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Article Title: “He . . . Regretted Having to Die That Way”: Firearms Accidents in the Frontier Army, 1806-1891
Full Citation: James E Potter, “ „He . . . Regretted Having to Die That Way‟: Firearms Accidents in the Frontier Army, 1806-1891,” Nebraska History 78 (1997): 175-186
URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1997Firearms.pdf Date: 3/05/2013
Article Summary: Firearms accidents were one of many hazards of service in the frontier army. Malfunctioning equipment caused some of the accidents, but most resulted from careless handling of weapons.
Cataloging Information:
Names: Luther H North, Meriwether Lewis, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, William M Miller, William Bradford, Burdett A Terrett, Abraham R Johnston, George Stoneman, Henry B Carrington, Coney Boyd, Vincent Colyer, John W Keller
Causes of Firearms Accidents: malfunctions, mistaken identity, hunting, cannons, dependents, target practice, cartridge reloading, exposed lock mechanisms
Keywords: Hall carbines, Springfield rifles, breechblock, Spencer carbines, cannon
Photographs / Images: Wayman St Clair, Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, posing at Deer Creek Station in present Wyoming; two drawings of the Hall-North carbine; engraving of John W Keller‟s shattered femur (George A Otis, A Report of Surgical Cases . . . in the Army of the United States,1871); George Armstrong Custer, having killed his favorite horse while buffalo hunting (Elizabeth B Custer, Tenting on the Plains, or General Custer in Kansas and Texas, 1887); “Hunting sometimes proved as dangerous to the hunters as to the hunted” (illustration from Harper’s Weekly, October 10, 1885; soldier at Fort Robinson playfully aiming a revolver at a dog; grave marker of Private George Frey, accidentally shot by a comrade in 1868
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