Today S.O.S. is recognized by almost everybody, all over the world. And its meaning has gone beyond the code from which it was created.
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.