Chattanooga Injury at Chattanooga

[flyrr100]

My wife has an ancestor, Oliver H. Protsman from Dayton, Ohio. He enlisted as a private in Co. E, 1st Regt. Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Sep 29 1863. He served with The Union Army in the west finally being wounded at Chattanooga.
We tried for a long time to find anything he may have left behind. But it seems anything except his diary was lost to the ages. But, we have the diary. It's been copyrighted, and sent to The Library of Congress. We have a copy and I'd like to share a short exert from the postscript.

Shortly after the October 7, 1863 entry a Minnie Ball passed Close to Oliver Prostman's face. The missile created a vacuum which popped his one eye out. My memory tells me it was his left eye. Oliver moved back to Dayton, Ohio. Although the Protsman family was poor his wife's family, the Harshman's were wealthy and prominent, owning land in the area that is now Patterson Field. (Wright Patterson Air Force Base).

The bulk of the diary covers his adventures in Kentucky and Tennessee. If anyone's interested I can share more exerts.

 

[ole]

Share more excerpts.

ole

 

[M E Wolf]

Dear Flyrr100;

Share more excerpts--Please!

Respectfully submitted,
M. E. Wolf

 

[gary]

Please share more.

BTW, if it's been copyrighted, what's the title of the work? If it's not published, I'll want to read it the next time I get to the Library of Congress.

 

[Glorybound]

by Flyrr quoting diary

The missile created a vacuum which popped his one eye out. My memory tells me it was his left eye.

Yes, Flyrr, by all means I would like to hear more from Prvt. Prostman's writings. I would like to know more about this injury, the vacuum phenomenon I guess, that would cause such a thing to happen. Can anyone shed any more light on that? Was it a common injury maybe unique to the minie ball? Thanks, and thanks Flyrr for posting the diary info.


Lee

 

[Glorybound]

Flyrr, please understand, I don't doubt that the minie ball injury occurred, I guess I'm wondering about the physics of the injury. You know, Minie ball-(A), with rings carved around it-(B), passes this close to Prostman's eye (proximity-C), thereby creating a vacuum with which his eye is sucked out of the socket. = inflicting a (b*i*t*c*h* of an injury-D), whereupon all his fellow soldiers recoil in horror upon witnessing such)


Lee