Over at Murdoc Online, I’ve started a new weekly feature called Civil War Saturday. It generally features a period photograph and an essay by AW1 Tim, a longtime reader and commenter at MO.

This week’s entry, the third, is about Bayonets. Go check it out and add to the discussion in the comments section if interested.

Civil War Soldier from Foote, Iowa

Civil War re-enactor’s injury shakes die-hards

This is odd:

A battle re-enactment last month pushed realism to the limits: a retired New York City police officer portraying a Union soldier for a documentary film was shot in the shoulder, possibly by a Confederate re-enactor.

The shooting sent the 73-year-old to the hospital and left the Isle of Wight Sheriff’s Office in rural southeastern Virginia with a Civil War-style CSI case. Investigators used film to piece together what happened and have narrowed a suspect to one re-enactor.

The story goes on to say

Re-enactors said [Thomas R.] Lord’s shooting may have happened in part because walk-ons were used. These are re-enactors who typically are not affiliated with a unit and unfamiliar with the chain of command or safety rules, akin to a football player showing up on game day to play for a team the athlete has never met.

I’m confused. Are they saying that some of the walk-on may not have realized that this particular re-enactment didn’t use real bullets?

“Oops! My bad, guys! In my regular group, we shoot each other for real. I didn’t realize this one didn’t.”

I’m wondering what the victim was shot with. Not the type of gun, but what actually hit him. A minie ball? Or something used as wadding or something? Maybe a pebble or some other debris in the powder? It doesn’t seem that paper debris would cause an injury severe enough to be called “getting shot,” but they don’t say what hit him.

Thankfully, he’s going to be okay. (Image from Farmers Lodge # 168)

Just got The Lions of Iwo Jima by Fred Haynes and James A. Warren and read nearly half of it while flying today. Great read so far.

The Lions of Iwo Jima tells the full story of one of the greatest units fielded in the history of the U.S. Marines. Combat Team 28, 4500 men strong, trained for a full year, landed on the black sands of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, and raised the flag atop Mount Suribachi after four days of ferocious combat. Major General Fred Haynes USMC (Ret’d), then a young captain, is the last surviving officer in CT28 intimately involved in planning and coordinating all phases of the Team’s fight on Iwo Jima. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped documents, personal narratives, and letters, in addition to more than 100 interviews with survivors, Haynes and Warren recapture in riveting detail what the Marines of Combat Team 28 experienced, placing particular emphasis on the Team’s ferocious struggle to break through the main belt of the Japanese defenses to the north, and reduce the final pocket of resistance on the island in Bloody Gorge.

The Lions of Iwo Jima offers fresh interpretations of the fight for Suribachi, the iconic flag raising photo, and the nature of the campaign as a whole, and helps to answer the essential questions: Who were these men? What accounts for their extraordinary performance in battle?

The first (smaller) flag was just raised when I left off. If the second half of the book is anything like the first, this is a real winner.

I will have a lot more on this in the near future.

November 2, 1922. Washington, D.C. “Girls’ rifle team, Central High.” National Photo Company Collection glass negative.

What’s with resting the rifle on the left-hand fingers? Just to pose for the photo? Or is/was that an accepted shooting stance?

From Shorpy.

From the author of Don’t Know Much About History comes America’s Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation by Kenneth C. Davis:

Kenneth C. Davis, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller Don’t Know Much About History, presents a collection of extraordinary stories, each detailing an overlooked episode that shaped the nation’s destiny and character. Davis’s dramatic narratives set the record straight, busting myths and bringing to light little-known but fascinating facts from a time when the nation’s fate hung in the balance.

Spanning a period from the Spanish arrival in America to George Washington’s inauguration in 1789, America’s Hidden History details these episodes, among others:

• The story of the first real Pilgrims in America, who were wine-making French Huguenots, not dour English Separatists
• The coming-of-age story of Queen Isabella, who suggested that Columbus pack the moving mess hall of pigs that may have spread disease to many Native Americans
• The long, bloody relationship between the Pilgrims and Indians that runs counter to the idyllic scene of the Thanksgiving feast
• The little-known story of George Washington as a headstrong young soldier who committed a war crime, signed a confession, and started a war!

Full of color, intrigue, and human interest, America’s Hidden History is an iconoclastic look at America’s past, connecting some of the dots between history and today’s headlines, proving why Davis is truly America’s Teacher.

Sometimes you just gotta say ‘WTF, mate?’

Rabbi Harold Kudan of nearby Temple Am Shalom went on record as challenging aggressive leaflets the gun lobby circulated a month after the shootings that claimed, “If Jews had been armed they could have fought the Nazis.”

“If Jews had guns in Nazi Germany, no one would have survived. It would have been an excuse for Nazis to kill with even greater abandon,” he told the assemblage, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In this article. Via Joe Huffman.

Is this a case of life imitating art?

Jewish Official about to order Matthias stoned to death: You’re only making it worse for yourself!

Matthias: Making it worse? How can it be worse?

Being used today in Ethiopia. By a woman.

The original assault rifle.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I had never heard of this before. Cool.