Mangled By a Shell-- Part 1: Privates Oliver Dart's Horrific Wound at Fredericksburg

I have been writing about his regiment, the 14th Connecticut for awhile leading up to these posts.  I happened upon this article and brought it up at our McHenry County (Illinois) Civil War Round Table discussion group meeting in December 2019.

From the February 2018, Civil War Times magazine "Mangled By a Shell" by John Banks.

You can look up Oliver Dart 14th Connecticut to see what happened to him.  He sat for a photograph a year after his wound with his mangled lower jaw, mouth and nose, from a shrapnel wound suffered during the attack on Marye's Heights December 13, 1862.

His regiment had crossed a pontoon bridge on Dec. 12 and spent the night among the shell-torn and ransacked houses of the town.  On the 13th, the regiment came under a tremendous artillery barrage from the Confederates after they neared the train depot and one of those shells burst right among Oliver Dart's Company D  of the 14th Connecticut.

A 3- by 2-inch fragment smashed into the ground fling sand into the eyes of Corporal John Symonds and blinding Private Dart's brother-in-law.  Then it crashed into the arm and face of the 23-year-old Dart before striking a 4-inch square wooden fence post.

--Old Secesh