Question About Whether This Could Possibly Have Happened

[Cavalry Charger]

*Near Vicksburg: A cemetery near the pickets had a vault with a wrecked door, but undamaged coffins. One was metallic with a glass top and contained a man killed in a duel with a ball. It looked like beads of sweat on his face.

There is a story of a woman whose body was accidentally retrieved on the Egypt plantation in Mississippi in the 1960's.
She was in a cast iron coffin with a glass top and the body was perfectly preserved. The coffin had been filled with alcohol, and this appears to have been a method of preservation in the 1800's prior to the use of embalming techniques. The glass top of the casket was broken by a digger mechanism and the body deteriorated within a couple of hours of being exposed to the air. Prior to that, it was perfectly preserved and it was possible to tell she was a young woman, well dressed, and probably in the prime of her life. No explanation has ever been discovered as to how she ended up being buried in this isolated place or who she actually was. An amazing mystery, and I'm thinking it's possible in the case you mention that the 'beads of sweat' were actually drops of the alcohol preservative, and there may have been damage to the coffin which was slowly draining of it's liquid.

Who knew alcohol was used as a body preservative prior to embalming techniques coming into use? Not me.

 

[Si Klegg]

We have a well-known Liverpool comedian called Stan Boardman. He became famous for his 'the Germans bombed our chippy' line. [Chippy = Fish and Chip Shop]

He was the only survivor of a direct hit on a street air-raid shelter during May Week, described here:

On a happier note, here's one of his WWII jokes … a word play on the German aircraft 'Focke Wulf' and a famous Polish pilot who appeared on 'This Is Your Life' back in the 60's …

 

[Gibbs]

Learned something new. To me, land mine is a small device placed in the ground to anti troop or anti personnel transports.

 

[alan polk]

There is a story of a woman whose body was accidentally retrievedon the Egypt plantation in Mississippi in the 1960's.
She was in a cast iron coffin with a glass top and the body was perfectly preserved. The coffin had been filled with alcohol, and this appears to have been a method of preservation in the 1800's prior to the use of embalming techniques. The glass top of the casket was broken by a digger mechanism and the body deteriorated within a couple of hours of being exposed to the air. Prior to that, it was perfectly preserved and it was possible to tell she was a young woman, well dressed, and probably in the prime of her life. No explanation has ever been discovered as to how she ended up being buried in this isolated place or who she actually was. An amazing mystery, and I'm thinking it's possible in the case you mention that the 'beads of sweat' were actually drops of the alcohol preservative, and there may have been damage to the coffin which was slowly draining of it's liquid.

Who knew alcohol was used as a body preservative prior to embalming techniques coming into use? Not me.

You beat me to it. Living in Mississippi, "The Lady in Red" is a well known story and, because of it, the account given by the soldier in Vicksburg could have very well been true.

At any rate, here is a story of the "Lady in Red."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-the-lady-in-red

 

[rebelatsea]

The blast from these mines was enormous. A nearby hit would blow out every window in the street, which is why you see 'taped' windows in WWII photos of the UK. My late auntie was absolutely shredded by flying glass, she was 17 in 1941. She was picking glass shards out of her leg and hip for years as they gradually came to the surface of the skin over time.

How awful, but it was unfortunately a common injury. My mother had photographs of the centre of Ealing after the raid ,but they have disappeared with the years and moves. The Broadway has been totally rebuild and "modernised in th e last twenty years, but If you know where to look you can still see traces of the extent of the damage where rebuilding and repair piecemeal was done in West Ealing. Totally off topic but her mother, my Grandmother worked for Napiers in Acton. One lunchtime the warning was given for a V1 raid, the thing cut out and flew down the Uxbridge road past where she and her friends were sheltering in a shop doorway. It hit the side of a building and exploded about 40ft above the ground with almost the same effect as a parachute mine, if you trace the rebuildings ,new buildings and road alignments the blast area can be mapped precisely, and the side of the church facing the blast still shows the pattern of impact damage.

