Jim Jenkins and His Shell
Narrow Escape #13
Ironton Register 3 Feb. 1887
Submitted by Peggy Wells
“Hello, Jim. When did you come the nearest to getting killed and didn’t?” we said to James Jenkins, who was a member of Co. H., 91st O.V.I.
“I don’t know, ” said Jim. “About the closet call that I had was at Cedar Creek, where I didn’t entirely escape. I was on a skirmish line and remember loading my gun, and just as I was ramming the ball home, a shell from the rebel battery came to an end over and through the air saying, as it turned over each time, ‘Where is he? Where is he?'”
“It found me, or about where I was. It struck about as close to me as from here to that sack. (pointing a distance of about six feet.) It lost no time getting to business – it exploded as soon as it lit. How I ever escaped at all is one of the wonders of the world. I guess we may call it the eight, as there are seven before it.
“At any rate, I thought for an instant that I was killed for sure. A dizziness came over me, which I felt sure was death itself. Then a total blank followed. I suppose the ambulance gathered me up, or I may have been carried off. I don’t know how I was taken away. It was several days before I came to myself again and found that I hadn’t received a scratch—only a terrible shock and nothing more. But how I escaped being town all to pieces, I can’t imagine it to this day.
“Well, you are still alive, so you did escape. And it was narrow enough for all practical purposes, too, I should think.”
“Indeed it was. I don’t want to take such a chance again,” said Jim as he shouldered his grist and started for home.
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