, Confederate Ordnance Lab., Brown’s Isl., Richmond, VA –40-50
— >60 DeCredico/Martinez. “Richmond During the Civil War…Time Line.” Encyclopedia VA.
–40-50 Blanchard[1] estimated range of fatalities.[2]
— 50 Richmond Sentinel, VA. 4-13-1863.
–40-50 Quint. “A Tale of Two Explosions.” UMWblogs.org,[3] 9-13-2013.[4]
— 46 VAUDC. “[VA Div.] Dedicates Monument to Victims of CS Laboratories Explosion.”
— >44 Calos. “Brown’s Island munitions explosion was worst wartime disaster in Richmond.”[5]
— 40 The American Civil War Center, Richmond, VA. “Tragedy at Brown’s Island.”
— 33 Boston Post, MA. “Telegraphic News.” 3-20-1863, p. 4.
— 33 New York Times. “Important Rebel News…” 3-20-1863, p. 5.
Narrative Information
Calos: “The first blast lifted Mary Ryan off the floor. The second blew her to the ceiling. The Confederate munitions factory on Brown’s Island exploded with a fury that killed more than 40 of its female workers,[6] an event that shocked the city on March 13, 1863….Ryan, an Irish teenager like many of the other workers at the Confederate States Laboratory, accepted blame for the explosion during the several days she lingered in pain. She confessed to Col. Josiah Gorgas, chief of ordinance, that she had banged a perforated wooden board containing friction primers against a table to knock them loose. The jostling was strong enough to ignite at least one of the primers, which set off an explosion that demolished most of the 70-foot building.
“Between 80 and 100 workers, mostly women, were in the room either at their jobs or warming themselves at a coal stove. An official report counted 69 casualties, of whom at least 44 died….
“Only a few of the victims died instantly. Others suffered “the most horrible agonies, blind from burns, with the hair burned from their heads, and the clothing hanging in burning shreds,” the Examiner wrote. A few jumped in the river to extinguish the flames. For the rest of the month, deaths from the accident mounted. Mary Ryan, age 18, died March 16 at the home of her father, Michael Ryan, who also worked at the arsenal. Elizabeth Young, 25, died in a rented room on Oregon Hill ‘after a severe pain of twelve hours, caused by the fearful accident on Brown’s Island,’ the Daily Dispatch reported March 17….
“Only three of the dead were men. The Rev. John H. Woodcock, 63, was supervisor of the room where the blast occurred. James Curry, 13, died the night of the explosion from his injuries. Samuel Chappell, 16, somehow lived five days after being found wedged against a wall with his skull crushed from the collapse of the building’s roof.
“In an official inquiry by the War Department, Capt. Wesley N. Smith, superintendent, estimated that the room that exploded had contained 200,000 musket caps, 2,000 to 3,000 friction primers and about 10 or 11 pounds of gunpowder.
“It was more crowded than normal because materials weren’t available to finish an expansion of another building.
“The mixture of jobs increased the risk of an accident. In addition to finishing friction primers, sewing cannon cartridge bags and boxing musket caps, workers were filling Williams cartridges and taking apart defective cartridges to separate the gunpowder and lead. As a result, gunpowder dust would’ve been in the air.
“Friction primers were a detonation device for cannons. When the cannoneer pulled a lanyard attached to the friction primer pin, the effect was the same as striking a match. The spark ignited gunpowder inside the metal primer tube, and that small explosion ignited a larger charge inside the cannon….
“Many of the munitions workers were young women because their small, nimble fingers were considered more suited to the task of assembling up to 1,200 cartridges a day….
“The munitions lab on Brown’s Island didn’t exist until after the war began. Smaller explosions at its original location at the end of Seventh Street had raised safety concerns. So, the island was cleared and a group of one-story wooden buildings was constructed for the operation in 1863….
“Gorgas, the Confederate ordinance chief, issued new regulations a week after the Brown’s Island explosion. To prevent a reoccurrence, he said, friction primers and percussion caps would not be brought into rooms that contained loose powder until the primers were bundled for packing. Rooms where loose powder was processed would not have more than 10 people at a time. Workers would get drapes of noncombustible cloth ‘as soon as practicable.’
“The new regulations showed that even though Mary Ryan got the blame for the spark, the severity of the accident was not her fault….
“By the end of March, the Daily Dispatch reported that work had resumed at Brown’s Island. There was no shortage of new workers….” (Calos, Katherine. “Brown’s Island munitions explosion was worst wartime disaster in Richmond.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, VA. March 4, 2013, updated March 5, 2013.)
DeCredico and Martinez: “March 13, 1863 – On Friday the 13th, an explosion at the Confederate States ordnance laboratory on Brown’s Island kills more than sixty young women and children and briefly halts production.” (DeCredico and Martinez. “Richmond During the Civil War…Time Line.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.)
NYT: Thirty-three deaths have occurred from the explosion at the laboratory on Brown’s Island. The total killed and wounded is 64. The explosion took place last Friday.” (New York Times. “Important Rebel News…” 3-20-1863, p. 5.)
