Other Causes of Severe Wounds from Bullets

Not all the explosive wounds were caused by gunpowder-filled musket shells. Little understood at the time, though recent research has shed some light on the subject, was the existence of a temporary wound cavity of enormous proportions during the passage of the bullet. This temporary cavity was caused by a transfer of energy from the bullet point tangent to the body, to the fluids of the body. Since water is incompressible, the result is to accelerate the water, hence the flesh, rapidly away from the projectile due to the lighter inertia of the body tissue. This energy imparted to the tissue caused development of a cavity which expanded to many times the size of the bullet, flexing several times as the elasticity of the muscle fibers tried to restrict the cavity against the force of the energy-transferred fluids. The effect was to cause a secondary rending and tearing of the flesh.
The passing of the bullet excavated, by physically destroying flesh equal to the diameter of the bullet. The temporary cavity ruptured blood vessels, extravasted blood, and “pulped” flesh throughout a far greater volume. This pulping or secondary damage from the temporary cavity was proportional to the velocity of the bullet.

Though the truly high velocities of today’s light sporting rifle bullets, pencil-like jacketed pellets of 150-200 grains weight average travelling at 3,000 feet per second, were not approached, the real velocity of the Minie bullet or the long, slender Whitworth sniper slug of .45 caliber were from 20 per cent to 100 per cent higher at termination than the round ball musket projectiles. The wounding effect, though not as extreme as the pulping from a high velocity modem expanding bullet that “spoils too much meat,” as the hunter says, was still terrible by contrast with common experience.
Accusation of being explosive bullets lay with such experience, resulting from improved ballistics of the new weapons. Medical science of the day had no understanding of the phenomenon. Only at the time of the Korean War, by using high speed X-Ray movies of dogs shot with steel bullets at high velocities, has this temporary cavity effect been reduced to understanding. At the time of the Civil War, experience with various kinds of gunshot wounds was slight—indeed, experience in military medicine, and medical personnel, were in short supply.

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CHAPTER 17 The Starr Rises

From the catalog of Wallis and Wallis, British gun auctioneers ( 1962 ) at Lewes in Sussex, we read of the sale of a Starr revolver: Lot 1060 ... A 6 shot .44 Starr SA Army Perc Rev 14", brl 8", No. 51594, the top strap bearing old engraving Col. Colt Address New York, Good Condition but action As Found & frame screw not orig . Eben T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, might not have smiled at this latter day whimsey. Marking his re volver with the name of the man he dared challenge by launching a new revolving pistol business in 1858 was to him not funny. Though the modern gun bug who fraudulently marked this in the hope someone would bite on it as a hitherto unknown Colt double action revolver we trust was unsuccessful in his piracy, per haps the buyer at the Wallis and Wallis auction cherishes his purchase for what it is: one of the best and most modem revolvers of the Civil War era. Though complex inside at first glance, its parts are well thought out and reveal Star...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

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French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

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