In the early morning hours of May 9, 1837 the steamboat Ben Sherrod, traveling from New Orleans to Louisville, caught fire. The public was shocked as details of the tragedy emerged,. The tragedy of the burning, sinking, and explosion of the Ben Sherrod should never have happened.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
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.