The American Civil War Center: “On March 9 [2013], the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar and the Richmond National Battlefield Park will present Tragedy at Brown’s Island….About 20 young women died instantly. Another 20 died within hours from burns and other injuries. In the midst of war, this was the worst domestic tragedy Richmond had faced….” (The American Civil War Center, Richmond, VA. “Tragedy at Brown’s Island.” 2013.)
VAUDC: “On March 13, 1863, 18-year-old Irish immigrant Mary Ryan reported for work in Department 6 of Richmond’s Confederate States Laboratories (CSL) on Brown’s Island in the James River. The brainchild of Confederate ordnance chief Colonel Josiah Gorgas, the CSL was charged with manufacturing small arms and ammunition for the Southern war effort.
“Because most of Richmond’s men were already serving their country at the front, women and young children were the backbone of the operation. Their hands were small, dexterous, and well suited to the task of assembling the cartridges, fuses, caps, and primers for the Confederate army. Working at peak efficiency, even a child as young as nine could turn out an astonishing 1200 cartridges per day.
“A January 1863 article in the Richmond Inquirer had praised the CSL for its admirable safety record, but all that was about to change.
“Although Mary, at 18, was one of the factory’s older workers, her youth and her rudimentary knowledge of explosives would led to disaster on that chilly March day. As she attempted to extract and recycle the black powder from a defective friction primer, she inadvertently created a spark that detonated the powder on her table. The chain reaction that followed destroyed the building that had housed Department 6 and killed Mary and 45 of her 70 co-workers. Almost all of the dead were young girls under the age of 16.
“Despite the fact that they gave their lives for their country, those who perished in the Brown’s Island explosion were soon forgotten as Richmond returned to the grim business of supplying the soldiers in the field. Only Department 6 supervisor Reverend John Woodcock was accorded the dignity of a proper funeral and a headstone; the remainder of the victims (many the children of poor immigrant families) were laid to rest in unmarked paupers’ graves.
“One hundred and thirty-nine years after the accident that claimed their lives, the women and children of the Confederate States Laboratories have at last received the recognition that has so long eluded them. On September 15, 2001, members of Virginia Division UDC and Virginia Division CofC gathered in the Confederate section of Richmond’s Oakwood Cemetery to dedicate a monument to those who died in the Brown’s Island explosion.
“At the suggestion of Fairfax Chapter 1410 member Mrs. B. Donald Boltz, who had researched the explosion for an article in The Washington Times, Virginia Division President Mrs. David S. Whitacre set out to design and finance a suitable memorial to the victims. She was assisted in her undertaking by Virginia Division, Children of the Confederacy, which conducted a year-long fundraising campaign to help defray the cost of the monument.
“The gray granite marker that now stands beside the gazebo in Oakwood Cemetery tells the story of the explosion; the names of those who perished and their ages are engraved on the back.”
(Virginia Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy (VAUDC). “Virginia Division Dedicates Monument to Victims of CS Laboratories Explosion.” 3-3-2013 modification.)
Williams: “On Friday March 13th, 1863, eighteen-year-old Mary Ryan was at work at the Confederate States Laboratory on Brown’s Island. The small ammunition factory had several hundred employees, most of whom were young women between the ages of twelve and twenty. The work, which often required small hands, was vitally important to the Confederate war effort, which suffered often from shortages in the supply of ammunition.
“The C.S. Laboratory was divided into six departments, and Mary Ryan worked in the last one. Seated at the end of a table with a handful of other employees, she was filling friction primers–the devices used to ignite gunpowder inside a cannon. This was dangerous work. In fact, the superintendent Captain Wesley N. Smith had reminded her of that during his routine inspection of the facility just fifteen minutes prior. Shortly after 11:00 AM, Mary noticed that the primer had gotten stuck and so she struck the table three times to dislodge the primer. Upon the third strike, the primer ignited and an explosion sent her flying upwards. The first explosion ignited other materials in the room, causing a second, much-larger explosion that destroyed the building completely.
“The Richmond Examiner described the initial reactions around the city:
A dull, prolonged roar in the direction of Brown’s Island, across the James river from the foot of Seventh street, startled that portion of the city and directed attention to the island, on which is located the Confederate Laboratory works, for the manufacture of percussion caps and gun cartridges. – But similar sounding explosions, arising from the trial of ordnance at the Tredegar Iron Works, had been daily heard in that neighborhood, and it was some minutes before a dense smoke arising from the island apprised the citizens of the true cause of the explosion…
…A tide of human beings, among them the frantic mothers and kindred of the employees in the laboratory, immediately set towards the bridge leading to the island, but the Government authorities, soonest apprised of the disaster, had already taken possession of the bridge, and planting a guard of soldiers, allowed passage to none except the workmen summoned to rescue the dead and wounded from the ruins….
