Corp. Daniel Chisholm's forage cap was damaged at the Battle of the Wilderness, his first battle. Chisholm served in the 116th Pennsylvania Infantry.
(Heritage Auctions)
If you wish to read “Close Calls, Near Misses, and Spent Bullets - Part I,” which covers incidents at the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville you may do so here.
Introduction
Fighting in Francis Barlow’s Second Corps division, 19-year-old Corp. Daniel Chisholm and his 116th Pennsylvania comrades assaulted a Confederate line of earthworks just outside of Spotsylvania on May 18, 1864. While several men fell killed and wounded in the assault, Chisholm went unscathed, sort of.
Chisholm, an inexperienced soldier, who had enlisted about two months previous to his first taste of battle at the Wilderness—where he had his hat shot off his head (see this post’s title image)—wrote about his experience in his journal. “Then forward march was given, but the Rebs was not asleep this time. We did not advance fifty yards until They poured the Minie Balls into us mighty thick, but on we went and was within twelve feet of the works when I was struck and knocked senseless,” the corporal explained. After regaining consciousness Chisholm found Corp. Henry McElroy of the regimental color guard supporting him. Chisholm caught his breath and then examined himself. He “found that a minie ball had struck me in the side of the belt plate. On the march my belt plate had worked around. In my blouse I had a big knife, with a spoon and fork, also Ten rounds of cartridges. The ball passed through the cartridges, struck the knife and then struck the belt plate with such force that it nearly sent it through me.” Extremely painful, and leaving a horrible looking black bruise, Chisholm explained that “It felt like a square [beam] had been punched through me. I do not think I ever felt so sick, I threw everything that was in my stomach and I came near throwing it all and my insides with it.”
Combat situations like that described by Corp. Chisholm naturally continued in central Virginia into the late fall of 1863 and the spring of 1864 as the Civil War ground on. During the fighting actions at Mine Run, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, soldiers often commented about the narrow escapes they experienced on these battlefields, just as they had earlier at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. And while soldiers’ near misses obviously occurred in slightly different locations and sometimes varied somewhat in terms of the style of fighting, like the previous battles, their close calls in late 1863 and into 1864 brought forth expressions of wonder, thanks, and hope for continued providential protection.
Mine Run
"The Army of the Potomac at Mine Run - General Warren's Troops Attacking"
Based on a sketch by Alfred Waud
(Harper's Weekly, January 2, 1864)
Mine Run is sometimes referred to as “The Great Battle Never Fought,” which is certainly true, but enough lead and iron got thrown around from November 27 to December 1, 1863, to create circumstances where soldiers endured numerous close calls, near misses, and spent bullet experiences, and then wrote about them.
During the Battle of Payne’s Farm, which opened the Mine Run fighting, Pvt. John Haley of the 17th Maine Infantry, literally dodged a bullet that he explained in his diary almost cost him his life. “I encountered a leaden missile in this battle, and but for a slight deviation for the course it was pursuing it would have entered my diaphragm, with fatal results,” Haley wrote that day. Also remembering being under fire on November 27, but probably in the skirmishing near Robinson’s Tavern, Lt. Thomas Galwey, 8th Ohio Infantry, related a story that likely sounded much funnier to the teller than to the participant. Lt. Galway explained that a corporal in his company, Peter Merrimans, who was native of Holland, “and a fine soldier,” during their advance “ran amongst a lot of Confederates, thinking them, from their blue overcoats, his own men. He learned his mistake and, as soon as he turned to run back from them, an enemy officer fired a pistol at him and the others with their muskets.” The corporal did not stop. “He broke away and joined us, shouting out, ‘They’ve shot me in der frying pan!’ It turned out that they had put a bullet through a brand new skillet which the corporal had bought a few days before and which he carried in the fold of his knapsack.”
The artillery was active as well in the fighting along the Orange Turnpike near Robinson’s Tavern. Pvt. George Perkins, 6th New York Independent Battery, scribbled in his diary on November 27 about at least three close calls within a very short time period. “[The enemy] made some fine shots at us hitting just in front of the [artillery] pieces and exploding. The pieces of shell flew all about our ears but luckily hurt none. They threw once at us what appeared to be a cubic piece of iron,” Perkins wrote. He continued, “The left section opened on the right and front and we limbered up and advanced down the road about ¼ mile and went in action again. We could now see the rebels quite plainly and the fire waxed warm. A sharpshooter came very near bringing me down as I was tending the piece. They opened again from the left and threw the shell all around us but luckily hurt none. One shot entered the ground about 4 feet from me and scattered the dirt all over me. Fortunately, it did not burst. It dug a hole large as a bushel basket.”
