The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1886-09-01
L FULL OF LEAD.
a xexan with IOI bullet WoundG@
A story Told by u SOutherHor
which Almost SURPRISES
belief.

ing to show himself in a dime mu-
scum the present week" said a
Southerner at the fremont House
last night, as he crossed his feet and
leaned back in one of the big Office
chairs. Why, do you know" he
continued, that there is a curiosity
down South that beats all these bar
rel men and armless acrobats and
fire eaters? He is a little old a
now, but if these museum managers
were to take him up here they would
make a mint of money. His lame is
Harrison G. Oliver, Of Bolton, Bell
county, Tex, and he is the most e.
markable repository Of cold lead in,
this country today. Ii may seem
strange to you, young man, when l
tell you that lie has received
no less than l0l wounds,
and sixty of the bullets, ranging
in size from a buckshot to an ounce
ball, still remain in his body. He
was fifteen years old when he re-
ceived his first wounds. AT that
time he was Living ON the plantation
of his mother, zeal COushatta, in
Red River Parish, Louisiana. He
was out hunting with a halt brother
or cousin, | forget which, but at any
rate they became separated. While
Oliver was moving through the
bushes his brother thought him a
deer and Fl, ed both. barrels of his
shotgun at him. Thirty-seyen shot
lodged in his body, and the boy lay
for months at the point of death.
Only thirteen of the missiles were
removed. When the war broke out
young Oliver joined the Confederate
army in September, 1864, being a
member Of Company G, Eighteenth
Louisiana Volunteers. The first en-
gagement in which the regiment was
actively engaged was at Pittsburg
Landing, where it encountered a
leaden storm from the decks Of The
gunboats Lexington ard Z. o.
Tyler. The fight lasted four hours.
Oliver received a severe wound
in the left shoulder from a
piece of a conlcal she'll. Before the
terrible cut bad had time to heal
Oliver went with his regiment in the
battle of Shiloh. 1t was during
this engagement that he received
what were supposed to be mortal
wounds. When the gallant Beaure-
gard led the Eighteenth Louisiana
into that deadly storm OF shot and
shell, Oliver was one of the first to
fall, with blood gushing from his
mouth. His name appeared in the
list of the slain, and for more than a.
year he was supposed to be dead.
1t was in October, 1863, that the
Eighteenth Louisians, having been
transferred to the west side of the
Mississippi, was eucamped on Ber-
wick Bay, when Oliver suddenly APP
peared among his old comrades.
His story, which was briefly told.
was TO the effect that he had fallen
at Shiloh, wounded in seven places,
mimic balls having pierced his left
lung, right shoulder, right arm, his
right groin, both thighs and left
foot. Not ore of these balls had
been extracted, except the n in the
foot. After remaining twenty-four
hours where he fell Oliver was
picked up, more dead han alive,
placed on a transport and taken
to Louisville, where he re-
manned in hospital for
more than a year. When
he reached his regiment he was
greatly emaciated. He had partly
lost the use of his right arm, but was
only slightly lame from the bullets,
in his legs. For several months Oil
yer was kept at clerical work Che
having learned to write with his left
handy, but in March, 1864, he went
into the battle Of Mansfield, on the
upper Red river. Here his bad luck
again befel him, and he was wounded
in five different places. A mimic ball
imbedded itself 10 his skull, another
perforated his right cheek, the third
tore a great hole through the feshy
part of his neck, and two lodged in
his left shoulder. Four of these
balls are still in his body, This fin
ished Oliver for the war, and he was
sent home a confirmed cripple. In
1865 the bullet that was buried in the
skull and so overhung the brain as.
to cause constant pain was removed.
1T would seem that this chapter
of sanguinary accidents should have
had an ending here, but it did not.
One day in the summer Of 1873 he
was standing on a street corner in
Bolton. A dentist in the upper win
dow of a building near by mistook
him for an enemy for whom he was
on the lookout and fired at him with
a double barreled shotgun loaded
with duck shot. Fifty.one shot tore
their way into his back. OF these
twenty. four were subsequently ex-
tracted, but twenty-s seven remained.
Oliver was confined to his bed for
two years, his life during that time
hanging by a thread. A remarkable
vitality served him in this instance
as it had 10 many others. Both his
liver and his kidneys were perfo-
rated. These wounds have done more
to Impair his general health than all
the others combined.
81 saw Oliver the other day on his
farm in Bolton. He told me that
the only agony he ever felt was in
the region of the heart, where, he
feels sue, a bullet is lodged in the
sac inelosing that vital organ. Two
years ago Oliver Whitfield a duck shot
out of his right side, and about a
year ago a fragment Of a ball that had
split in passing through his right
cheekbone dropped through the roof
of his mouth and was swallowed
while he was asleep. Three fingers
and the palm of his right hand have
been amputated, and the entire bone
between the elbow and shoulder Of
the right arm has been taken out,
and that member is now of little use
to its owner, except to fill the coas
sleeve.
when Oliver went hunting with
his brother or cousin he weighed
1876 pounds. Estimating the weight
of lead in his body to be two pounds,
his averdupois is just the same as it
was the day he caught the thirty
80. ,,Ilots in the woods