curiocity - an intermittent series of posts addressing one or more unusual items around our household (fr. curio (n), any unusual article, object of art, etc., valued as a curiosity.)
On a small display shelf on the mirrored hutch in our bedroom are two large lead projectiles laid on foam in a box with a transparent lid. They have been there long enough that, like so many household objects, they have become almost invisible to me most of the time. But when someone bumps the dresser and they tip over or if I need to move them so I can dust, they always produce a cloud of memories. I picked them up in a souvenir store at a civil war battlefield; an impulse purchase I have never regretted.
Most people who go to visit the National Military Park in Gettysburg Pennsylvania probably do so out of an interest in that battle, or in the American Civil War at least. My interest in the ACW began afterwards, or perhaps during.
While living in Toronto, Audrey and I visited Gettysburg three times over a four-year period, both of us enjoying history as much as we do, and it is a remarkably well-preserved battlefield, definitely worth the trip. On our last visit, we were joined by two friends from Edmonton, Pete (the Rare Hipster) and Brent (the Hoodlum), the latter of whom I am sad to say I have only seen once in the past 12 years or so.
Brent was a real military history buff, and had come out to G'burg with Audrey and I on a previous visit, where we discovered that there would be a massive reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg the following summer to commemorate its 135th anniversary. With Audrey pregnant and expecting in November, we realized this might be our last child-free vacation in a while, and asked Pete to join us as well.
Someday I will dig up the photos from that trip and show you the massive reenactment as well as an Amish market, and Brent reenacting a famous and grisly photo from Devil's Den, and the amusement park only I knew existed in Hershey, PA, but this short post will be about bullets.
The ones in my little display box are called (incorrectly) Minnie balls, but are, in fact, Minié bullets. They are not spherical but pointy -streamlined for straighter and faster travel. They were used by both the North and the South during the Battle Between the States, and there were a lot of them fired by the thousands of troops who fought there for three days in July of 1863.
I couldn't guess how many in total, but the two points that testify to the seriously unhealthy amounts of lead in the air are first, that there are multiple instances of bullets fused together because they collided in mid-air. Not a lot mind you, but holy cow, more than one? At least two different museums have such examples on display, and they are also owned by a handful of private collectors. Think of it; despite firing only 3-4 shots per minute, there were still enough bullets fired in anger that more than one time they were intercepted in flight - astonishing!
The second point of proof is the sheer number of bullets they have dug up around the battlefield, and at the time, people were still finding them on a regular basis. So many, in fact, that most of the many gift shops in Gettysburg have small bins of them by the cash register so you can buy one or two with your change.
There were other bullets as well; I think it was Audrey who picked up a malformed one from a separate bin, flattened and with irregular indentations in it.
"What are those, miscasts or defects or something?" I asked the shopkeeper.
"No," he said, "Those ones all came from the Spangler Farm."
My expression made it clear that I did not understand the significance, but Brent spoke up: "The field hospital? Ew."
The clerk gave a wicked grin and nodded. "That's right; those ones are full of teeth marks from the poor unfortunates undergoing field surgery or amputations without anesthetic..."
I finally clued in and finished his sentence; "...and so they literally had to 'bite the bullet'."
Audrey took a closer look to verify the marks as dentition, then dropped it into the bin with only the mildest expression of disgust. And I mean, good on her - let's not forget she was well into her second trimester by this point!
I reached across the counter and grabbed the tidier display box, with blue and grey foam showing the representative sides of the conflict. "I'll take these ones instead, thanks."
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