FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 163 



Alabama Infantry, meeting a volley of balls. Shortly afterward 

 his riderless horse dashed through the regimental lines. The 

 general had fallen, with five mortal wounds, and when found 

 still clutched his outstretched saber, and bore the appearance of 

 having been unhorsed when dead or dying, much as in the case of 

 Captain Nolan. 



In the excitement of such actions as those where the Georgia 

 major and Farnsworth fell, it is not possible for any observer to 

 note the symptoms minutely. The fact that a man is down and 

 out of the fight is about all that friend or foe can take account of 

 for the time being. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that 

 some deaths are instantaneous, the men being literally killed in 

 action. One such case I had an opportunity to study with un- 

 usual care at Fort Haskell, in the Fort Steadman battle at Peters- 

 burg. The action there was defensive on our part, the scene very 

 small, and the fight prolonged, hence many things were observed 

 that would escape notice on an open field. At one time, just in 

 front of me as I looked toward the enemy, there was a soldier of 

 our garrison firing his musket from a gun-staging that raised his 

 head and shoulders above the parapet. He was the oldest man I 

 ever saw in battle, and for that reason doubtless I observed him 

 closely. His hair was white, and his form had reached the stage 

 of unsteadiness. He fired very slowly, and after each shot would 

 scan the enemy's lines, as though watching the results of his last 

 ball or spying out a target for the next. Finally, when I had my 

 attention almost wholly on him, he half turned to reload, and I 

 saw his cap fly off smartly without any visible help, and the large 

 and bony frame shrink together and sink down into a heap. 

 There was no spasm, no agitation whatever. It seemed to me 

 that he simply sat down slowly until he rested on his legs, bent 

 under the body, his head going down to his knee, or to the trail 

 of the cannon. A little stream of blood ran from his forehead 

 and made a pool on the plank, and this blood reached the plank 

 about the time that his frame settled itself down motionless. 

 From the time that his cap flew off until the blood appeared on 

 the staging, and the motionless body led me to say, " He is dead," 

 could not have been more than thirty seconds, and was probably 

 about twenty. The fatal ball had penetrated the left temple or 

 near it. This was the only case where I noted all the external 

 manifestations of a soldier killed " so quickly that he never knew 

 what hit him," as the saying is. 



All that are found dead on the battle-field figure in the lists as 

 " killed in action." Of these quite a percentage may meet with 

 instantaneous death, but the majority show proof that both 

 body and mind were at work after the fatal blow was received. 

 One of the most convincing cases of the kind, and at the same 



