The Civil War was raging in 1862, but perhaps no one experienced that more than the Confederate and Union soldiers themselves on September 17, 1862, during the Battle of Antietam. Located in Washington County in Maryland, Antietam held the gruesome distinction of being the bloodiest battle in American history with 23,000 casualties.
Bela L. Burr wasn’t one of them, but he was severely injured in the right shin and left ankle and lay dying in the hot sun that day. Having been enlisted in the Union Army for only a month at the young age of 18, he’d laid there in the blood-soaked cornfield, surrounded by his fellow soldiers already dead and waited for his own death to come.
But even impending death didn’t keep him from crying out for water.
It seemed impossible anyone would hear, let alone help, but angels hovered over those scattered bodies, and one answered his call.
A Confederate soldier by the name of James M. Norton was marching near the cornfield. Moved to compassion, he left the march, well aware that sharpshooters were hidden in the trees with orders to aim at anything that moved. Dropping to his knees, defying the shots ringing out, he carefully shimmied over to Burr and offered him his canteen.
It would be an agonizing 48 hours before Burr was discovered and taken to medical treatment. Doctors determined his injuries were severe enough that he warranted a discharge for disability. Though the bullet couldn’t be removed from his ankle, Burr went on to marry, have a family, and become a successful newspaper editor.
In contrast, James Norton lived and fought through the entire war. Once the war ended, he returned home to marry, divorced his wife, then re-married her. They raised their children while he built himself a career as a builder.
But Bela Burr never forgot James Norton, the angel who helped save his life by the simple act of sharing his canteen. Through the power of his newspaper, he printed numerous want ads in hopes of learning the Confederate soldier’s identity. Amazingly, a former Confederate officer familiar with the story helped Burr and Norton reconnect. The two soldiers began to correspond regularly, and Bela Burr invited James Norton to his home in Connecticut for a reunion, setting the day for the Spring of 1897.
I wish I could tell you the two soldiers had a happy reunion, but sadly, there is no record of it. Perhaps James Norton became ill and was unable to travel, since he passed away two years later. Who knows? But if the reunion did, indeed, happen, as a newspaper man (and a writer myself), I’d like to think Bela Burr would have graciously and eloquently shared his story with newspapers nationwide.
And that bullet in his ankle he carried around for decades? It was finally surgically removed in the early 20th century. Bela Burr died a few years later on April 29, 1908.
But he kept that flattened piece of lead as well as the late 1890’s X-ray which revealed it was still there, and a small local museum housed the artifacts in his memory.
As I prepared for this blog, the author of one of the articles I read mentioned how he felt it was weird for someone to save a bullet like Bela Burr saved his, including the X-ray. He then included a link to a You Tube video of a young man who saved his. . . Well, I’ll let you decide if it was weird and quirky.
World’s Biggest – Toenail Collection
Did you ever have a quirky collection of something?
Would you have saved your bullet and X-ray like Bela Burr?
What is the quirkiest collection you’ve ever heard or seen?
Don’t forget! MY KIND OF COWBOY is FREE on your favorite platform for a limited time!
THE FULL BLACKSTONE RANCH SERIES
To stay up on our latest releases and have some fun, too, join our Facebook Reader Group HERE!