He’ll be comin’ round the mountain when he comes!

This tale is out of the November 7, 1874 issue of American Medical Weekly, the 19th century version of the Journal of the AMA. According to Dr. LeGrand G. Capers of Vicksburg, a patient and friend of his was a soldier who was shot in the family jewels. This happened a lot in duels, because some nimrod decided that the best place to shoot a man to prove your honor without killing him was in the hip, which often led to wounds in the groin and bad romance novel dialog like in the abysmal Louisiana - “What? Shot off?” Dr. Caper’s unfortunate patient had a ball of shot carry off his left testicle in the Battle of Raymond, a minor but fairly bloody skirmish in the Vicksburg Campaign.

Bullets in those days were called “balls of shot” because they were more like little cannon balls, with a similar range and potential for collateral damage. This particular bullet passed through the wall of a nearby house and into the side of the abdomen of a 17-year-old girl within. Nine months later the startled young lady gave birth to a bouncing eight-pound baby boy, leaving her parents in something of a pickle. But in truth the baby wasn’t perfectly healthy; three weeks after he was born, Dr. Capers had to operate on the child to remove part of a smashed miniball. Astonished, he concluded that the young lady had been a virgin, and that the ball of shot had passed through his other patient wounded in the battle nearby, then passed into the poor girl’s ovary, carrying hitchhiking spermatozoa on it and impregnating her. It was literally a virgin birth, with no dove required.

And here’s where the story gets really spiffing. Actually, it’s a lot like the story of Joseph and Mary. For when Dr. Capers reported to his friend on what had happened to the girl, and on the fact that none of the neighbors believed her, the young man paid a call on her, even though he wasn’t sure he believed it himself. But he liked her, and soon after, he asked her to marry him, which she promptly did.

The surprisingly happy couple had three more children, but none of them looked as much like their father as the first one. C’est la guerre!

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The truth, after additional research, is that Dr. Capers made the "Tale of the Miraculous Bullet" up. It was submitted to the American Medical Weekly as a joke, parodying the rash of wildly exaggerated tall tales being circulated about incidents during the Civil War being circulated at the time. Capers submitted the article anonymously as a gag, but the journal's editor recognized the well-known doctor's distinctive handwriting, and stuck his name on it. As a result, the story eventually appeared in England's The Lancet and other medical journals, and was passed off as authentic as late as the 1950s.

Shooting Your Mouth Off

Death really shouldn’t be funny. After all, never ask for whom the bell tolls; it’s tolling for thee, schmuck, which means we all should feel that little shiver of empathy that affirms our humanity when hearing of anyone’s death.

Nevertheless, sometimes, you just can’t help but laugh.

And so it was with the death of General John Sedgwick, the highest ranking officer killed in battle during the American Civil War. He died at the battle of Spotsylvania, in Virginia, and his last words have gained a rightful place of honor in American folklore.

The general was in command of the VI Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Like many great generals from Washington to Napoleon to Patton, he had a reputation for not batting an eyelash under fire. But on May 9, 1864, he should have batted one, for a group of Confederate snipers had already begun sporadic firing before the battle, and the men along the Union lines were getting a little spooked. The sharpshooters were about a thousand yards away.

But snipers were getting better in this period, and so were their rifles. It’s often been noted by historians that, in many respects, the absolute bloodbath of the Civil War was a tryout for the equally pointless carnage of World War I; many of the tactics of that conflict, including trench fighting, were first tried out on the bloody battlefields of Virginia and Pennsylvania. And the use of snipers, which had been done at least since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1804, when sharpshooters went up the shrouds and picked off officers from above, was really coming into its own during the Civil War, a tactic that would remain fixed in all armies ever afterward.

And so, as men were ducking for cover, General Sedgwick had the bad taste and the worse sense to walk up and down the line, chiding them for their supposed cowardice.

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!” he finally shouted.

And then promptly dropped dead, from a bullet right between the eyes. You know, some people are just asking for it.