Grenade
Harper's Weekly
“The number of accidents from the carelessness of the men is astonishing; in every day’s paper there is an account of deaths and wounds caused by the discharge of firearms in the tents.”
London Times correspondent William H. Russell, after visiting Union Army camps outside Washington, D.C., in July 1861, in his diary
Captain Jacob Roemer, 2nd New York Light Artillery
Mike Fitzpatrick Collection
“While I was conversing with this soldier a rebel prisoner a little distance away was telling how the enemy had fooled our troops. In the midst of his story he accidentally stepped on one of the grenades and it exploded, tearing his legs from his body…. I felt very sorry for this poor fellow, who had lost his life through the actions of his own people. It was a most sickening sight.”
Captain Jacob Roemer, 2nd New York light artillery, on his visit to the recently captured city of Jackson, Mississippi, on July 16, 1863, in his memoir of the war. Moments before, an alert Union soldier had stopped Roemer from riding his horse over a “hand grenade” buried in a sandy street.
“I could hear nothing for the roaring of the storm, and could see nothing for the blinding rain and flying dirt and bricks and other rubbish. The storm lasted but a few minutes, but those minutes seemed ages. When it had passed, I turned to look at… Berry…. His head was crushed in by a brick bat, his breast crushed in by another,… and he was otherwise mutilated. It was a sad sight.”
Sam Watkins, 1st Tennessee infantry, on the death of his comrade and friend, Berry Morgan, who was killed when a tornado swept by their regiment on its return to camp near Shelbyville, Tennessee, in his memoir of the war. Watkins and Berry had taken shelter in an “old depot shed.”
Lightning strike
Harper's Weekly
“The rain fell in torrents and the lighting was very sharp. A flash struck the quartermaster’s tent … about five rods from me, instantly killing him, and stunning twenty others. The bright steel bayonets made excellent lightning rods and a great many in all the camps around were sensibly affected by it.”
Oliver W. Norton, 83rd Pennsylvania infantry, on a “tremendous thunder storm [that] came up yesterday,” in a letter home, May 31, 1862
“A sad accident occurred in my regiment. Henry Zeigler was sleeping on the hurricane deck. A steamboat was passing ours and the whistle of our boat sounded in answer to its signal. This frightened him in his sleep and he seized his blanket, sprang up and jumped overboard. The pilot stopped the boat … but nothing could be seen.”
Lieutenant Colonel Oscar L. Jackson, 63rd Ohio infantry, on an incident that occurred as his regiment was being transported home by steamship at war’s end, in his diary, June 8–9, 1865
More Accidental Deaths
Interested in reading more quotes on this subject? Click here to read our post “Extra Voices: Accidental Deaths.”
Sources
My Diary North and South (1863); Army Letters, 1861-1865 (1903); The Colonel’s Diary (1922); Reminiscences of the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 (1897); Co. Aytch (1900)
