"They came from around the world to live the American dream. Instead, they walked into the worst nightmare--the Civil War.
Catherine Burkhart, a 16-year-old immigrant from Germany. Mary Ryan, age 18, from Ireland. Kate Horan, a 25-year-old mother of four small children. They, along with hundreds of other poor girls and women, found work in the arsenals making small-arms cartridges. They toiled up to 72 hours a week making sure that the armies of the North and South never ran out of bullets.
They worked in unsafe conditions with little training. If just one person at the arsenal wasn't careful, something terrible might happen.
Something did happen. Now, at last, the stories can be told."
During the Civil War, the Union and Confederate armies shot millions of rounds of ammunition. In the arsenals of the North and South, the job of restocking their supplies fell to the gunpowder girls. These young women and girls--some as young as nine--were mostly poor immigrants new to America. They worked long hours handling dangerous chemicals with little training.
On several occasions, someone's carelessness led to disaster. At the Allegheny Arsenal near present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an explosion on September 17, 1862, claimed 78 lives--the worst civilian disaster of the war. Scores more died in fiery explosions in the arsenals of Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
What was it like to work in one of these arsenals, packing cartridges twelve hours a day, six days a week? Why were girls hired for these jobs instead of boys? Was anyone ever held responsible for the working conditions that led to their deaths?
Gunpowder Girls is a story of child labor and immigrants' hopes and the cruel, endless demands of an all-consuming war. With painstaking primary-source research and an eye for riveting detail, Tanya Anderson has crafted a page-turner that pulls back the veil on these long-forgotten disasters during America's bloodiest war.
