14 New Confederate Memorials to Be Dedicated Saturday in Richmond to Victims of Browns Island Munitions Explosion

Via Billy

"Though their hands were small and not hardened in battle, their service to the Confederacy looms large."

On Friday March 13th, 1863, eighteen-year-old Mary Ryan was at work at the Confederate States Laboratory on Brown’s Island. The small ammunition factory had several hundred employees, most of whom were young women between the ages of twelve and twenty. The work, which often required small hands, was vitally important to the Confederate war effort, which suffered often from shortages in the supply of ammunition.

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