i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Virtual subordination of the physical or material senses to the 

 nervous centers controlling the intellectual or spiritual faculties, 

 and for an appreciable length of time, seems to be quite common 

 in wounded men, even in the severest cases. It is easily conceiv- 

 able that a thoroughly mad man might ignore an ordinary wound 

 until his anger cooled a little ; but that men wounded to the 

 death should, even while actually dying, persist in their purposes 

 as though nothing had happened, at first staggers belief. Yet 

 such things do unquestionably occur. Every veteran of the field 

 will recall instances, and history in one way or another records a 

 great many. In the attack on the Ninth Corps lines at Peters- 

 burg, known as the battle of Fort Steadman, I noticed a mounted 

 Confederate officer leading a body of men in a charge upon a can- 

 non near which I stood. The last view I had of him and that 

 was across the sight of a Springfield rifle showed him riding 

 boldly forward,' sword on high. Others saw him later and nearer, 

 and his fearless action in riding a white horse under a storm of 

 bullets, grape, and shells attracted much notice. Suddenly man 

 and horse disappeared, and after the fight we found the bold 

 rider lying dead about sixty to eighty yards from our parapet.* 

 His form was prostrate, his sword-arm outstretched and grasping 

 the weapon firmly, with its point toward the cannon he had aimed 

 to capture. His face was partially upturned, as though he had 

 struggled at the very last to see something or to speak. The 

 horse had wheeled about and gone to the rear some distance, then 

 had leaped at a breastwork and fallen dead across it. Whether 

 this was after his rider had been hit or before couldn't be deter- 

 mined. In any case the Georgia major breathed his last with 

 his face to the foe, evidently warlike and defiant in death. His 

 wound was in the head. 



An instance similar to the last was that of General Elon J. 

 Farns worth, at Gettysburg. At a crisis in a charge, Farnsworth 

 raised his saber and rode toward the ranks of the Fifteenth 



Cook, now President of the Board of Police Surgeons in New York city, witnessed a simi- 

 lar instance in the Atlanta campaign, where he served as surgeon in the One Hundred and 

 Fiftieth New York Volunteers. The doctor, with other officers of the medical corps, was 

 riding rapidly across the range of a Confederate battery, which was shelling a column on 

 the march. Hearing a " thud " behind, as a shell passed near him, he turned around and 

 to his amazement saw that one of his companions, Surgeon H. S. Potter, of the One Hun- 

 dred and Fifth Illinois, had been decapitated, and his horse was galloping on with a head- 

 loss rider sitting perfectly erect and natural in the saddle. With a little steadying the 

 body remained upright until shelter was reached, the pace being all the while a gallop. 



* From conversation with the late Henry W. Grady, respecting his father, who lost his 

 life in this attack, I believe this officer to have been Major Grady, of Georgia. I did not 

 shoot him. After drawing bead on him perhaps half a dozen times, admiration for his un- 

 exampled daring got the better of me, and I lowered the weapon with the exclamation, 

 " He is too brave I can't do it." 



