HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania The discovery of a cache of cannonballs left behind after the worst civilian disaster of the Civil War brought construction on a Pennsylvania apartment complex to a halt Tuesday while workers waited for the ordnance to be removed. <\/p>\n
At least 20 cannonballs were unearthed Monday in Pittsburgh by a contractor on the site of the former Allegheny Arsenal, where a Sept. 17, 1862, explosion killed 70 mostly teenage workers. <\/p>\n
There were too many cannonballs for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Polices bomb disposal unit to remove, so a specialty firm from Maryland was called in to clear the site, said Sonya Toler, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety. <\/p>\n
They should be on the site today to begin the work, Toler said Tuesday in an interview. <\/p>\n
Officials believe the cannonballs are stable, but have posted a 24-hour police guard on the site, Toler said. <\/p>\n
Workers had been alerted of the possibility that ordnance would be found, and stopped when the first cannonball turned up in the bucket of a excavator. <\/p>\n
Many of the victims of the arsenal were torn apart and burned beyond recognition by the blast, which killed the 13-year-old daughter of one of the plants supervisors, who had worked on the production line. <\/p>\n
The disaster took place on the same day as the Battle of Antietam, which stands as the deadliest one-day battle of the war that led to the abolition of slavery in the United States. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Cache of Civil War cannonballs found at Pennsylvania construction site - Bangor Daily News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania The discovery of a cache of cannonballs left behind after the worst civilian disaster of the Civil War brought construction on a Pennsylvania apartment complex to a halt Tuesday while workers waited for the ordnance to be removed. At least 20 cannonballs were unearthed Monday in Pittsburgh by a contractor on the site of the former Allegheny Arsenal, where a Sept. 17, 1862, explosion killed 70 mostly teenage workers Continue reading