10/27/2021
Very interesting!
One of the most eerie ways to be wounded or to die on the battlefield in the 18th century was by “Wind of the Ball.” This was the term used by people at the time to describe the effects of a cannon ball passing so close to a person that they were injured or died without the ball ever touching them. While this type of death or wound was rather common on board the tightly packed decks of the fighting ships, it was more unusual in land battles. Due to this “novelty”, it was often remembered and recorded by those who witnessed it.
Two recorded accounts happened early in the Revolutionary War at the Battle of “Bunker Hill.” Prior to the British assault on the American redoubt, it was bombarded by British ships in the Boston Harbor. Captain Ebenezer Bancroft later stated that he was “Standing by the redoubt before the action began, a ball from the Somerset (a British ship) passed within a few inches of my head, which seriously affected my left eye so that it finally became totally blind.” Ezra Stiles later recorded of fellow soldier John Martin, ..”A Canon ball came by his Breast (but without Toutch) he fell instantly and was senseless, the Force so great. They let him blood & he recovered, tho’ he vomited or raised much blood & is still at pain in his breast.”
Doctor James Thacher, a military surgeon from Massachusetts, had a personal experience with this type of incident at the battle of Springfield, New Jersey in 1780: “While advancing against the enemy, my attention was directed to a wounded soldier in the field…It may be considered a singular circumstance, that the soldier…was wounded by the wind of a cannon-ball. His arm was fractured above the elbow, without the smallest perceptible injury to his clothes, or contusion or discoloration of the skin. He made no complaint, but I observed he was feeble and a little confused in his mind. He received proper attention, but expired the next day. The idea of injury by the wind of the ball, I learn, is not new…and are almost constantly attended with fatal effects.”
One of the best documented occurrences of “Wind of the Ball” took place at the siege of Yorktown in October of 1781. It was witnessed by at least two individuals who later recorded it in their memoirs. Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt, commanding the 2nd New York Regiment, had just entered the siege trenches with his men and saw “Another remarkable occurrence Sergt. Brown was leaning over the embankment looking at the Enemies Battery when Capt. Vandenburgh ordered him down and as he slid down the Ball that was intended to kill him…passed over his head and either the Wind or the Sand as it passed without breaking his skull or skin produced his death in an instant as he fell dead in the trench no mark but bloodshod head and face.” Sergeant Joseph P. Martin of the Corps of Sappers and Miners (a Continental Army engineer corps) was also in the same trench at the time and witnessed the fate of Sgt. Brown: “…I was sitting on the side of the trench, when some of the New York troops coming in, one of the sergeants stepped up to the breastwork to look about him…At that instant a shot from the enemy which doubtless was aimed for him in particular…passed just by his face without touching him at all. He fell dead into the trench. I put my hand on his forehead and found his skull was shattered all in pieces and blood flowing from his nose and mouth, but not a particle of skin was broken. I never saw an instance like this among all the men I saw killed during the whole war.”
While some sort of concussive effect seems likely in causing these injuries and deaths, it is not the definitive answer. Other theories put forward include shock wave, air turbulence and reflex paralysis. In many ways “Wind of the Ball” is still just as eerie and strange a phenomenon today as it was in the 18th century.
