TomkinsSP
Member
As I held my sleeping grandson and did not want to move, I flipped through cable channels and found a documentary on Gettysburgh.
So I was thinking. General Daniel Sickles was leading his New York brigade through the Peach Orchard when he was struck on the leg by a CANNON ball.
This 12 POUND iron ball would have departed a five or five and one half FOOT long barrel at 1500 or so fps (using 2.5 pounds of black powder). The ball crushed the Generals leg, which was amputated in a field hospital. The General survived to achieve MORE noteriety after this event.
A look at the website for the National Museum of Health and Medicine has a picture of the display case containg the crushed leg bone (donated by Gen. Sickles) and a Napoleon's Iron ball.
New Yorkers know General Daniel Sickles as a former Congressman (the pre Anthony Weiner, Anthony Weiner) whom amoungst other exploits shot and killed Phillip Key for violating the 9th commandment, (uh, suggestion today).
"Oh, say can you see,
The congressman shooting,
The District Attorney under that tree..."
Anyway an engraving from Harpers shows Sickles shooting Key in the chest with a single shot pistol.
A 154-160 year old example of how shot placement trumps caliber. (And how politicians remain the same.)
So I was thinking. General Daniel Sickles was leading his New York brigade through the Peach Orchard when he was struck on the leg by a CANNON ball.
This 12 POUND iron ball would have departed a five or five and one half FOOT long barrel at 1500 or so fps (using 2.5 pounds of black powder). The ball crushed the Generals leg, which was amputated in a field hospital. The General survived to achieve MORE noteriety after this event.
A look at the website for the National Museum of Health and Medicine has a picture of the display case containg the crushed leg bone (donated by Gen. Sickles) and a Napoleon's Iron ball.
New Yorkers know General Daniel Sickles as a former Congressman (the pre Anthony Weiner, Anthony Weiner) whom amoungst other exploits shot and killed Phillip Key for violating the 9th commandment, (uh, suggestion today).
"Oh, say can you see,
The congressman shooting,
The District Attorney under that tree..."
Anyway an engraving from Harpers shows Sickles shooting Key in the chest with a single shot pistol.
A 154-160 year old example of how shot placement trumps caliber. (And how politicians remain the same.)
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