"Battle of Mine Run, VA - Positions of the Armies of Meade and Lee, December 1, 1863."
From a sketch by Edwin Forbes
(Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper)
After primarily a day of maneuvering and entrenching on November 28, things stalemated somewhat along the lines the following day. However, picket fire, skirmishing, and artillery remained fairly active as witnessed from the comments of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry’s Corp. Joseph Hodgkins and his diary entry for November 29. Hodgkins remarked that “We marched nearly all day when we were sent out to support the Skirmishers. The Rebs. sent us two shells both of which burst very near us but doing no harm.”
As for the pickets and skirmishers, they had to worry about “friendly fire” in addition to that from the enemy. An incident happened with one of the soldiers in the 1st US Sharpshooters that almost resulted in his wounding or death. As related by that unit’s historian, on November 30, “Lieut. [Perrin] Judkins, of Company G, going forward with the New Yorkers, got ahead of the line, and took a position behind a fence in their front. While there, he became subject to a fire in the rear, the balls striking the rails about him. Looking back he suddenly realized his danger and fell back to the line. His own company to the right had noticed his tall form, and taking [Judkins] for a ‘Johnny’ gave him a crossfire at 400 yards; Private George A. Denniston putting in several close shots, until ordered to stop firing in that direction by Lieut. [Charles] Stevens in command, who justly concluded that our men were mistaken as to the military status of the man, no doubt saving his life.”
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Pvt. Alonzo Searing, 11th New Jersey Infantry, wrote to his sister about receiving lead and iron from the Confederates on November 30. Searing explained that “They were evidently waiting for us to attack them, for their rifle pits and forts were lined with gray-coated rebels, rifles in hand, and just in front of our brigade they counted twelve pieces of artillery, besides plenty more at other places along the lines, all no doubt heavily charged with grape and canister. The spent bullets from the rebel skirmish line were continually dropping among us and I noticed one fall to the ground where it had struck the leather belt of a comrade near me.” On the same day, and in what was surely a fortunate situation, Capt. Charles Mattocks, 17th Maine, noted that while his regiment supported the 4th Maine Artillery Battery. “This Battery opened this morning for a short time, but the Rebs. only got one shell over to us, and that was unexploded. It struck two men, but did not hurt them, explained Mattocks.” It appears that Mattocks’s comrade John Haley also commented on the incident. Haley wrote in his diary: “At 8 o’clock an artillery fusillade opened along the entire line. This elicited about as much notice from the Rebs as would peas in a pop gun. They threw only one shell, which struck the ground on the right of our regiment and bounced over several men, striking them on their backs without injury, then passing along the right of the line slowly.” Haley noted that “This was the most curious incident and perhaps wouldn’t happen again in ten thousand battles.”
The Wilderness
"Army of the Potomac - Bartlett's Brigade of Warren's Charging the Enemy [at the Wilderness]."
(Harper's Weekly, May 28, 1864)
It was not uncommon for soldiers to attempt to describe in their writings the sounds that bullets and other dangerous projectiles made as they flew toward them. If a soldier could hear a bullet speed by, they probably considered it a close call. The eerie sounds seemed to have particularly resonated in the Wilderness fighting. In his writing about the May 5-6, 1864, battle in his memoir, Pvt. Theodore Gerrish of the 20th Maine Infantry made two references to bullet sounds at the Wilderness. In the first, he used an onomatopoeia in an attempt to describe it: “Zip, zip, sip, came the bullets on every side.” In the second mention, he incorporated a metaphor: “Minie-balls came singing spitefully from the thickets in our front. . .” Fighting in the same area on May 5, Capt. Porter Farley, 140th New York Infantry, thought that “The bullets hummed like bees about us and spattered into the ground on every side, but our lucky stars preserved us and without a scratch. [Lt. John] McDermott and I reached the cover of the woods and pushed far enough into it to gain shelter from stray bullets.” Also fighting in the Fifth Corps, Sgt. George Fowle, 39th Massachusetts, penned a letter to his wife on May 17, discussing the May 5, fighting: “We had some twenty killed and wounded that day. Co. K was lucky, only two were struck, with spent balls.”
