Birmingham state herald., 1895-11-09
A CANNON BALL IN HIS LEG.
Dr. Wood Carried It There Over Thirt,
 Two Years,


 Post-Dispatch.
 . New York; Oct. 10.-For over thirty-two years New York physician has been carrying cannon ball in his body and hasn't minded it bit. The bah is a can ster shot 2A inches in circumference, and % of an inch in diameter. It came from a federal cannon at the battle of Gettysburg, and lodged below the knee, where 1t has remained ever since. Had not the shot begun to give some uncom- fortable twinges to the wounded mans bones it might have continued in its strange tenement indefinitely.
 The victim of the cannon ball is Dr. James Robie Wood, a well known physi- elan of New York, and a member of northern and southern families, the northern branch of which produced the famous orator Wendell Phillips, who was Dr. Woods cousin.
 was in the Second Georgia battalion of General Wright's brigade They were the target for Hancock's artillery, and as Dr. Wood, then an army surgeon, was at work on the field aiding the wounded, he was shot by a minnie ball in the left shoulder. He was shot second time in the right shoulder. A few moments later Dr. Wood felt a terrible blow on his knee, and fell crippled in the left leg. He was positive that he had accidentally received a shot from an army revolver of some Confederate officer. He didn't dream that he had received in the limb large iron canister shot. Canister shot is used in- stead of shells in close quarters, the shot being inclosed in tin box to the number of perhaps 100 or 200. AS this deadly fire is empted into the ranks it mows the men down like grass.
 All day the wounded man lay on the hillside watching the tide of battle surge ha ct he cfy.axx slope. When night came on and the fir ing had ceased the hill was in the hands of the union forces. At dusk the field was searched for the wounded. A tall, fine looking man, wearing the straps of a union officer, passed near where pr. Woods was lying. The officer noticed him and asked if anything could be done for him. Dr. Wood was carried off to the hospital quarters, but before going he asked of the tall officer:
 'Sir, may I have the honor of knowing to whom am indebted for this service ?" The tall man was General Webb, now chancellor of the University of New York, and the two men since that day have never met
 When the hospital surgeons looked at Dr. Woods wounds they advised the talk ing off of the limb, which had swollen enormously. Most of the surgeons be- lieved that the shot from the revolver, as it was supposed to have been, had re- bounded from the leg, as there was noth- ing to mark the place where it had en- tered the flesh save a little scar. An old German surgeon, Burgomaster by name disagreed with the decision to amputate the limb and advised waiting. Forum ately his advice was taken, and in few months the knee was apparently as well as ever. A tiny scar at the knee was the only evidence that a ball had ever touch ed it, and as years went by he almost forgot that a wound had ever been there.
 Immediately after the war Dr. Wood removed from Georgia to New York. Some years ago he began to be troubled with pains in the knee. They always re- turned about the anniversary of the bat tie of Gettysburg and were felt at in tervals for several months after. For the last three years about one or two months after the anniversary of the bat tie the leg at the knee has been seriously infiamed, but has recovered within eight or ten days. During much of this time the doctor was confined to his house.
 This year the persistence of the swell ing induced him to ask his friend, Dr. John c. Minor, to explore the swelling. The operation was performed the after noon of September 2S. the patient himself assisting at the operation. A hard lump was felt little below. the head of the tlbia and an incision was made in the flesh large enough for the extraction of an ordinary pistol ball. pr. Woods son.