On this day Sept 17 1862 they fell to eternal rest “Unsung  Women of the American Civil War”

“Dedicated to the Heroines of the Civil War.” On this day in 1862 75 workers die in explosion at Allegheny Arsenal, Pittsburgh

The unsung heroines of the Civil War, women of a fatal Magazine explosion which shook the city on the afternoon of September 17, 1862, when almost a hundred lost their lives in the Allegheny Arsenal, are at last to be recognised. It was not unusual for children to be employed in munition work. As early as 1812, Colonel of Artillery Decius Wadsworth had written to the Secretary of War, “In the making of musket cartridges, children of 10 12 or 14  years of age can be employed as usefully or even more so than men.” Hired for their small hands and dexterity, children, willingly went to work in the Allegheny…