James A. Hall and his battery

I spent 4 1/2 hours out on the field yesterday....studying and just enjoying the summer-like weather that we have been having. I spent the majority of my time studying the battery of James A. Hall. I guess Hall's Battery has been one of those batteries that I thought I knew a lot about...but until I did a detailed study of his actions, I didn't really understand just what Hall went through on July 1.

First, we have to understand that Hall was sent in with Cutler's brigade. As a matter of fact, when he was sent (by Reynolds) to relieve Calef, he had actually cut off the 147th NY from advancing with the rest of their brigade....which is probably why they ended up in the weird position that they ended up in.

But Hall's 2nd Maine Battery was placed on McPherson's Ridge. 2 of the guns were placed on the south side of Chambersburg Pike and 4 were placed on the north side. The six guns that Hall brought to the battle were 3-inch Ordnance Rifles.

The fighting in and of itself was complicated and hard to explain, but to make a long story short, Hall and his men were fighting the brigades of Davis and Archer. The fighting was short but intense. Many of Hall's men were wounded. I've read two different accounts as to how many men were killed: one source says 0 and the other source says 2. Hall also lost many of his horses.
After seeing the 76th NY and 56th PA retreating, Hall decided to pull his men out. What he didn't realize was that the 147th NY was still on the other side of the railroad cut. They ended up isolated and having to fight their way back to safety. Hall pulled his men out two guns at a time. The big problem was that by the time the last two guns went to pull out, there was no infantry to help cover their retreat. The final gun had to be abandoned after all the horses were shot.

Hall was able to pull his men all the way back to the eastern side of the Seminary. It took about an hour, but one of the other regiments was able to retrieve the lost gun for Hall.

They then retreated back to Cemetery Hill and that is where they stayed for that day and the next. Today, the Lincoln Speech Memorial is at the location of where Hall's battery was held. By the time they arrived at Cemetery Hill, they only had three of their guns in working order.

Hall's battery is just a small sample of the stories that we can find on the battlefield, whether its Gettysburg or any other battlefield from the Civil War. These guys fought hard. They sacrificed much. I'm so glad that today, we can go out on the field and learn about the sacrifices of these men....North or South. They gave so much that today I consider them ALL my heroes.

The Minie Ball

I've sent some time reading about weapons and weaponry. One of the things that I have wondered about was the Minie Ball. Now, I know what a Minie ball is....but why was it shaped the way it was, why did it do the damage that it did, what was the purpose of this bullet? And so many other questions. So I did a little research. So many questions.....

Well, I hit the Internet....what a wonderful (and awful) tool. And I learned some interesting things about Minie Balls. First, here is a picture of what they look like.
It's important to know what they look like in order to understand why they did what they did.

This bullet was a conical shaped projectile with a hollowed out base. The bullet and the gunpowder were placed in a paper "cartridge" which made loading the gun easy. When the gun was fired, the gases from the gunpowder got captured in the hollow section and caused the bullet to expand. When it expanded, the bullet was forced to touch the sides of the barrel of the gun. This barrel was rifled (had circular lines on the side which helped spin the bullet on its way out of the gun) and by expanding, the bullet was forced to spin. Think on terms of a football....when you throw it without a spin, you have no control of it. When you spin it, you can throw it more accurately. Once the bullet left the barrel of the gun, it was spinning, giving the gun more accuracy and a longer range with which to hit. The Union minie balls had three grooves on the bottom of the exterior of the bullet and the Confederate minie balls had two bands of grooves. This was the basic rule of thumb for a minie ball.

Now that we know what a minie ball is and how it works, let take a little look into the background of this particular bullet. This was co-designed by Capt. Claude Etienne Minie of the French army. He built on the design of Henri-Gustave Delvigne. Delvigne had designed an early version of the minie ball but it was larger and just didn't work as well. So, Minie got ahold of his design and tweaked it, made it smaller, used soft lead and was able to come up with a bullet that did just what they wanted it to do....shot long, fast, and deadly.

The minie ball was notorious for destroying bone. When the bullet hit bone, the bone usually disintegrated. Here is a photo of a bone that I found that shows a minie ball hit. When a bone was destroyed by one of these bullets, there was very little that a doctor could do for the patient....just amputate. This is usually when infection set in and people died.

Overall, the minie ball seemed like a good idea....and it probably was. It was dangerous....but what bullet isn't? After reading up on this, now I get a much better idea of just what a minie ball is, what it did, the history, and results.