Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1862-09-26
Arsenal. Explosion mt Pittsburr.
An Awful Sre,.a.

Even the horrors of war do nc furnish,
more awful and dreadful picture than ,h,,
on the occasion of the late arsenal expIoso,
at Ptisburg, Pa. The Piitsburg Caros;.
Gle gives the sad details. About one HIM.
bred and fifty girls were in The building,
the time. The explosion occurred at abou
three O'Clock on the afternoon of the 27b
The building was blown to atoms, and 4.
bodies Of the inmates Carried high into hs
air. The greater number, however, Der
ished by FIRE while lying under the ruins q
the shattered buildings. Altogether, about
eighty lives are reported to have been lost
Ascending the side of the Hill toward
the laboratory building, the first object that
attracted our attention was The body Of one
Of the victims, partly covered with sheet
1t was lying where il fell. nearly three han.
dred yards from the scene { the explosion.
and presented most horrible spectacle.
The flesh had been blown. as il were. from
the bones, and, with he intes;ines, ay ina
tangled mass, while the face was horribly
mulila,ed. and the corpse little better Than
hideous. shapeless pulp. From the hair
it was evident tha, the body was that Of q
female, but her Identification was out Of the
question. Higher up lay another disiaured
in the same irighilul manner, and badly
burned besides, and around rs far as the
rye could reach lay fragments Of human re.
mans here an arm, there a leg, here the
intesunes Of some unfortunate creature and
there the pelvis, and so on.
AT the lower end OF the grounds is stu.
ated very lengthy building, in which me
three hundred girls were emplt yed. o.
hearing The first explosion, the girls rushed
iranlically for The doors, and il was with
difficulty the foreman could keep then lathe
building. When the second explosion &c.
eurrrd the girls became SO terrified thai
they could not be restrained, and they rush.
ed TO the windows, broke them open AMI
preeipitated ii emselves TO ili&gfound, q d;
lance of some thirty feet. they ran arouhd
the grounds shrieking. some Of them bleed.
ing from wounds obtained in jumping
through the windows, and the sight they
exhibited was enough 10 strike terror in
any one. Some Of them ran in the dilee.
ton OF their homes, and did not stop mil
sheer exhaustion compelled them 10.
i he horrors of the scene presented alihis
great destruction of life were heightened by
the agonizing screams of relatives and
friends upon discovering the remains d
some loved one whose humble earnings con
trbuted TO their comfort Again, other
we're frantically rushing from one charret
body TO another, looking in vain for daugh
Ter or sister who was employed in The III
fated building, There was not A pafticl
Of clothing left on majority Of them, AMI
mangled and disiointed as they were, il wa
utterly impossible to identify them. I'll
very stockings were torn from their fee
rings from their fingers, and in some il
stances, nothing but a headIess trunk re
manned, Nevertheless many were identi
fled by their hair, by scrap of the dres
they wore, &c., but the greater number nev
err can be fully recognized.
That some Of the unio tnnate girls were
thrown high in the air by the explosion is
evidenced by the fact that on the branches
of some of the trees around the building
pieces of dresses were TO be seen, which
must have been torn from their bodies 10
their descent"