 

[Si Klegg]

How awful, but it was unfortunately a common injury. My mother had photographs of the centre of Ealing after the raid ,but they have disappeared with the years and moves. The Broadway has been totally rebuild and "modernised in th e last twenty years, but If you know where to look you can still see traces of the extent of the damage where rebuilding and repair piecemeal was done in West Ealing. Totally off topic but her mother, my Grandmother worked for Napiers in Acton. One lunchtime the warning was given for a V1 raid, the thing cut out and flew down the Uxbridge road past where she and her friends were sheltering in a shop doorway. It hit the side of a building and exploded about 40ft above the ground with almost the same effect as a parachute mine, if you trace the rebuildings ,new buildings and road alignments the blast area can be mapped precisely, and the side of the church facing the blast still shows the pattern of impact damage.

Thanks rebel, I know exactly where you mean - I was a courier in West London and a 'Pop Man' round there before that Amazing story and of course the V Rockets were mostly London, so they copped it right to the end of the war, unlike most of the rest of the country. Everyone from that generation has a great story about the war, not many left now. Most of my work is with older senior citizens but they're the next generation down, the Evacuees! I met an old Chindit once in Surrey, tough old bird he was, even in his 90's.

The war's a thing you still notice, where something new has been built into a row of houses or buildings that doesn't match the rest, or an unexpected bit of greenery in the middle or at the end of a mismatched terrace of houses. Seeing pill-boxes in fields and Nissen Huts anywhere makes me think of WWII and how lucky my generation was to not have to fight another war to end all wars.

 

[Cavalry Charger]

You beat me to it. Living in Mississippi, "The Lady in Red" is a well known story and, because of it, the account given by the soldier in Vicksburg could have very well been true.

At any rate, here is a story of the "Lady in Red."

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-the-lady-in-red

A fellow Mississippian had shared that story with me , partly because I love a good mystery!

I might have known the story, but I couldn't find the link Thanks @alan polk .

 

[AndyHall]

There are lots of modern accounts of persons killed by overpressure blast damage, who have no major outward signs of trauma. But I'm doubtful about that happening with the low-velocity explosives (mainly black power) used in the ACW.

 

[rebelatsea]

Thanks rebel, I know exactly where you mean - I was a courier in West London and a 'Pop Man' round there before that Amazing story and of course the V Rockets were mostly London, so they copped it right to the end of the war, unlike most of the rest of the country. Everyone from that generation has a great story about the war, not many left now. Most of my work is with older senior citizens but they're the next generation down, the Evacuees! I met an old Chindit once in Surrey, tough old bird he was, even in his 90's.

The war's a thing you still notice, where something new has been built into a row of houses or buildings that doesn't match the rest, or an unexpected bit of greenery in the middle or at the end of a mismatched terrace of houses. Seeing pill-boxes in fields and Nissen Huts anywhere makes me think of WWII and how lucky my generation was to not have to fight another war to end all wars.

LOL, the next generation means me then born in 1950. As kids we used to play on the bomb sites. Considering how surrounded Ealing was by railways, with Ealing Common Depot on one side, West Ealing junction and freight yards on the other and the GWR main line straight through the middle, she got off lightly compared with East end.

 

[Waterloo50]

From Stockwell, E. (1958). Private Elisha Stockwell, Jr., sees the Civil War. Norman: University of OK Press.

Elisha describes a scene - this is my summary in my notes.

Four men in a tent had an oilcloth laid out. A candle with a bayonet candlestick was stuck in the ground. They looked like they had been playing cards, and all were dead. Each had three cards in his left hand and four cards lay in the middle of the blanket. The rebels had blown the tent to atoms.

The more I learn about weapons in the Civil War the less likely I can believe this type of thing. Could this have feasibly happened? Thoughts?

A shockwave obviously causes a lot of damage to structures etc but there's also a secondary effect which some people refer to as the stress wave. The stress wave travels at supersonic speed and it has enough energy to pulverise internal organs, the individual hit by the stress wave could for example be sat upright in a chair and the stress wave could pass through their body without blowing them of the chair, they'd remain exactly where they were sat without any visible injuries but dead all the same. During WW2 a bomb was dropped at the front of my grandfathers house, the windows at the front of the house remained in one piece but the windows at the back of the house were blown out. Anything is possible with the strange effects of shockwaves. I think it's possible that there's some truth in your story.