The Sex Talk When Your Folks Are Historians

Historical Fiction

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In 1862, The Battle of Antietam raged south: 23,000 people were killed or wounded. That same afternoon, it was payday at Allegheny Arsenal up Pittsburgh way.

Black powder spillage had accumulated, filling the cracks of a flinty stone roadway. An iron horseshoe, maybe a wagon wheel, sparked the ground.

Veins of fire flashed toward the Arsenal’s artillery heart until an explosion. Limbs severed from bodies. Insides ripped out. Seventy-eight workers gruesomely erased. Mostly young women.

Hindsight breeds technology. Copper horseshoes and smooth roads would’ve prevented such carnage.

Today’s technology prevents breeding and disease. Hold your horses and carry condoms everywhere.  

Sources:

https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/04/allegheny-arsenal-explosion.html

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2024/05/29/the-allegheny-arsenal-explosion-and-the-creation-of-public-memory/

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/tragedy-allegheny-arsenal-horrid-moment-most-wicked-rebellion

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JR Walsh

JR Walsh teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego. He is the Online Editor for The Citron Review. His writing is in beloved publications such as The Greensboro Review, New World Writing, Switch, Flash the Court, The Hong Kong Review, Ghost Parachute, Fractured Literary, Taco Bell Quarterly, and Esquire.

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