THE ECCENTRICITIES OF BULLETS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 634, 12 May 1882, Page 3

THE ECCENTRICITIES OF BULLETS.

At the battle of Peach Orchard when McLlellan was making his chang< of base, a Michigan infantry-man fel to the ground as if shot down stone dead, and was left lying in a heap a< the regiment changed position. The ball that hit him first struck the barrel of his gun, glanced and struck a button of his coat, tore the watch out of his pocket, and then struck the man just over the heart, and was stopped there by a song-book in his shirt pocket. He was unconscious for three quarters of an hour, and it was a full month before the black and blue spot disappeared. At Pittsburg Landing, a member of the 12th Michigan Regiment of Infantry stopped to give a wounded man a drink from his canteen. While in the act a bullet, aimed at his breast, struck the canteen, turned aside, passed through the body of a man and buried itself in the leg t)f a horse. The canteen was split open, and dropped to the ground in halves. At the second battle of Bull Run, as a New York infantryman was passing his plug of tobacco to his comrade, a bullet struck the plug, glanced off, and buried itself in a knapsack. The tobacco was rolled up like a ball of shavings and carried ioo feet away. Directly in the line of the bullet was the head of a lieutenant and had not the bullet been deflected, he would certainly have received it. As he had both his eyes filled with tobacco dust, he had to be led to the rear. At Brandy Station battle was a trooper who had suffered several days with a toothache. In a hand to hand fight he received a pistol ball in his right cheek. It knocked out his aching double tooth and passed

out of the left-hand corner of his mouth, taking along a part of an upper tooth. The joy of being rid of the toothache was so great, that the trooper could not be made to go to the rear to have his wound dressed. An object however trifling will turn the bullet from its true course. This was shown one day at the remount camp in Pleasant Valley. They had a “ bull-pen ” there, in which about 500 bounty jumpers and other hard cases were under guard. Once in a while one of these men would make a break for liberty. Every sentinel in position would open fire, and it did not matter in the least if the man ran towards the crowded camp. On this occasion the prisoner made for the camp, and as many as six sh6ts were fired at him without effect. One of the bullets entered the tent of a captain in the Twelfth Pennslyvania cavalry. He was lying down, and the course of the bullet—would have buried it in his chest. Fortunately for him a candle by which he was reading sat on a stand between him and where the bullet entered. This was struck and cut square in two, and the lighted end dropped to the floor without being snuffed out. The ball.was deflected, and buried in the pillow under the officer’s head, passed out of that and through his tent into the one behind it, passed between two men and brought up against a camp kettle. There is in Detroit, Mich., a man who was wounded five times in ten minutes, at Fair Oaks. The first bullet entered his left arm; the second gave him a scalp wound ; the third hit him in the foot; and the fourth buried itself in his shoulder; the fifth entered his right leg. While he was being carried to the rear the first two men who took him were killed. While his wounds were being dressed, an exploded shell almost buried him under an avalanche of dirt, In being removed further to the rear a runaway ambulance horse carried him half a mile and dumped him out, and yef he is seemingly hale and hearty, and walks without a limp.—Phrenological Journal.