Arsenal Monument

Around noon on June 17, 1864, a large explosion rocked the Washington Arsenal at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in the nation’s capital. Located on the site of present-day Fort McNair, it was the largest arsenal in the Union during the Civil War, storing and manufacturing ammunition for the federal armies. One building within the vast complex was the laboratory, where roughly one hundred young women, most of them Irish immigrants or first-generation Irish-Americans, assembled cartridges. Despite low pay and dangerous working conditions, they labored to support their families and support the war effort. It was a typical swelteringly hot and sunny Washington summer day and the windows of the structure were open for ventilation. Early that morning, the arsenal’s superintendent, Thomas B. Brown, who was also a pyrotechnist, placed a few metal pans filled with flares just outside the laboratory to dry. After sitting in metallic containers in the blinding, scorching sun for a handful of hours, the flares ignited, sending bright streams of sparks in all directions. Through an open window, at least one entered the choking room of the laboratory, where the women meticulously fastened and packaged cartridges. The sparks ignited the cartridges and stores of gunpowder in the room, causing an earth-trembling blast that blew the roof off the building and engulfed it in smoke and flame. In all, the explosion killed twenty-one women and injured many more.  

Upon hearing of the tragedy, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered that all funeral expenses for the victims be paid by the War Department. He, along with President Lincoln, attended the funeral service held a few days later at the arsenal for more than a dozen of the women. The two men also led the funeral cortege. Composed of roughly 150 carriages and stretching for nearly a mile, it commenced at the arsenal and then traveled down Pennsylvania Avenue before arriving at Congressional Cemetery. Along the route, mourners and curious onlookers lined the streets. At the gravesite, neither Lincoln nor Stanton delivered remarks, nor were they asked to. They were there simply to pay their respects to the fallen patriots. 

Soon after the funeral, workers at the arsenal met and agreed to erect a monument over the victims’ gravesite in Congressional Cemetery. In addition to giving generously themselves, they also collected donations from the city’s residents. That November, workers published a call for design proposals, eventually selecting that submitted by Lot Flannery, an Irish-born sculptor who along with his brother ran one of the leading stone-carving businesses in the city. Dedicated on the first anniversary of the disaster, the monument consists of a twenty-foot-tall, four-sided marble shaft crowned by a statue of a young woman. Dressed in classical attire with hands clasped and head bowed, she weeps for those interred below her. Near the base of the monument is a relief depicting the 1864 explosion, along with the names of the twenty-one victims. 

Sadly, the July 17, 1864 explosion at the Washington Arsenal in the nation’s capital was neither the only deadly accident at a federal arsenal during the Civil War, nor was it the only fatal mishap to occur at the complex. On September 17, 1862, a large blast rocked Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Arsenal, killing seventy-eight workers. Roughly a year and a half after the explosion that killed twenty-one young women, the Washington Arsenal experienced another tragedy when an explosion claimed the lives of nearly a dozen workers. 

Bellamy, Jay. "Fireworks, Hoopskirts--and Death: Explosion at a Union Ammunition Plant Proved Fatal for 21 Women." Prologue Magazine 44, no. 1 (Spring 2012) <https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/spring/arsenal>.

"Deadly Duty in the Arsenals." battlefields.org. American Battlefield Trust. Web. 20 May 2021 <https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/deadly-duty-arsenals>. (excerpt from Hallowed Ground Magazine, Winter 2009)

Jacob, Kathryn Allamong. Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Terrell, Ellen. " 'An Almost Inexcusable Catastrophe': Explosion at the Washington Arsenal." blogs.loc.gov. Inside Adams. Library of Congress. 19 June 2015. Web. 20 May 2021 <https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2015/06/an-almost-inexcusable-catastrophe-explosion-at-the-washington-arsenal/>.