Magazines: General Introduction

Civil War Field Fortifications

Magazines

General Introduction

In field fortifications magazines were stoutly constructed structures designed to safely store and preserve explosive materials required for the service of a fortification's armament. Magazines were closely associated with batteries, semi-permanent fortifications, and other works prepared to receive an armament of heavy artillery. There were two basic types of magazines: powder magazines and service magazines. Powder magazines were designed to store relatively large amounts of gunpowder for a more or less prolonged period of time. Service magazines were designed to hold smaller amounts of powder required by a fortifications' armament while it was in action. Both types of magazines generally consisted of an interior structure, the chamber, which could be divided into separate rooms for storing gunpowder and filling shells and cartridge bags, a gallery which provided access to the chamber, and a covering mass of soil which protected the chamber and its contents against both horizontal and vertical fire.

All magazines had to be designed to meet specific structural performance requirements that were determined by the inherently hazardous nature of their contents, the necessity for protecting their contents from contamination and decomposition, and, most importantly, the need to protect the volatile contents from enemy artillery fire. Magazines also had to be designed with sufficient interior space to hold an effective amount of powder for the service of a fortification's armament. Civil War period manuals offered a number of standardized designs of varying complexity for magazines using a wide variety of commonly available siege materials such as scantling frames, gabions, fascines, and combinations of these materials. Whichever method of construction was used, the chamber had to be built with surplus strength so that it could withstand both the weight of the covering mass and the concussion of shot and shell impacts on the covering mass. Manuals also suggested several ways that magazines could be protected from enemy fire by sinking their chambers below the natural level of the ground and placing them under epaulments or traverses or increasing the thickness of the covering mass.

During the Civil War engineers preferred fully framed structures for magazine chambers and galleries and used almost all the methods for protecting magazines prescribed by their manuals. In general magazines were either constructed as detached works well separated from the armament and other elements of the fortification they served or were attached to other elements of their fortification and were made to serve more than one defensive purpose. When space was very limited magazines could be constructed to include other elements such as filling rooms and in one notable case on Morris Island a magazine's covering mass also sheltered a telegraph office and a latrine. Unfortunately, magazines constructed according prescribed designs tended to perform their intended functions rather poorly over time as the materials used to construct them began to decompose. Some magazines were simply poorly constructed. Both lead to magazine failures that were sometimes correctable and sometimes unrecoverable. Accidental explosions due to carelessness and other causes were relatively uncommon, but not unknown.

Organizational Notes and Table of Contents

As might be gathered from the introduction, magazines were rather complex structures. In the hope of promoting a clear understanding of this complex subject this subsection has been divided into two main headings. Theoretical Considerations treats basic performance requirements that magazines had to meet in order to adequately fulfill their conjoined functions of storing an appropriate amount of gunpowder and other hazardous materials safely and preserving the stored material in serviceable condition. Specific magazine designs using various materials that were prescribed by various period manuals are categorized and covered in some detail. This first heading also discusses methods of protecting magazines from enemy fire presented in engineering manuals.

The second heading, Practical Designs, further classifies magazines according to their positions relative to other elements of the field fortifications that they served. Rather than discussing magazines as they were usually constructed or attempting to track common traits beyond general classifications a number of specific and individualized examples of magazines in specific field fortifications are offered as a more or less representative, if somewhat limited, sample of the various types of magazines that were used during the Civil War the various ways those magazines were sited and protected within field fortifications. A concluding section on magazine failures that occurred during the war has been appended.

The following Table of Contents provides links to each page of this subsection. Links to each page have also been provided at the bottom of each page.

Finally, please remember that you had to agree to abide by certain conditions in order to view this subsection. Please use this information in a suitably abstract and responsible manner. Most especially do not use the information contained in this subsection to do anything stupid like trying to construct your own backyard magazine. Magazines are subterranean structures that require an uncommon degree of skill and experience to construct and even then are not, by any stretch of the imagination, safe. Think back for a moment to all the times you have seen or read about construction workers being killed or seriously injured in trench cave-ins and unexpected failures of retaining walls. These things will crush you and kill you and bury you and asphyxiate you if they can. Don't give them the chance.

Magazines Table of Contents

Theoretical Considerations in Magazine Design

Performance Considerations in the Design and Construction of Powder Magazines

Gabion and Fascine Magazine Designs

Frame and Fascine Magazine Designs

Fully Framed Magazine Designs

Magazine Galleries

Position and Protection of Magazines

Practical Magazine Design and Positioning

Practical Designs Introduction

Detached Magazines

Siege Battery, Petersburg, Virginia