Grant's strategy for 1864 included the bruising Overland Campaign. The bloodshed of the campaign of attrition began on May 5, in a field in Virginia.
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.