Mangled By a Shell-- Part 2: "His Face Torn Off As Though Slashed Away With a Cleaver"

Corporal Charles Lyman, lying next to to Dart, recalled several years later that the fragment surely would have ripped through his head had it not struck that post.  Sergeant Benjamin Hirts of Co. D could only say, "Poor Oliver Dart.  As he rolled over he looked as though his whole face was shot away."

Private Dart was one of 82 men of the 14th Connecticut wounded at Fredericksburg, along with ten killed and 20 missing.

Oliver Dart was carried to a division hospital at the Rowe House where the regimental chaplain of the 14th, Henry Stevens remarked:  "On the northern porch lay, among others, our Dart, his face torn off as though slashed away with a cleaver.  And by his side lay Symonds, his eyes swollen with inflammation to the size of eggs, the sand grains showing through the tightly stretched and shining lids."

--Old Secesh