The Manhattan Athletic Club, once located on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 45th street, was, in its brief period, one of the most exclusive and successful athletic clubs in the nation. In 1898, Into that aristocratic environment came a story of intrigue, a love triangle, patent medicines, and a trial of the century for murder most foul.
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.