lelliott19
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From Maryland, the 48th Georgia marched back toward the Rappahannock, then the border line of Dixie. Upon this march occurred an episode worth recalling because of its contrast with one given in the story of the 19th Georgia. That was a story of a fighting quartermaster; this is one of the traditional Q. M. who is everything else but a fighter.
While the 48th was maneuvering around Culpeper before the Battle of Fredericksburg, one of the soldiers picked up a clock weight [possibly similar in appearance to those pictured above] and decided to have some fun with it. Attaching a piece of artillery fuse, he carried it to a fire where he saw the quartermaster and a number of others telling campfire stories. Displaying his contrivance, which he called a shell, he declared that he was going to put it in the fire for the fun of the thing.
The Q. M., skeptical at first as to the soldier's earnestness, began to plead with him not to do it, but when the wag threw it in the fire the non-combatant broke for the rear at the first splutter of the fuse and didn't stop running until he had dashed through a thicket as thorny as a bramble bush and tripped over a tent rope, bringing down the pole and setting the whole camp in an uproar.
Whether he ever learned to take the joke or not, history doesn't state, but leaves him sitting in his tent all in a tremor and swearing to shoot the next man who threw a shell into the fire in his presence.
Excerpted from George L Kilmer. "The Old 48th Georgia." The Sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.), July 23, 1898, page 11, column 2.
* Image above, clock weights from a long case clock. Clock weights seem to have come in all shapes and sizes. Let's give the QM the benefit of the doubt, and assume the one referenced at least looked something like an artillery projectile.
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/...0018/lot-df4878e1-15b9-4d2a-954f-a43d00b75a4f
@Tom Elmore you'll be interested in this story since it pertains to a quartermaster of the ANV. Good stuff.
@alan polk @ucvrelics.com yall will like it because its funny.
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