Pvt. Wilbur Fisk of the 2nd Vermont, fought with his detached Sixth Corps division commanded, by Gen. George W. Getty, near the Orange Plank Road and Brock Road intersection. Fisk wrote four days later to the Montpelier Green Mountain Freeman newspaper and described his May 5 near miss: “We all had our hairbreadth escapes to tell of. My propensity for boasting has already been discovered. I could say that I had a bullet pass through my clothes on each side, one of them giving me a pretty smart rap, and one ball split the crown of my cap into two, knocking it off my head as neatly as it could have been done by the most scientific boxer.” As previously mentioned, Corp. Daniel Chisholm, 116th Pennsylvania, also had his hat damaged and knocked off with a bullet, which made him “feel a little strange about the top knot.”
Evidence of the damage that bullets and shells could do was not only evident on the bodies of soldiers' comrades, it was also on the physical environment they fought in.
(Library of Congress)
Hats were not the only pieces of equipment being struck in the Wilderness. James Pickens, 5th Alabama, wrote in his diary on May 5 about his brother’s close call: “Found our Co, & was very much relieved and thankful to find Sam there & safe. He had narrowly escaped tho’, a ball striking his canteen & cutting it.” James felt “thankful to God that He protected Sam from the day’s dangers & has brought him safely through them. May He continue to guard & protect him & deliver him from all dangers in peace & prosperity & happiness.” Poet Walt Whitman noted in his diary his own brother George’s narrow escape as it was related by one of George’s 51st New York comrades, Lt. Samuel M. Pooley. “Pooley asked me if I had seen the canteen struck while on George’s side, in one of the Wilderness battles, & half of it wrenched off,” Walt scribbled. The 1st South Carolina Infantry’s Berry Benson had his knapsack hit by a bullet on May 5 while serving as sharpshooter. Benson recalled that “Some few hundred yards down the road on the edge of the woods was an abandoned caisson or cannon. A man stepped to it, and sheltered behind it, fired his rifle, the bullet just missing me in the ditch. I returned the shot. Four or five times he fired at me, barely missing me, I firing in return. Finally a shot grazed the back of my shoulder, striking the wooden bar across my knapsack, indenting it deeply.” Lt. Cornelius Moore, 57th New York, wrote his sister Adeline a week after the battle and explained that on May 5, “[Corp. William] Cook had a ball pass through his pants near the knee, a shot which would have taken his leg, had it been half an inch nearer.” Lt. Irby Scott, 12th Georgia Infantry, wrote home from the battlefield explaining to his father his company’s casualties. In addition, Lt. Scott noted that “I came out untouched. Bud [his younger brother] was shot through the leg of his pants.”
1st South Carolina Infantry sharpshooter, Sgt. Berry Benson, had his knapsack damaged in a long-distance shootout with a Federal soldier at the Wilderness.
(Public Domain)
Spotsylvania Court House
With the armies spending nearly two weeks fighting and maneuvering at Spotsylvania, plenty of situations arose where soldiers wrote about and remembered their close call situations there.
As the fighting transitioned from the Wilderness to Spotsylvania, Pvt. John Beaumont of the 88th Pennsylvania Infantry wrote that “We got our forces together and followed the retreating foe. Our brigade charged these works but were compelled to give way until we got reinforcements. We then [dis]lodged them from their hiding places. We have been in two battles since the first of May. Our regiment numbers 123 men for duty at the present time. While engaged on last Sunday [May 8] I had my canteen shot clean off my back and a ball go through my sleave. I thought that was very close shaving.” In the same May 8 fighting at Laurel Hill that Pvt. Beaumont mentioned, fellow Fifth Corps soldier Lt. Charles Kelly, 44th New York Infantry, noted in his diary that day: “I was Hit in the thigh With a spent Ball Which makes me quite Lame. . . .”
