Riverboat in Mobile near the area of the blast
Federal forces assumed control of the port of Mobile following the evacuation of Confederate forces at the close of the Blakley campaign. A war weary populace watched as the blue coats marched up the Mobile streets which had, just weeks before, been the last Confederate port to hold out against the Union navy.
After several weeks of occupation, the Union forces had stockpiled supplies and weaponry in the numerous water front warehouses. The Union forces soon created a magazine, or ordnance depot in the area of Beauregard Street.
Soon the days began to take on a sense of normalcy. Commerce, such as it was, attempted to resume. The morning of May 25, 1865 was no exception. Soldiers moved backed and forth from the ports and business owners swept the dust from the previous day's work into the streets.
Early in the afternoon a cloud of black smoke began to fill the air in the downtown area. Soon the repeated rumble of explosions alarmed the residents. Flames shot up into the sky and shells could be heard exploding over the city. In the nearby Mobile River, two ships sank from the explosions and men standing on the wharfs were blown into the river. The concussions from the explosions was so severe that several houses collapsed.
The Mobile Press Register reported "bursting shells, flying timbers, bales of cotton, horses, men, women and children co-mingled into one immense mass."
The reporter went on to note, " The heart stood still, and the stoutest cheek paled as this rain of death fell from the sky and crash after crash foretold a more fearful fate yet impending...old and young, soldier and citizen vied with each other in deeds of faring to rescue the crumbled and imprisoned."
Perhaps even more destructive were the fires which went forth from the blast site and took their toll upon the greater portion of the homes of what was then the northern part of Mobile and left the area in smoking ruins as if some Biblical creature from Revelations had arisen from the river and smote the town.
The exact cause of the blast was never determined. Some northern newspapers tried to pin the blame on an imagined gang of unreconstructed Confederate officers. Most people, though, accepted that it was the result of simple carelessness on the part of workers handling wheelbarrows full of live ammunition.
After all of the carnage, a great crater was all which remained to remind the town of the destruction of the blast. For many years it is said the crater remained unfilled, silent reminder to the destruction at the war's end.
