While Poe did not thrive at West Point, deliberately choosing disobedience in order to be court martialed and expelled on March 6, 1831, he made many friendships there that helped him support hos writing.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.