Two days after a May 9 fight at the Po River, Lt. Peter Hunt, 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, wrote to his mother: “I am alright. Have had 6 days of fighting. On the 9th inst. I received a little touch from a fragment of shell on the left leg. It went through my pants and just brought the blood. I am a little sore and dirty as can be. The battery was in a very severe fight yesterday and lost one gun. Captain [William A.] Arnold got a bullet in his hat.” Hunt went on to compare the engagement with others he had experienced: “Bullets thicker than I ever knew them to be. Musketry more terrible than Gettysburg,” he explained.
Several near miss incidents recorded by soldiers happened on the Laurel Hill portion of the Spotsylvania battlefield.
(Tim Talbott)
A few days at Spotsylvania brought particularly heavy fighting. May 10 was one of those days. Fighting on the skirmish line, the 6th Wisconsin’s Lt. Mair Pointon wrote to his brother and sister to update them about his current condition. He noted that on May 10 “We got within 50 yds of them the Rebels poured a murderous fire from 3 ways in to our Regt the men fell like hail around. . . . It was murdering men to put them in such places. I had no sooner got in than a bullet struck my Knapsack on one side passing through and going out on the other side making 6 holes in my Rubber Blanket 10 holes in my shirt and riped [sic] through my portfolio this sheet and the other one has the effects of it." A few moments later Lt. Pointon “was struck on the arm near the shoulder cutting the flesh making more of a bruise than a wound." Pvt. John Vautier, 88th Pennsylvania Infantry, witnessed a close call moment that he recorded in his diary on May 10: “Back of us, in a open field lay a Regt. of Infantry—flat on their stomachs. The Color bearer alone stood upright with the flag in his right hand. A shell fell and exploded in the soft ground right in front of him. An immense cloud of smoke and dust was raised and we thought the poor fellow gone. The smoke rolled away, and the dust settled down but our flag was still there and the brave man still stood there as if nothing had happened.”
Corp. John Hartwell, 121st New York, wrote in his diary on May 10 that “I was struck by a spent ball just above my right knee but making only a flesh wound which will not do me any serious injury.” One of Hartwell’s regimental surgeons, Daniel M. Holt, claimed that May 10 “was the hardest day of the fight. One man was shot a second time while in my arms dressing his wound, and expired. For an hour bullets, shells and solid shot flew through our midst as thick as hail. I wonder why we were not killed.” Sgt. Joseph Hodgkins, 19th Massachusetts, wrote in his diary that “The Reb. commenced to shell us, the shells bursting among and all around us. One piece went nearly through Garfield of our company who lay right at my side.” Lt. Charles Mills, who was then serving as a staff officer in the Ninth Corps, but who had previously served in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, wrote his mother that “I had no occasion to go through any fire which, after my Regimental experience, I call at all severe. Still, there was quite enough to be unpleasant, I assure you, and every time I crossed the road, which I had to so several times, a certain rebel sharpshooter would fire with disagreeable accuracy.”
Soldiers sometimes commented on unexplainable occurrences. Such was the case remembered by Lt. Thomas Galwey, 8th Ohio Infantry, about what happened to him on May 10. While stopped in a movement at the Po River, Galwey noticed that the ground and leaves seemed to be moving. “It was the [falling] bullets which whipped the sand like a switch,” Galwey recalled. One of his men said, "'Lieutenant, look down at your feet.’ And there was the switching [of the ground and leaves] between my feet. Again he said, ‘Lieutenant, do you dare close your feet together?’ I laughed and with mock precision brought my feet together. The switch[ing] was now on either side of my feet. This is what soldiers call luck.”
Sharp fighting occurred at the Po River between the Army of the Potomac's Second Corps and divisions from the Army of Northern Virginia's Third Corps on May 9-10. CVBT has saved 40 acres near the Po.
(Tim Talbott)
If soldiers thought May 10 brought some horrific combat, some would soon see worse. Sgt. Charles T. Bowen of the 12th U.S. Infantry detailed two close calls that day; one to this diary and the other in a later letter to his wife. After unsuccessfully charging the Confederate works at Laurel Hill, Bowen and his comrades hugged the ground. Determined to get back to their lines, they beat feet. “We broke across it, balls whistling on all sides. At every moment I could hear the dull peculiar thud sounding of a ball as it entered some poor fellow,” Bowen noted. “I got half across when my right leg was hit by a spent ball that still had enough [power] to knock me down but did not enter the flesh. I felt around until I found I was not badly hurt then got up & put out again.” In the letter, Bowen wrote, “I have thus far escaped harm, but on the 12th, had it not been for my knapsack, I should not be now telling you about it. We had made a charge & lost some 60 men and were forced back in some disorder to our breastworks. We had to jump on the bank & then down into the trench toward the balls which were coming in a storm. I had just got my feet on the works & was just about to jump down when a shot hit me on the knapsack & knocked me full ten feet on the other side, flat as a flounder in a puddle of mud and water. Here I lay for a moment with the breath knocked clean out untill one of the 146th [New York Infantry] picked me up. When I looked at my knapsack I found a musket ball had gone clean through my dry goods & was only stopped by my razor which happened to be about the last article between my back & the ball. It made a smash of the handle, but I was mighty glad it didnet do the same to my spine.”
