Explanation: A brilliant fellow by the name of John Doughty during the US Civil War suggested getting a head start on the atrocity carousel by initiating mass chemical warfare about 50 years early. This is by no means a concerning idea, and Mr. Doughty was doubtlessly a wholly sane and stable individual. Luckily, the suggestion was not adopted.

Funny enough, the Lieber Code adopted by the Union during the Civil War, dealing with the rules of warfare, DOES actually prohibit the use of poison, so this idea would have been illegal even at the time.

This got me thinking about how long have we been putting chlorine in pools. This random website says that it was “first suggested” in 1894 (without any citation, so take that with a salt water pool’s worth of salt).

So shells filled with chlorine gas would not smell like a swimming pool during the US Civil War. Because a swimming pool probably smelled like stagnant water and piss.