What Did he Mean

[WinterLeia]

As anybody who watched the film Gettysburg knows, General Hancock was famously wounded in the battle and refused to be taken from the field until the outcome was decided. The bullet evidently hit the pommel of his saddle and carried some of the debris into the wound with it, including a large nail. Although it would be several months of pain and a near death experience before a doctor finally figured out how to remove the bullet, Hancock fished the nail out himself while laying on the field wounded. One account I recently read said that he misidentified where the nail had come from, saying something to the effect that: "They must be desperate if they're shooting stuff like that at us." So, maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like he thought the Confederates were shooting nails at him instead of bullets. And I don't really understand why he would think that.

 

[wuzreb]

The impression I got years ago when I read that story and quote was that Hancock may actually have believed that the Confederates were using nails.

I suppose if surgeons really did find some sort of tack in his wound, it would be easy to imagine that! Or maybe the bullet or fragment hit something else that did involve a nail.

There are various stories of cannons being loaded at various times with random chunks of metal, which could include nails.

But again, that sort of projectile is not going to carry super far. It would be the difference between throwing a fastball and throwing a handful of gravel. He could have been hit by a projectile that clipped some other object or structure.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

I did some digging around trying to find what the original sources said. I still don't have consensus on it and would really need to actually look at some primary sources which I don't have access to just on the computer.

One source says, "the pommel of his saddle was struck and a splinter of wood, a brad or tack and a bullet went into his groin." Another source says basically the same thing and then is specifically says, "a large, bent nail."

I think the only thing that was kept, because it was taken out at a later date, was the bullet. If the nail was originally kept, I don't know where it is now. Does anyone? One source calls it "a brad" another "a large, bent nail" along with the splinter(s) of wood which I can well believe.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

One account I recently read said that he misidentified where the nail had come from, saying something to the effect that: "They must be desperate if they're shooting stuff like that at us." So, maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like he thought the Confederates were shooting nails at him instead of bullets. And I don't really understand why he would think that.

Hancock must've watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" at a DC theatre. I hear John Wilkes Booth as Capt. Jack was a killer performance.

 

[A. Roy]

Did some research on this incident and Hancock's glib comment about the presence of a nail in his wound. I couldn't find any primary source, but the anecdote does appear in Shelby Foote's narrative, volume 2. The perpetual problem with Shelby's work is that he didn't offer footnotes, so who knows for sure where this came from:

"Hancock too was delighted, but while he was congratulating Stannard on the success with which his green troops had executed the difficult maneuver, a bullet passed through the pommel of his saddle and buried itself in the tender flesh of his inner thigh, along with several jagged bits of wood and a bent nail. Two officers caught him as he slumped, and when they had lowered him to the ground Stannard improvised a tourniquet—a knotted handkerchief wound tight with a pistol barrel—to stanch the flow of blood from the ugly wound. Hancock himself extracted the saddle nail unaided, though he mistook its source. 'They must be hard up for ammunition when they throw such shot as that,' he said wryly. Stretcherbearers came on the run, but he refused to be carried off the field just yet. He insisted on staying to watch the action, which now was mounting swiftly toward a climax."

(Shelby Foote, The Civil War, a Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian, 1963. Page 561.)

AR