Chattanooga, Friday, June 9 This afternoon a terrible explosion and fire broke out in town about 1 P. M. The large building on the levee, filled with artillery ammunition, took fire from an engine standing by. The reports of bursting shell were heard continuously, and flames and smoke rolled up with great fearfulness. I went down in time to see giant flames envelop 400 feet of warehouses, filled with forage and rations, while the explosions of ammunition, with the fact that a still larger arsenal laid adjacent, liable to blow up at any moment, caused great consternation among the citizens, women and children fleeing in dismay. But the military were cool and on the ground. Guards spread all over town taking in all within their reach to work on the fire engines. Assembly sounded in all the camp, and the reserve artillery, as indeed all others needed, marched down en masse. I followed the 6th. We reached the river bank, one engine playing on one end of the military bridge, which was in imminent danger of taking fire, another working on the roof of the brick arsenal containing 750,000 tons of small ammunition. Strings of men passing buckets. We were double quicked under the fiery breath of the burning machine by Alby Sweet, and set to work on the double-decker water engine. We were playing on the arsenal not five rods distant, the heat so great that the water was dried before it ran off. Had the wind wavered a little, nothing could have saved it, and with all probability most of us would have been hurled into eternity. But luckily we were saved, notwithstanding the shells were still exploding over us. No one was hurt.
And now I come to another sorrowful page in my diary. When the imminent danger was over and the flames somewhat checked, some officers, prompted by the devil or some other demon, ordered whiskey barrels rolled out, and the heads knocked in around the engines. And oh, what a change. The strong arms of men working in sober earnestness were stopped by the deadly fires of poisonous drugs termed whiskey, the air rent with yells and oaths, fit only for pandemonium. This to me was heartsickening, and as soon as we could evade the guards, Milt. Hungerford and myself came to camp.
About 5 P. M. the others came, but oh, what a sight. Eight or ten raving maniacs. They were not habitual drunkards, many of them heretofore strictly temperate, but under the excitement and heat lost their discretion. Ah! what pain it would have given the loving mother to see her son, her pride, the youth of the family, staggering through our camp in this condition or filled with madness. What chagrin to the loving maiden to see her idol as I did to-night. What agony in the heart of the wife it would awaken to see the husband of her bosom and the father of her children, who but a few months ago only left home with the vow of fidelity to principle and home upon his lips, reeling along or being carried an insensible lump to his bed. Oh, ye Christian churches and temperance lodges, how have thy members disgraced thee to-day. Really, my faith in human nature becomes somewhat shaken by such scenes.
Late in the evening another explosion took place among the ruins. A fragment struck John Stewart in the head. Our Battery kept away.