Some ten to twenty were taken from the ruins dead, and from twenty to thirty still alive, but suffering the most terrible agonies, blind from burns, with their hair burned from their heads, and the clothes hanging in burning shreds about their persons. Others less injured ran wailing frantically, and rushing wildly into the nearest arms for succor and relief. Mothers rushed about, throwing themselves upon the corpses of the dead, and the persons of the wounded.
The immediate treatment of the burned consisted in removing their clothing and covering the body thickly with flour and cotton, saturated with oil; chloroform was all administered. The sufferings of the wounded were alleviated by these means in the interval between their rescue and removal to their homes, or General Hospital No. 2, where many were taken. The returning ambulances carrying the sufferers were besieged by the friends and relations of the employees, and children clamored into the vehicles crying bitterly in their search after sisters and brothers. The distress among friends was aggravated by the fact that it was utterly impossible to recognize many of the wounded on account of their disfigurement, except by bits of clothing, shoes. (Richmond Examiner, 3-14-1863.)
Sources
Boston Post, MA. “Telegraphic News.” 3-20-1863, p. 4. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/ThumbImage.ashx?i=224715483
Calos, Katherine. “Brown’s Island munitions explosion was worst wartime disaster in Richmond.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, VA. March 4, 2013, updated March 5, 2013. Accessed 1-22-2015 at: http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/article_9683aac6-847f-11e2-b033-0019bb30f31a.html
DeCredico, Mary and Jaime Amanda Martinez. “Richmond During the Civil War…Time Line.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, in partnership with the Library of Virginia. Accessed 1-19-2015 at:
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/richmond_during_the_civil_war
New York Times. “Important Rebel News…” 3-20-1863, p. 5. Accessed 1-22-2015 at:
http://www.nytimes.com/1863/03/20/news/important-rebel-battle-imminent-tullahoma-tennessee-rumored-attack-upon-helena.html and at:
http://newspaperarchive.com/ThumbImage.ashx?i=7628646
Quint, Ryan. “A Tale of Two Explosions.” UMWblogs.org, 9-13-2013. Accessed 7-29-2019 at: http://twoexplosions.umwblogs.org/
Richmond Sentinel, VA. 4-13-1863. The link on the mdgorman.com website devoted to “Civil War Richmond,” is no longer active. In the note column is written “body of a Laboratory explosion victim found in the ‘race leading to Haxall’s mills.” Notes that 50 deaths have thus far resulted from the explosion.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch/Calos. “Brown’s Island munitions explosion was worst wartime disaster in Richmond.” 3-4-2013. Accessed 7-29-2019 at: https://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/brown-s-island-munitions-explosion-was-worst-wartime-disaster-in/article_9683aac6-847f-11e2-b033-0019bb30f31a.html
The American Civil War Center, Richmond, VA. “Tragedy at Brown’s Island.” 2013. Accessed 1-22-2015 at: http://www.tredegar.org/tregedyatbrowns.aspx
Virginia Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy. “Virginia Division Dedicates Monument to Victims of CS Laboratories Explosion.” 3-3-2013 modification. Accessed 1-22-2015 at: http://vaudc.org/browns_island.html
Williams, Phil. “Civil War: An Explosion Rocks Brown’s Island.” RVA News website. 3-13-2013. Accessed 1-22-2015 at: http://rvanews.com/features/civil-war-an-explosion-rocks-browns-island/86556
[1] Compiled by B. Wayne Blanchard in 2015 and updated in July 2019 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com
[2] While it appears to us from a reading from the sources below that the death toll was probably between 46 and 50 Both the VAUDC web article noting 46 deaths (names listed on their monument) and the Richmond Sentinel, VA note of 4-13-1863 noting 50 deaths appear reliable. We cannot ignore, however, the sources which note fatalities which fall between 40 and 50. We do not use the DeCredico and Martinez notation of “over 60” deaths in that it is similar to reports of more than sixty (sometimes specifically 64) “casualties” – casualties are injured and killed.
[3] Quint: “This blog is a project for History 327: Women’s History to 1870; Univ. of Mary Washington, Fall, 2013.”
[4] “The most common number of deaths associated with the Brown’s Island lay between forty and fifty. First to report that figure was the Richmond Examiner, which gave the number in its March 14 printing…Exactly a month after the explosion on April 13, the Richmond Sentinel reported, ‘Up to the present time there have been about fifty deaths resulting from the explosion.’ Modern historians have also put the death count between forty and fifty.” Cites The Richmond Examiner, March 14, 1863, Richmond Sentinel, April 13, 1863, and Ernest B. Furgurson, Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War (New York: Vintage Press, 1996, p. 189.)
[5] “Between 80 and 100 workers, mostly women, were in the room either at their jobs or warming themselves at a coal stove. An official report counted 69 casualties, of whom at least 44 died.”
[6] Calos notes, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch article of 3-4-2013, that three men were among the fatalities: The Rev. John H. Woodcock, 63, supervisor in room where blast occurred; James Curry, 13, and Samuel Chappell, 16.