"Hessian reports incident after surrender of Charleston, SC" Topic

"Revolution in America" confidential letter & Journals 1776-1784 of Adjutant General Major Bauermeister of the Hessian Forces. Rutgers University Press, 1957.

In his journal of July 4, 1779, "during the following days lists were prepared to show how much grain..etc..the magazines contained. Other commissioners listed the artillery, small arms, ammunition, and entrenching tools, and a separate commission under the (British) artillery Captain Collins was appointed to store the guns, many of which had been made in European factories, in a powder magazine. Unfortunately, the storing was not done with necessary caution; in fact the whole business was awkwardly done. Without making sure whether the rifles (muskets?) were loaded or not, they threw them in a pile. Barrels of powder and charged shells only lightly crated stood one on top of another. A musket went off, and instantly the entire magazine blew up. Meanwhile some hundred loaded rifles were discharged by the heat and increased the loss: the percussion injured men and houses within a large area. Captain Collins, two of his subalterns, some thirty British soldiers, and as many revels and idle onlookers were instantly killed, and a proportionate number injured.

More dangerous than the fighting!

GdeP