On the same end of the field as Sgt. Bowen, Sgt. Charles McKnight, 88th Pennsylvania, noted in his diary: “[May] 12th advance again to the edge of woods. With orders to Charge the rebble Works but did not charge. the rebbels again opened with Cannon and Musketry. I was hit on the top of the head with a canister shot about one half inch in diameter and left on the field. But finding myself not hurt Badly, rejoined my Regt in the Brest Works.”
Brig. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur.
(Public Domain)
In addition to Gen. Ramseur's May 12, 1864, wound near his elbow, he also received four holes in his coat and his horse was struck, but survived.
Fighting with his Sixth Corps regiment at the “Muleshoe” salient, Lt. Elisha Hunt Rhodes, 2nd Rhode Island Infantry, described the May 12 fighting: “I fired over a hundred times myself. Col. [Samuel] Read was firing when he was hit. At the same instant a bullet struck me in my right breast, tore my coat, glanced on my pocket book and bruised my right arm. It whirled me round, and I thought I was dead but soon found that I was alright.” Pvt. Gordon Bradwell, 31st Georgia Infantry, recalled that on May 12: “They now knew that they were on the flank of our reserve line, and they opened on me and Lieutenant [D. J.] McNair, whom they could see standing up side by side. This volley hastened the movements of every man in company and regiment. Two balls passed through the breast of McNair’s coat, but did not injure him.” In addition to receiving a painful wound near his elbow in the May 12 fighting, Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramsuer wrote to his wife that “My Yankee horse was shot severely, but yet he still lives. I also received four holes in my overcoat.” Staff officer Oliver Wendell Holmes marked in his dairy that day that “The Genl [Horatio Wright] was hit in leg quite painfully with a piece of shell not wounded however.”
Battling the Ninth Corps on May 12, Lt. Col. William H. Stewart, 61st Virginia Infantry, remembered that “Our regiment, occupying the center of the brigade, struck an open field, and on advancing up the hill behind which we had been deployed for the charge, were met by a volley of musketry. I was struck on the right arm by a minie ball, which felt like a red-hot iron crushing through the bones.” He recalled that “I was thoroughly demoralized, and believing my arm was broken, exclaimed: ‘I am ruined.’ Capt. B. H. Nash . . . ran to me, and when we examined it, found it was only a slight flesh wound, and then we proceeded at a run to catch up with the regiment.” Writing to his wife Eliza, Massachusetts soldier George Fowle, related a comrade’s good luck: “Charley Johnson had a shell explode right in front of him which doubled his gun up but did not hurt him any.”
Lt. Abner Small, 16th Maine Infantry, was "whirled around like a top" from a shell explosion at Spotsylvania that fortunately did not wound him.
(The Sixteenth Maine Regiment in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, published 1886)
A number of soldiers spoke about their fortunate situations with exploding artillery shells at Spotsylvania. While looking at the damage caused by a shell burst that resulted in “the body of a headless officer of the 90th Pennsylvania, and heaped around and upon [his] body six dead and dying men,” Lt. Abner Small wrote that “another shell came over and exploded so near that Colonels [Gilbert] Prey and [Augustus] Farnham were knocked down and I was whirled around like a top. None of us was hurt.” After taking his veteran volunteer furlough, Lt. James B. Thomas, 107th Pennsylvania, returned to his regiment on May 16. He wrote home to his sister Lucy three days later. In the letter, Lt. Thomas told her about a recent close call that he and his colonel experienced. While sitting on their horses beside each other, a shell passed between them before exploding. Thomas wrote: “We laid on the horse’s necks, it passed so close to my head the concussion knocked my head completely around, deafening my left ear entirely for about 5 minutes, and I still have a thrashing machine at work in [my head] but guess it will be all right in a day or two. It struck the ground & burst immediately within 3 feet of us yet not a piece touched our horses. I was completely demoralized for a while.” On May 18, Lt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. jotted in his diary about “A narrow escape—shell burst in the face of the Gen. [Wright] & rest of us, stinging all, hurting none.”
