Fredericksburg, midway between the Union capital at Washington and Confederate headquarters at Richmond. The year 1862; the month, December. On one side the Army of the Potomac under Major-General A. E. Burnside. On the other the Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee commanding. One of the most crucial battles of the Civil War at its height, with bullets flying thick and fast.
Raw but eager, a callow Jewish lad of nineteen wearing the blue of the Northern forces was in the midst of the fighting. A tiny rivulet of red ran down the lower part of his left leg. He paid no heed. Buddies were falling on all sides of him.
When the battle was over and the Federals withdrew to their camps about Falmouth after losing 12,000 men, doctors looked at the young warrior’s leg and said:
“Just a scratch. That’s all.”
AFTER 68 YEARS
And the Jewish lad of nineteen went on fighting for the right with the Army of the Potomac in every one of its major battles. He was Simon Pincus, who will be laid to rest in Mount Neboh Cemetery this afternoon. He was ninety when he breathed his last on Tuesday at his home, 34 Second street, Brooklyn.
And when the war was over he became associated with a cigar manufacturing business, with which he remained until his retirement in 1919. Not until four years ago—sixty-eight years after Fredericksburg—did he learn he had been carrying a rifle bullet in the calf of his leg. Not until then did it bother him.
At first doctors called his ailment the result of diabetes or neuritis, but in spite of treatment the pain became steadily more severe.
Finally Dr. Seymour G. Clark was consulted. He advised an immediate X-ray. When the photograph was developed the doctor said:
“You have a bullet in that leg.”
“A bullet?” asked the aged veteran. “No. It couldn’t be a bullet.” A pause. “Unless—but no. A bullet grazed my leg at Fredericksburg, but the doctors told me it was just a scratch.”
FINALLY REMOVED
It was a bullet. An operation was performed at Methodist Episcopal Hospital, Brooklyn. The bullet was found, removed, sixty-eight years later.
Dr. Clark said:
“So far as I have ever heard that bullet has the non-stop record for remaining in a living human being before removal by an operation.”
The doctor gave the missile to Mr. Pincus. He put it in a bottle and kept it on the mantelpiece in his home.
He was a member of Rankin Post No. 10 of the G.A.R. After his operation he never walked, and he rode in an automobile in the last Memorial Day parade.
Surviving are three daughters, Miss Lillie R. Pincus, Miss Hattie Pincus and Mrs. Ernestine Cohen; a son, Benjamin W. Pincus; four grandchildren and one great grandchild.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
