The Impeachment and expulsion of Senator William Blount is little remembered today, but it represents an important legal watershed, and caused a literal brawl on the floor of congress. It was perhaps the greatest scandal in the history of America’s upper house.
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.