From the Louisville Courier-Journal, May 14, 1862
Bowling Green, Feb. 24, 1862
Mr. G. D. Prentice – Dear Sir: By the politeness of Thomas Dolly, receive with my compliments one Texas Rangers’ sabre, of the first water, captured at Fort Donelson.
Yours truly,
NOAH CARTWRIGHT
Capt. Co. E., 15th Ky., Vols.
This sabre, bowie knife, or whatever else it may be called, is certainly the queerest war weapon we have ever seen. The blade is a little less than two feet long and appears to have been made out of a piece of an old scythe. What is meant as the edge is considerably thicker than the back of a table knife, and the point is so blunt that a good deal of muscular strength would be necessary to drive it into a fellow’s stomach of abdomen. The handle, about six inches in length, is a piece of wood apparently whittled into shape with a jack-knife and protected by a rough guard. The bravest troops in the world could do nothing with such wretched and ridiculous weapons as this. It is on exhibition in our office.
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