FrazierC
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2012
"'I have had three horses shot under me,' Confederate general Stephen D. Ramseur wrote to his wife about a recent battle he had survived. 'My saddle was shot through the pommel. I got four holes through my overcoat besides the ball that passed through my arm. I tell you these things, my Darling Wife, in order that you may be still more grateful to our Heavenly Father for his most wonderful and merciful preservation of my life.'
Many Civil War soldiers could describe near escapes experienced on the battlefield when an an enemy bullet tore through hat or clothes without causing bodily harm. In a similar indecent, Union soldier Iola Caleb of the 17th Maine got a 'close shave' when a musket ball tor through his beard without bringing 'more blud than many a barber.'
Another type of close call would come when a bullet headed for a soldier's body struck a belt buckle or scabbard instead, deflecting the missile or absorbing so much of its energy that it failed to penetrate his person. Walter G. Jones of the 8th New York Cavalry carried in his shirt pocket a small Bible that in two different battles stopped bullets that would most likely have inflicted fatal wounds. After a bullet that plunged into a deck of cards carried by Colonel Harry Gilmor in an inside coat pocket stopped at the last card- the ace of spades- his men never tired of asking him if 'spades are trump.'
One of the more remarkable experiences of the war was that of Confederate Private Finley P. Curtis, who caught a bullet with his hand, without injury, at the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. 'A molten hail of lead hissed like pronged serpents' fangs about my ears...' remembered Curtis. I marveled that I stood on hostile ground alive in the midst of a death hurricane so withering, seeing, as in a dream, hundreds of collapsing forms. A spent ounce ball caught the concave palm of my upraised loading had, faintly stinging. For a moment I held it thus, thinking nothing, then purposelessly threw it down. Again and again I wished I had kept it.'
'A merciful God, he who takes care of the fatherless and the widow, took care of the soldier,' said Private Albert Elmore after the fuse on a 300-pound artillery shell that landed at his feet went out without exploding."
Source:Foster, Stephen T. "Close Calls: Divine Interventions?" (n.d.): n. pag. Rpt. in Atlas Editions, USA. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Many Civil War soldiers could describe near escapes experienced on the battlefield when an an enemy bullet tore through hat or clothes without causing bodily harm. In a similar indecent, Union soldier Iola Caleb of the 17th Maine got a 'close shave' when a musket ball tor through his beard without bringing 'more blud than many a barber.'
Another type of close call would come when a bullet headed for a soldier's body struck a belt buckle or scabbard instead, deflecting the missile or absorbing so much of its energy that it failed to penetrate his person. Walter G. Jones of the 8th New York Cavalry carried in his shirt pocket a small Bible that in two different battles stopped bullets that would most likely have inflicted fatal wounds. After a bullet that plunged into a deck of cards carried by Colonel Harry Gilmor in an inside coat pocket stopped at the last card- the ace of spades- his men never tired of asking him if 'spades are trump.'
One of the more remarkable experiences of the war was that of Confederate Private Finley P. Curtis, who caught a bullet with his hand, without injury, at the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. 'A molten hail of lead hissed like pronged serpents' fangs about my ears...' remembered Curtis. I marveled that I stood on hostile ground alive in the midst of a death hurricane so withering, seeing, as in a dream, hundreds of collapsing forms. A spent ounce ball caught the concave palm of my upraised loading had, faintly stinging. For a moment I held it thus, thinking nothing, then purposelessly threw it down. Again and again I wished I had kept it.'
'A merciful God, he who takes care of the fatherless and the widow, took care of the soldier,' said Private Albert Elmore after the fuse on a 300-pound artillery shell that landed at his feet went out without exploding."
Source:Foster, Stephen T. "Close Calls: Divine Interventions?" (n.d.): n. pag. Rpt. in Atlas Editions, USA. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.