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On September 17, 1862, an explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, kills seventy-eight girls rolling bullet cartridges for the Union army. News of the catastrophe is buried, however, beneath the horrendous casualty reports coming out of the Battle of Antietam, fought on the very same day.
Inspired by these two real-life tragedies, Consecrated Dust tells the wartime story of four young northerners - feminist, Clara Ambrose; soldier, Garrett Cameron; industrialist, Edgar Gliddon; and immigrant, Annie Burke - friends, lovers, and bitter rivals. In the teeming streets and factories of Pittsburgh, and on the battlefields of the Army of the Potomac, they struggle to survive, forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and greed. Their choices ultimately lead to their presence at both the Arsenal and the Antietam battlefield on that fateful September day, a day that reveals the true meaning of courage - a day not all of them will survive.
Mary Frailey Calland bridges the gap between historian and storyteller, adeptly using characters to walk the reader through the times and events in 1862 Pittsburgh where life and the consequences of war collide. Rich in historic detail, Consecrated Dust is a narrative window to the past. MICHAEL KRAUS, Curator of Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, and military consultant to the films Gettysburg and Cold Mountain.
The Civil War is seared into American memory for the horrors of the battlefields, North and South. Mary Calland’s Consecrated Dust brings the tragedy to the northern home front and Pittsburgh - the Arsenal of the Union - which experienced in a single day the greatest death of civilians during the four year conflict. ANDREW E. MASICH, President & CEO of the Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, PA.
