Finding a Dead Cavalryman With a Glass Eye
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- čas přidán 10. 07. 2024
- Early in the Gettysburg Campaign, JEB Stuart's Confederate cavalry screened Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as it moved toward Pennsylvania. On several occasions, Stuart's troopers clashed with their U.S. counterparts. One of the actions, at Aldie, Va., on June 17, 1863, resulted in the death of a Union trooper with a distinctive feature-an artificial eye made of glass. Here's where the story begins.
"Life on the Civil War Research Trail" is hosted by Ronald S. Coddington, Editor and Publisher of Military Images magazine. Learn more about our mission to showcase, interpret and preserve Civil War portrait photography at militaryimagesmagazine.com and shopmilitaryimages.com.
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Image: National Museum of American History
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Blood was well documented including the glass eye!! Thanks for the research.
Ed Glass (no glass eye) from Lynchburg
Ron thank you for another great story! You do a great job as always!
well done!
You used a glass eye to find a dead cavalryman?
Pretty wild!
Interesting story of an ordinary soldier and not the usual story about some famous officer. You may well imagine that with all those dangerous bits flying around, war is especially hard on the human eye. There is a very strong emotional and aesthetic aspect to our eyes as "windows into the soul" (although they aren't windows into anything except the retina) and so a realistic looking artificial eye is important for social interactions. Most men, who would lose an eye, had to settle for a patch with only a fortunate few having the blind eye able to accept a decent looking prosthetic eye fitted over it and who were wealthy enough to have the procedure done. It would be an interesting side story to learn just how Trooper Blood lost his eye, where and how his artificial eye was made and who was the surgeon who did this sort of work.
All the talk of Trooper Blood's glass eye reminds me of things that happened long ago. My dad was an Navy ophthalmologist during WW2 and Korea and I'm sure he fitted a lot of prosthetic eyes (by WW2 they were made of acrylic not glass). When I was a boy, I was in dad's office looking around when I opened a case and there, looking back at me, was a tray full of eyes. My jaw hit the floor with a loud slap, they were so very real looking. You may be assured that looking at these beautiful artificial eyes staring back, let us say, "out of context," is spooky, very spooky. By the way, artificial eyes are an amazing and beautiful work of art. I once visited the ancient center of glass blowing, Venice, and watch in utter fascination as the artists worked. I have to assume that this is where artificial eye manufacturing began, probably in the Renaissance.
Dam Ron this story was a trip it's bad enough going through war but they were all interconnected it's unbelievable great story thank you 👍
Not too surprising considering Ewell served minus a leg and Hood served minus an arm. Standards of fitness weren't very high back then.
Know that VA creek well. Poor Lester Blood- sounds like a helluva charge.
Hey I'm not getting your notifications I fell way behind 🍀🍀🍀
Sounds like a confederate victory to me.
Lester Blood. Then there was Lester Moore, buried in Boot Hill--Tombstone, AZ in the Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday days. His tombstone read:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a 44
No Les, No Moore
It's kind of funny if it were true, however it was a fake tombstone supported by a good fake story of a man working for Wells Fargo. Hollywood loved it though. Great to hear a true story of a real warrior. I thought there would be some play on his name like he rose to the rank of captain, you know-Captain Blood after the burning of the town.
Cavalry men, from the word Chevalier came chivalry, and boy where these horsemen brave. Charging an enemy on a horse with saber raised, with a pretty good chance of being killed, took a hella lot of fearlessness.
Poor Blood was one of these guys... *great tale* ...and to I.D a body by a glass eye is really unusual indeed.