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southern MN | So New Ulm got involved in the Dakota Indian war, one of the focal points really.
The town was given a cannon to defend itself, which they still have an official Battery and cannon to this day. Mostly ceremonial, at least I hope as I know a few of the characters running it.....
Cannon practices and training were kind of common around town then, and they would come from the Cities to share training.
So October 1904, couple of my past relatives were young men and they found a shell from the cannon in a hillside. They took it home and played with it in a vice. And a hammer.
It wasn’t a ball, it was a shell meant to explode on impact but it hit soft clay or otherwise just did t go off.
Well, enough time with a hammer and vice.... When it went off one of them had one arm and most of his fingers blown off on one hand, and the other was knocked out and died from it. I believe the story is they helped the one to a lay down seemed like he was just winded, tended to the one with the mangled hand, and the other passed away.
I recall as a kid playing cards with the one that had fingers blown off, he would turn a box upside down and stick his cards in the edge of the box to hold them. One of those things a little bitty kid remembers as an image in their head.
Paul | |
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Anybody dismantled a golf ball lately?
