The seventh Battle of Selma historic marker was unveiled Thursday at one of Selma’s most important Civil War sites.

The latest in the series of landmarks was erected outside the Arts Revive Carneal Building, which 150 years ago would have been the grounds for a Confederate arsenal.

Selma’s arsenal was one of the key factors that led to Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson’s raid into Alabama.

Aside from Richmond, Va., Selma was the South’s top military manufacturer, making riles, ammunition, cannons and steam rams. The arsenal and its 500 workers produced about 30,000 rifle cartridges a day, making it a key target for Federal troops.

“Confederates were trying to keep the Federals from burning or destroying all the public property that went into the effort of making war,” said James Hammonds, president of the April 1865.

The seventh marker focuses on the events of when the arsenal was captured. That’s a little different than the other markers, which have focused for the most part on the battle itself.

“Some people don’t realize the significance of the army arsenal, and the role it played in the latter part of the Civil War, in supplying the troops in the South,” Hammond said.

During the battle, some people placed artillery shells on chutes and dumped them into the river. So many were dumped that some began to show above the water.

However, all of the ammunition couldn’t be dumped from the 24 buildings that made up the arsenal.

A Union sergeant from Indiana gave this account of the arsenal’s burning, which is inscribed on the marker: “…In half an hour they began to explode, throwing fire and old iron 1,000 feet high. This made every fellow hunt his hole and craw into it, too.

“The scene was hideous and unearthly beyond anything we had ever imagined. The explosions continued for three hours, much louder than anything we had ever heard and of sufficient violence to shake the earth for miles around, making the whole city a perfect pandemonium…”