Magazine Failures

Civil War Field Fortifications

Magazines

Magazine Failures

A magazine failure occurred any time that a magazine ceased to perform its designed functions of preserving its contents in serviceable condition and protecting it from enemy artillery fire. Most failures were something less than dramatic and occurred slowly over time as the structural components of the chamber, gallery, or covering mass settled, shifted, or decomposed. Some magazines suffered from poorly designed chambers and galleries that were simply not made well enough to stand up under the weight of the covering mass or were simply leaky; bad siting placed many magazines on ground that was too wet to allow it to perform its basic function of keeping powder dry. Some failures were a bit too dramatic and either led to or were caused by sudden loss of structural integrity of the chamber. This latter category of failures includes accidental detonations of stored materials which necessarily blew the magazine, its contents, hapless occupants, and everything near it to the next level of existence. A few examples should be sufficient to point out some of the ways that magazine failures occurred.

An excellent example of a near failure due to inadequate design is supplied by the attached magazines in the Federal siege batteries constructed at Goat Point on Tybee Island for the reduction of Fort Pulaski. These magazines were constructed using full frames, eight feet wide, placed at three foot intervals. Two layers of one inch plank were used to form the chamber roofs and the walls were also lined with one layer of one inch plank. A covering mass of sand seven feet thick was thrown on top of the chamber structures. These magazines rather quickly began to show signs of failure due to the weight of the heavy sand covering mass. Caps-sills started sagging while the upper joints between the stanchions and cap-sills proved inadequate and began to spilt the stanchions. A quick solution consisting of a center post placed to support each cap-sill, which reduced pressure on the stanchion joints and prevented further sagging, was applied which temporarily saved the magazines from complete and untimely failures.

Excessive moisture intrusion was one of the most common causes for magazine failures. Water could destroy the contents of a magazine almost as quickly and just as surely as an accidental detonation. Causal elements that allowed water to penetrate a magazine chamber were numerous and varied; ranging from poor siting on saturated ground to ineffective design of the chamber to poor shaping or ineffective ramming of the covering mass. The Confederate Savannah River batteries, constructed after the reduction of Fort Pulaski to protect the city from Federal gunboats, roughly constituted a laboratory in ways that water could penetrate a magazine chamber. The magazine of Battery Cheves, which was located on a small island in the river, was sunken so low that tidal water tended to seep through the chamber floor and its covering mass drained rainwater toward the gallery entrance rather than carrying it around the doorway. According to one report water had entered the magazine twice and destroyed 1,600 pounds of powder, a loss that the Confederates could not accept with regularity. Although a new magazine had been constructed, it was too small to hold sufficient powder to serve the battery's seven gun armament. Another three gun battery on Hutchinson's Island, which was in the river opposite Savannah's waterfront, failed due to water that oozed up out of the ground and covered the chamber floor to a depth of about six inches. Federal engineers encountered similar water intrusion problems on the low lying islands at the mouth of the river when they were preparing for the bombardment of Fort Pulaski; at Venus Point they solved the problem by building a magazine on a raised foundation of sandbags.

Almost instantaneous magazine failures occurred when the contents of the chamber were accidentally detonated. This type of failure was a serious matter, not only did such a thing cause a great deal of damage and was almost always attended with a heavy loss of life, it also effectively silenced the armament that the magazine served. A couple of magazine detonations deserve to be noticed as examples of ways in which these accidents could occur. At 11:05 on the morning of September 15, 1863 the magazine of Battery Cheves, on James Island near Charleston, South Carolina, suddenly exploded killing one lieutenant (who was killed when a tree blown down by the explosion fell on him) and six men, four of whom were actually in the magazine. Although the cause could not be definitely determined, the sargeant of the magazine had taken a loaded shell with a five second fuse into the magazine to replace the fuse. It was assumed that some accident must have ignited the fuse. All of the battery's powder, primers, and other implements necessary for service of its armament were destroyed and the battery was silenced until these could be replaced and a new magazine constructed.

On the morning following the Federal assault and capture of Fort Fisher, on Federal Point, North Carolina, the main magazine, which was sited on the terre-plein in rear of the angle that joined the fort's land and sea faces, suddenly exploded. Almost as soon as the Confederates surrendered Federal troops were posted to guard the entrances of the fort's bomb proof shelters and magazines, but somehow the officer charged with placing the guards did not notice the main magazine and failed to have it guarded. Without a guard, troops, who were said to be intoxicated, were passing into and out of the magazine at will, until somebody got tired of trying to see through the darkness of the magazine chamber and either carried in a lit candle or struck a match. The board of inquiry convened a few days later to find the cause of the explosion determined that it occurred due to carelessness on the part of persons unknown, who, quite reasonably, had probably all ready passed rather suddenly to the next level of existence.

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