In the summer of 1813 USS Chesapeake left Boston harbor to challenge HMS Shannon. The battle was exceedingly bloody and incredibly brief, and gave birth to one of the navy’s most famous mottos.
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.