"PROVOST MARSHALL"

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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"PROVOST MARSHALL"* A nickname for a large shark that patrolled the seventy-foot-wide, thirty-foot-deep moat of Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas. The guards often fed the shark by throwing stray cats into the moat and on several occasions watched the creature "capture" an escaping prisoner, sometimes shooting the prisoner to get the scent of blood in the water and attract the beast.

*The author said name should be all in caps.

From: "Webb Garrison's Civil War Dictionary" by Webb Garrison Sr. page 258.
 
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