From the Richmond Enquirer, 1/28/1862

ANOTHER EXPLOSION. – Another explosion occurred yesterday, about 12 o’clock, at the “Sea Coast Ammunition Room” of the Confederate Laboratory buildings, near the Petersburg depot, by which several of the workmen engaged there were dreadfully burned. Peter Branders was filling a fuse, at the time, which by some means exploded, the sparks therefrom igniting about three or four hundred fuses which exploded, breaking all the windows in one story of the building, and dreadfully burning five or six of the inmates. Fortunately no lives were lost, but the following persons were more or less badly injured. – Chas. Shope, John Fitzpatrick, John Harman, Robert Robertson, and Mike Byron. Peter Branders, Robert Coleman, and Wm. H. Smith, who were in the room at the time of the explosion, escaped with comparative exemption from injury.

The girls engaged in the next building – the cartridge factory – rushed out, terribly alarmed, but none of them were injured. This, we believe, is the third explosion which has occurred in this city, and we hope that some means may be devised to prevent a recurrence of these dreadful accidents.

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