Sometimes, a soldier’s good luck being missed ended up as a comrade’s misfortune. Col. Robert McAllister wrote home that “We had considerable firing when the enemy opened an enfilading fire upon us in our rifle pits. One ball—a shell did not burst—passed through one of the traverses against which Lt. [Joseph C.] Baldwin, Col. [John] Schoonover, and myself were standing. It instantly killed Lt. Baldwin—hit him fair on the head. He never spoke. Fortunately, the shell did not burst and fell at our feet. If it had bursted, it would likely have killed several more of us.” Pvt. William Stilwell, 53rd Georgia, wrote to his wife Molly relating both his relief in being spared and sadness at losing a friend. “Oh, again I say let us thank God for his goodness and mercy which has ever been over and around me. I have made many narrow escapes and passed through many dangers. I had one of my friends, a Mr. Curry killed by my side. The other night while asleep, he and I was sleeping together, the ball struck him in the breast, he awoke me struggling, but before I could get a light he was dead, poor fellow, he never knew what hit him,” Stilwell penned.
In a May 13, 1864, letter to his wife Esther, the 147th New York Infantry’s Pvt. Charles Biddlecom probably spoke for most all soldiers who had endured a close call, near miss, or was hit by a spent bullet at Mine Run, the Wilderness, or at Spotsylvania. Biddlecom wrote that although he had had “some very narrow escapes from bullets and shells,” he prayed “that I may come safe through all these battles and return to you again as sound as when I left home.”
Conclusion
The 15th New Jersey monument on the Spotsylvania battlefield. The regiment's Edmund Halsey shared some poignant thoughts about fate in a letter to his father during the fighting at Spotsylvania.
(Tim Talbott)
Doing one’s duty during the Civil War required a tremendous amount of fortitude. At seemingly every turn, soldiers encountered discouragement. Monotonous food, unsanitary living conditions, tiring marches, dangerous battles, and even some letters from home, challenged soldiers’ willingness to see the war to its conclusion. Close calls, near misses, and spent bullet incidents likely did not add much to a soldier’s sense of patriotism either. As seen in the above accounts, these occurrences happened with such frequency that they likely only reinforced what soldiers clearly saw with their eyes; war is dangerous, and human life is fragile.
While at Spotsylvania, Lt. Edmund Halsey, 15th New Jersey, shared some sentiments with his father that likely applied to many soldiers on both sides at this point in the war: “Everyone seems to look upon himself as doomed and considers it only a question of time. Our order was read tonight on this very thing, exhorting the men by the memory of their losses not to be discouraged or listless but to cover their efforts by victory. . . .” Lt. Halsey continued: “I trust that the good providence which has watched over me hitherto and covered my head amid so many dangers will continue to keep and protect me that if it should be my lot to fall that I shall not be unprepared and that the changes as far as I am concerned will be for the better.”
Parting Shot
George Washington Whitman, the younger brother of author Walt Whitman, moved up the ranks to become a brevet lieutenant colonel. Wounded at Fredericksburg and captured at Petersburg, he also endured several close calls on the battlefields of central Virginia.
(Public Domain)
In his letters to his mother Capt. George W. Whitman, 51st New York Infantry, did not share his close call incidents, but his brother, author Walt Whitman, noted them in his diary through contact with one of George’s comrades, Capt. Samuel M. Pooley. Walt wrote them in his diary about a year after the events he described and after meeting Pooley. Capt. Pooley told Walt “that the greatest curiosity in the regiment . . . was George’s coat. After the fight at Spotsylvania, one side of the coat was found to be riddled & wrinkled & slit in the most curious manner ever seen. Pooley thinks it was grape[shot]. He said that George could not make up his mind what caused it, or exactly when it happened. Three of his company were killed close by him. ‘George was just the luckiest man in the American army. Consider what tight skirmishes he has been in said one of the old men of the regiment to me.’”
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