“God … has saved my life when many thousands of good men have been slain all around me…. One bullet went through my beard and struck a rock half an inch from my head, and a piece of the bullet hit me on the lip and brought the blood.”
John C. West, 4th Texas Infantry, in a letter to his four-year-old son about the Battle of Gettysburg, July 8, 1863. West noted how he “wanted to write my little man a letter, which he could read when he was a big boy.”
“I owe my life to being kicked by my gun. I had fired five rounds, and was about to fire my sixth, when the gun recoiled, and striking me directly on the nose, my head was thrown back some inches, when just at the moment a bullet came whizzing past me…. [I]f it had not been for the force of the recoil of my gun, the ball would have passed directly through my brain.”
The words of an unidentified young soldier wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, as recorded by Richmond resident Sallie Brock, who encountered him (either as a prisoner or in the hospital) in the days afterward.”
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Two Civil War era haversacks.
“I believe I mentioned about having two haversacks on; a shell whistled by me, cutting them both off. It carried one of them at least forty feet behind me, while my biscuits, bacon and sugar was scattered around promiscuously. Several of the boys were struck by the biscuits, and more than one thought he was wounded.”
Micajah D. Martin, 2nd Georgia Battalion, on the Battle of Chancellorsville, in a letter to his parents, May 8, 1862. He added, “The shell deadened my side for about two hours, and hurt me some for two or three days, but it does not pain me now.”
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Cannonball
“While running down the hill … I saw my comrades dropping on all sides, canteens struck and flying to pieces, haversacks cut off, rifles knocked to pieces…. I was expecting to get mustered out every second; but on, on I went, the balls hissing by my head. I felt one strike me on the hip, just grazing me, and only cutting a hole through my pants”
Alfred Davenport, 5th New York Infantry, in a letter to his father about the Second Battle of Bull Run, September 3, 1862
“One … solid shot took off a man’s hat in our battery, leaving him with a two days’ headache.”
An anonymous Confederate artillerist, in a letter about the Battle of Fredericksburg published in the Georgia newspaper Columbus Sun, December 17, 1862.
William B. Styple, ed., Writing & Fighting from the Army of Northern Virginia (2003); Richmond During the War (1867); Soldiers’ Letters, From Camp, Battle-Field and Prison (1865); A Texan in Search of a Fight (1901).
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