Five of the seven US presidents to serve between 1869 and 1901 were veterans of the Civil War, and all were members of one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the history of the republic.
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.