Cache of Civil War cannonballs found at Pennsylvania construction site – Bangor Daily News

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.

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.

They should be on the site today to begin the work, Toler said Tuesday in an interview.

Officials believe the cannonballs are stable, but have posted a 24-hour police guard on the site, Toler said.

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.

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.

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.

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Cache of Civil War cannonballs found at Pennsylvania construction site - Bangor Daily News