Bibles of the Civil War

Not in the heart but pretty lucky nonetheless.

Harry Heth was wounded during the attack on the first day at Gettysburg when a bullet struck him in the head. Fortunately for him, he was wearing a hat that was too large and stuffed with papers to make it fit. The papers probably deflected the bullet to avoid a fatal wound, but Heth was concussed and knocked unconscious and effectively out of the battle.

Jim Klag said:

Actually, there were at least two different bibles - the King James and the Catholic bibles.

Click to expand...

I think there was more than one man who carried a German bible, either Römisch Katholisch or Lutherisch

diane said:

Incredible near misses in a fight are more common than it seems!

Click to expand...

George Carlin said:

near misses? near hits!

Click to expand...

Near hits and nears misses, huh. Then there's Uncle John Sedgwick who tempted fate when he proclaimed, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Oops.

The kid in the cornfield at Antietam - he saw everybody dropping face first onto the ground and thought an order to lay down had been given. So he laid down...then he realized no order had been given, the guys dropped because they were dead!

By the way... did I screw up my English again?

diane said:

By the way... did I screw up my English again?

Click to expand...

Sca-rew zee English.

diane said:

By the way... did I screw up my English again?

Click to expand...

the English don't like to be screwed by foreigners, this is the reason they have Boris

btw, not to mess with the image everybody seems to have about this bible-stopping-bible thing, but the common soldiers coat had no vest pocket, some didn't even have a lining. Though there could be a vest pocket in a vest underneath the coat, other than mild or cold weather the common soldier didn't wear a vest. Not only that, but not all vests had a pocket at chest level.

Now let's re-look at that fat 'ole bible with the bullet in it.



This was not something that easily fit into a vest pocket of any sort. Officers wore frock coats that perhaps had an interior pocket big enough to cram such a bible into, otherwise such an item would be carried in a haversack of a private or an officer, where it maybe could stop butt shots.

So are these stories of a private's bible credible from that standpoint? The things we tend to overlook in search of the good story. (Small thing: notice in the video the soldier grabs his right chest. We know most sack coats didn't have interior pockets to begin with, and if added they were usually put over the left chest).

Again, the common soldier wouldn't carry anything more than a testament or psalm book on the march (or selected verses per the OP link) -- not a complete bible. (Whether the bible contained the books of the Pentateuch or not; the main difference between Catholic and Protestant bibles; isn't much of difference as to relative thickness).

You know, it's a little bit surprising what those soldiers managed to pack into their jackets!

ps
For instance, in this photo of Forrest, there is clearly a lot more than just him inside that coat.

And holy cow! Those buttons are Army of Tennessee! My button question is finally answered!

(Sorry...couldn't help it...!)

It would appear that the notion that Civil War soldiers' vests had no pockets is a terminological inexactitude.

Jim Klag said:

It would appear that the notion that Civil War soldiers' vests had no pockets is a terminological inexactitude.

Click to expand...

which probably why that hasn't been claimed:

byron ed said:

...the common soldiers coat had no vest pocket, some didn't even have a lining. Though there could be a vest pocket in a vest underneath the coat, other than mild or cold weather the common soldier didn't wear a vest...

Click to expand...

But thanks anyway for posting the four military vest examples, that we can clearly see the size of the chest-high pockets in the type.

Bibles were pretty small. They don't seem to require much of a pocket.

Jim Klag said:

Bibles were pretty small. They don't seem to require much of a pocket.

Click to expand...

...the very reason these small books were not full-up bibles. They typically were testaments, psalms or bible selections. It seems things must be explained repeatedly for the point to sink in.

Anyway thanks for putting up pics of a few examples of these small soldier books, that we can more clearly see these could not stop a bullet as a complete bible would. To repeat, any book thick enough to stop a bullet doesn't really fit into the chest pocket of a private's vest. And to repeat, a private's sack coat didn't typically have chest pockets (or any pockets at all for that matter).

And so, to repeat, only officer's frock coats were likely to have a chest pocket big enough to hold a thick book -- yet the claims presented are all for privates. Thus we vett the stories. If this one again shown here is a private's book, it was most likely carried in his haversack, at butt level.



Not that a fella's butt wasn't worthy of protection as well.

I understand that you want so much to believe that bullet-stopping bibles stories are to be considered legitimate at first. I've advised, via well-considered reasoning, that such stories should be considered illegitimate at first. Nothing to be gaming the thread over.

I don't know why a little Bible wouldn't stop a bullet when a packet of love letters would.

diane said:

I don't know why a little Bible wouldn't stop a bullet when a packet of love letters would.

Click to expand...

Spent bullets, of which there were many, were at times stopped by mere wool. In which case it hardly mattered if there was a few sheets of paper or a pocket book behind it. It's all in the telling of the story, yes? There are instances of men getting hit by a bullet and only bruised, or no mark at all, yet we would make a bigger deal that some artifact has a dent or hole in it -- an artifact which could easily have been manufactured post-war, even to the present day.

I wish, like Ike, that the answer to any CW topic were either a this or a that -- black or white -- so that I too might be seen as a king of history for knowing which of the things it was -- but alas, history is all shades of grey, each instance unique.

I wouldn't underestimate a spent bullet either. Sherman was struck by one of them on the epaulette and by a non-spent bullet along the back of his hand. The spent bullet was the one that put his arm in a sling for weeks!

diane said:

I wouldn't underestimate a spent bullet either. Sherman was struck by one of them on the epaulette and by a non-spent bullet along the back of his hand. The spent bullet was the one that put his arm in a sling for weeks!

Click to expand...

Thanks for bringing that up. It demonstrates that history is rarely a this or a that, a black or white thing, but a shade of grey. In in this instance the bullet wasn't spent enough, meh.

As serious CW mavens we should take these stories of bullet-stopping artifacts with a grain of salt, not get swept up in the story-telling.

I don't know, byron ed... If the Bible was in the guy's coat and there's a bullet in the Good Book and not in the guy's chest...I'd say that was sufficient proof it stopped the bullet!