Explosion of Peacemaker
- When
- 28 February 1844
- Where
- Potomac River near Mount Vernon
The gun Peacemaker exploded aboard Princeton during the 28 February 1844 Potomac cruise, killing six people including two Cabinet members and David Gardiner.
Peacemaker had been loaded to fire a salute to George Washington as Princeton passed Mount Vernon on the return trip. During the 28 February 1844 cruise, the gun exploded, killing six people, including Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer, and David Gardiner, Julia Gardiner's father. A United States Senator and Captain Stockton were among the injured.
Sources
- USS Princeton (1843) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-06
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.