Philadelphia and the Civil War: Arsenal of the Union

Immigrants to Kensington, freemen of Lombard Street, Germantown millworkers and Broad Street nurses-all answered the call of the Union.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Philadelphia was the second-largest city in the country and had the industrial might to earn the title "Arsenal of the Union." With Pennsylvania's anthracite coal, the city mills forged steel into arms, and a vast network of rails carried the ammunition and other manufactured goods to the troops. Over the course of t...