In 1864, residents of Washington, D.C., mourned together at the largest funeral the district had ever seen. In the midst of the Civil War, the poor Irish neighborhood of the Island lost twenty-one mothers, sisters and daughters. On June 17, dangerous working conditions and a series of unfortunate events led to the deadly explosion of a Federal arsenal at Fort McNair, where the young women made cartridges to assist the war effort. In the wake of the horrific event, a monument was erected at Congressional Cemetery to honor those who were lost. Author Brian Bergin similarly memorializes these women through his book, detailing the poor working conditions, the investigation into the avoidable events leading to the tragedy and the reaction of a community already battered by the Civil War.

Outstanding. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written ... We can now add their names to the human toll of America's greatest conflict -- James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of Battle Cry Of Freedom With thousands of men off fighting in the Civil War, the U.S. and Confederate governments hired women and girls - some as young as ten - to make millions of rounds of ammunition. Poor immigrant girls and widows paid the price for carelessness at three major arsenals. Many of these workers were killed, blown up and burned beyond recognition. Hidden history comes alive through primary-source research and page-turning narrative. Gunpowder Girls is a story of child labor and immigrant hopes and the cruel, endless demands of an all-consuming war. A Junior Library Guild Selection and Benjamin Franklin Award gold medalist.

"It started as land purchased in 1880 to fill the Ordnance Department's need for a powder depot near the Atlantic Coast. Once an enterprise to produce and store something so explosively dangerous had gotten underway, a continuous inflow of expertise was needed to make that enterprise flourish. This begins to explain how the Dover Powder Depot grew from a modest operation to supply gunpowder into the nation's principle ammunition loading operation at the start of World War II. Today, Picatinny Arsenal is a brainpower hub where more than 5,000 scientists, engineers and support staff turn leading-edge technology into the weapons, ammunition, and related production and storage designs to make United States service members the best-armed fighters in the world. [This book] chronicles the development of this enduring national asset. The armaments developers who work at Picatinny Arsenal today are part of a legacy of providing state-of-the-art weapons designs that have directly influenced outcomes in numerous U.S. battles and campaigns."--Page 4 of cover.

In Red Line, Joby Warrick, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Black Flags, shares the thrilling unknown story of America’s mission in Syria: to find and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons and keep them out of the hands of the Islamic State. In August 2012, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When secret intelligence revealed that the dictator might resort to using chemical weapons, President Obama warned that doing so would cross “a red line.” Assad did it anyway, bombing the Damascus suburb of Ghouta with sarin gas, killing hundreds of civilians, and forcing Obama to decide if he would mire America in another unpopular war in the Middle East. When Russia offered to broker the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, Obama leapt at the out. So began an electrifying race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war. The extraordinary little-known effort is a triumph for the Americans, but soon Russia’s long game becomes clear: it will do anything to preserve Assad’s rule. As America’s ability to control events in Syria shrinks, the White House learns that ISIS, building its caliphate in Syria’s war-tossed territory, is seeking chemical weapons for itself, with an eye to attack the West. Drawing on astonishing original reporting, Warrick crafts a character-driven narrative that reveals how the United States embarked on a bold adventure to prevent one catastrophe but could not avoid a tragic chain of events that led to another.

An in-depth account of the Civil War people and events that left their mark on the city at the heart of the Union, shaping its historic legacy. When the first shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861, Washington, DC, was a small, essentially Southern city. The capital rapidly transformed as it prepared for invasion—army camps sprung up in Foggy Bottom, the Navy Yard on Anacostia was a beehive of activity, and even the Capitol was pressed into service as a barracks. Local citizens and government officials struggled to accommodate the fugitive slaves and troops that crowded into the city. From the story of one of the first African American army surgeons, Dr. Alexander Augusta to the tireless efforts of Clara Barton, historian Lucinda Prout Janke renders an intimate portrait of a community on the front lines of war. Join Janke as she guides readers through the changing landscape of a capital besieged. Includes photos!

“An energetic study of the famed writer’s time in the nation’s capital and the loves of his life” (Washington Independent Review of Books). Walt Whitman was already famous for Leaves of Grass when he journeyed to Washington at the height of the Civil War to find his brother George, a Union officer wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Eventually, Whitman would serve as a volunteer “hospital missionary”—making more than six hundred hospital visits and serving over eighty thousand sick and wounded soldiers in the next three years. With the 1865 publication of Drum-Taps, Whitman became poet laureate of the Civil War, aligning his legacy with that of Abraham Lincoln. He remained in Washington until 1873 as a federal clerk, engaging in a dazzling literary circle and fostering his longest romantic relationship, with Peter Doyle. This fascinating blend of biography and history details the definitive account of Walt Whitman’s decade in the nation’s capital. Includes photos!