From the Richmond Whig, 4/27/1865

THE CITY MAGAZINE. - To the curious, the site of the late city magazine will repay a visit. It will be recollected the magazine was blown up by the Confederates just before sunrise on the morning of the 3d instant - eleven inmates of the city almshouse and one old colored man living on 2d street being killed by the explosion, and thousands of panes of glass in the city smashed by the concussion. We have no means of ascertaining the quantity of powder in the magazine at the time it was blown up, but presume it must have been several tons. The magazine, a small brick building, twenty feet wide, by thirty long and twenty high, surmounted by a steep slate covered roof, and surrounded at the distance of six feet by a thick brick wall which rose above the eves, was situated on the southern slope of a hill one hundred yards east of the northern extremity of Shockoe Hill Cemetery, and about the same distance north of the buildings occupied by the Superintendent of the Poor and the city paupers. - The building faced due north and south. On the morning of the evacuation, the Superintendent and inmates of the Poor House somehow became aware that the magazine was to be blown up, and all hustled out and ran in their night clothes over the neighboring hills and stopped in what they considered places of safety. Having waited some time, and no explosion taking place, a number of them determined to return and save their clothing. About the time they reached the places where they had left their clothing and whatever other little property they possessed, the explosion occurred. The four walls of the magazine were blown not equally in every direction, but in four volleys towards the four cardinal points of the compass. One of these volleys raked the Almshouse premises, making a wreck of one-half of the main building and utterly demolishing several of the smaller buildings. Eleven of the paupers were killed outright either by flying brickbats or the concussion, and several others seriously injured. - Another volley was thrown westward up the hill toward the cemetery, about twenty yards of the wall of which was knocked down level with the earth. - Many of the bricks and other rubbish were thrown much farther westward, to Second street and beyond. An old colored man, lying asleep in the upper story of his house, on Second street, was killed by a brick which passed through the roof and struck him in the temple. The other two volleys, flying east and north, expended themselves on the hills. Nothing but a long narrow trench in the ground, looking like the grave of a resurrected giant, marks the spot where the magazine stood. - It is astonishing into what atoms the brickbats and timbers of the building were for the most part blown. They have more the appearance of having been ground in a grist mill or quartz-crusher than blown up. None of the rubbish fell back into the foundation. From each side spreads out over the green hills the pulverized brickbats, like four enormous pale red faces.

By this explosion the City Hospital and the new Poor House had most of their glass broken, but received no other considerable damage. Had the magazine not been situated somewhat in a ravine, the injury to the city and the loss of life resulting from its being blown up must have been much greater. We have not learned the name of the individual who applied the torch. We wish we were able to state that he lost his life by the exploit.

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