Hugh Mulcahy represented an important first for Major League baseball, and became a symbol of both the character, and sacrifice, of what has been called The Greatest generation.
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.