October 2022
data of any more children afterwards. While two prison guards accidentally shot during an off-duty argument about fire engines was unusual, Major Colt’s disability from his clumsy attempt to jump that ditch in Virginia is potentially one of the strangest and most embarrassing accidental self-inflicted wounds of the Civil War. One struggles to find any record of an incident remotely similar. Most infantry officers before, during, and after the Civil War-era did not wear a saber unless on parade or in battle, especially not while on the march. Officers had a baggage wagon and the cutlery generally rode in the “in the rear with the gear.”
It almost sounds like a comedy skit or a circus clown act, but such were the men assigned to run the Union prison system. However, once his ditch jumping days were behind him, Clayton Holmes noted of Major Henry Colt in A History of the Elmira Prison Camp, (1912) that “[He] was generally well regarded by fellow officers and prisoners at Elmira. Major Colt was considered a fair man and a man of good judgment.”
As far as the final disposition in the case of Private Thomas Conauton, he was very fortunate compared to other soldiers struck at close range by a Minié ball fired from an Enfield rifle. The medical report concludes:
“The patient convalesced without an unfavorable symptom and was returned to duty in less than five weeks from the reception of the wound. On March 19th, 1866, he was carefully examined. Externally, nothing could be seen except the cicatrices and marks of the sutures, while on auscultation and percussion, a dullness was found at the middle lobe of the right lung, confined to a space of about four inches in circumference, where pleuritic adhesion had taken place. Otherwise that lobe was perfectly healthy, as were the remaining lobes of both right and left lungs, he was in perfect health.”
Craig L. Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from UNC (Charlotte). Craig served The Watchdog Civil War Quarterly as Associate Editor and Editor
from 2003–2017. The Watchdog published books and columns on
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battlefield preservation. He is the author of several books including The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy (2006, 2011),
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The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture Vol. I and II (2012, 2013). He has also published four books in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.