On June 17, 1864, female workers, many of whom were young, Irish immigrants, were busy assembling ammunition cartridges at the Washington Arsenal, laboratory, a U.S. Army installation (now Fort McNair) at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The women and girls who assembled bullets were known as “chokers”, and worked in the “choking room”. The Washington Arsenal laboratory was staffed with 108 women and girls. In 1864 there were no safety regulations and no child labor laws. The youngest worker, Sallie McElfresh, was but twelve years of age, and Annie Bache, who shared her workbench, was thirteen at the time of the explosion. Young women and teenage girls were often selected for this dangerous work as it was believed their smaller fingers better enabled them to pack the ammunition once it was assembled. Their work choking involved inserting a lead bullet into the powder-filled cylinder, tying off the bullet end of the cartridge with a couple of rounds of thread and placing the closed cartridge into a wooden box that sat in front of each choker.
The weather that Friday was typical of Washington in summer, hot, oppressive and humid, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees. Just before noon red and white star pellets, also produced used in fireworks, that were drying on metal trays outside the women’s workspace ignited in the heat. The pyrotechnics flew into the air and one pellet entered a window left open for ventilation. It skidded across the worktable, igniting the cartridges being assembled and landed in a barrel of gunpowder. The ensuing explosion blew the roof off the building and fire engulfed the women wearing highly flammable cotton shirts and hoop skirts. Those lucky enough to have survived the initial blast ran for the doors and windows, many with the bottoms of their hoop skirts ablaze. As they rushed past terrified co-workers, their skirts would touch, resulting in a domino effect of flaming hoopskirt's. The building was consumed in minutes and twenty-one women died.
Female workers with men on porch of Cartridge Manufactory,
Washington Arsenal, 1864 LOC* * * * * *
TERRIBLE CALAMITY
EXPLOSION AT THE WASHINGTON ARSENAL
Weekly National Intelligencer (Washington, District of Columbia), 23 June 1864, p. 4.The Community were shocked yesterday (Friday) by one of those calamities that appall the mind by their suddenness and terrible consequences.
At ten minutes past twelve o’clock, the quarter of city adjacent to the United States Arsenal, near the Four-and-a-half street, was startled by an explosion, followed by a column of smoke rising from the Arsenal grounds. Persons hurrying to the scene found that the long building or shed, called the laboratory, where shells are charged; was blown up, and was on fire. The alarm was given and the Hibernia steam engine and other machines were quickly rallied and set to work to quench the flames which were roasting the bodies of the unfortunate victims of the disaster. At twenty minutes past one the fire was extinguished, and some bodies and fragments of the bodies were taken out of the ruins.
The scene was horrible beyond description. Under the metal roof of the building were seething bodies and limbs, mangled, scorched, and charred beyond the possibility of identification. Most of those who skated – about two hundred and fifty persons, mostly female were employed in that building – had fled shrieking away. Some fainted and were with difficulty restored, and some after the first shock, returned to shriek over the fate of their companions; while an agonized crowd of relatives rushed to the spot to learn the tidings of their daughters or sisters who were known to have been in the fated building.
Up to three o’clock, eighteen or nineteen bodies had been taken from the ruins. They were so charred as to defy identification. The number could not be definitely ascertained, as the reader may know, when told that half a dozen of the bodies were put into a box about five feet square. Three women were taken out alive and placed in hospital. Their names are Sally Mc Elfresh, Annie Bache, (or Bates,) and Rebecca Huil. Miss Bates is so seriously burned that her recovery is doubtful. Sarah Gunnel escaped from the building, and, being terribly frightened, ran towards her home, which is on Four-and a half street, Island, between Fifth and Sixth, but swooning away, and died instantly, it is supposed of fright.EXPLOSION AT THE WASHINGTON ARSENAL
We learned that four of the sufferers who were rescued alive from the burning ruins of the laboratory at the Arsenal on Friday died on Saturday, increasing the total number of deaths by that calamity to twenty-one, whose names are thus reported: Susan Harris, a young girl, member of the Wesley Chapel: Eliza Lacy, Betty Breschnahan, whose husband is a soldier in Grant’s army; Miss Collins; Miss Yonson; Eliza Adams, daughter of a dealer in Centre Market; Miss Mc Elfresh, who was removed to her mother’s residence and died during Friday night; Ellen Roach; Anna Bache, died in hospital on Friday night; Joanna Connor; Kate Horan; Miss Dunn, Julia McElwen; Mrs. Tippett; Miss Murphy; Mary Burroughs; Rebecca Hull; Miss Brailor; Emma Baird; Mary Boroughs; and Ada or Willie Webster; which of the two is not certain, but that one of the sisters is dead appears beyond doubt.
The following is the verdict of the inquest held by Coroner Woodward, in view of the bodies of the victims of this calamity
Weekly National Intelligencer (Washington, District of Columbia), 23 June 1864, p. 4.
Washington Arsenal, Washington D.C.
That on the 17th day of June the said Joanna Connor or the body of the individual supposed to be a female - came to her death by the explosion of the laboratory in which she was engaged in choking cartridges. That the said explosion took place about ten minutes before 12 o’clock AM, and it was caused by the superintendent of the laboratory placing three metallic pans some thirty feet from the laboratory containing chemical preparations for the manufacture of white and red stars. That the sun’s rays, operating on the metallic mass, caused spontaneous combustion, scattering the fire in every direction, a portion flying into the choking room of the laboratory through the open windows, igniting the cartridges and causing the death of Joanna Connor. The jury is of the opinion that the superintendent, Mr. Brown, was guilty of the most culpable carelessness and negligence in placing highly combustible substances so near a building filled with human beings, indicating a most reckless disregard of life, which should be severely rebuked by the Government.
Monument for the victims of the 17 June 1864 explosion at the Washington, D.C. Arsenal. The monument is located in Congressional Cemetery, Washington, DC. The Arsenal laboratory was staffed with 108 women and girls (The youngest worker, Sallie McElfresh, was twelve years of age, and Annie Bache was thirteen at the time of the explosion). In all twenty-one female laboratory workers, mostly Irish immigrants, died and many more were seriously injured explosion. The names of the dead as inscribed are listed below:
Ellen Roche • Julia McEwen • Bridget Dunn • W. E. Tippett • Margaret Horan • Johanna Connors • Susan Harris
Lizzie Brahler • Margaret Yonson • Bettie Branagan • Eliza Lacey • Emma Baird • Kate Brosnahan • Louisa Lloyd
Mellisa Adams • Emily Collins • Mary Burroughs • Annie Bache • Rebecca Hull • Allie McElfresh • Pinkey Scott* * * * * *
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