You will doubtless before this reaches you see in the public papers an account of one of the most terrible calamities of the age - One of those terrible gun powder explosions - You may not see the papers & I will give you a brief account of it as far as I have learned  Yesterday about 4 P.M. a large warehouse in the citty Mobile filled with ammunition such as shells &c  to the amount it is said of two hundred tons & about thirty tons of powder in kegs - barrels &c exploded - How? will never be known  Soldiers & Gov employees were at work - loading a steamboat from the warehouse or rather "Ordnance Store" for Texas  It is said one of the men had a lighted pipe & another story that a percussion shell fell on the floor & exploded, but all these things are guessed at for of course every one in or about the buildings were instantly killed. I have not been up to the citty since the sad ocurrence but from what those who have witnessed the scene say of it - it is truely terrible  That part of the citty is principally built up with large brick warehouses Cotton Presses &c.  Fourteen Blocks are in ruins - Eight of them not a brick left in the walls - Just immagine - a commercial Citty with shipping at the wharves - loading & unloading & in an instant - an explosion that literally crash down by mere concusion massive walls of masonry - the walls fell outward the roofing & floors downward - steamboats were blown to pieces by the shock & by fragments of buildings & others which did not fare so badly were broken & took fire & burned up - some men were found dead without a bruise - having been killed by the shock - all this was done in an instant, at one crash - hardly a window left in the Citty - doors - wrenched from their fastenings & strewn in the streets Ceilings & partitions torn down - horses killed & buggies harness wagons &c
