ve, to be a statement of fact. I do
more than this--

I. _I most emphatically deny that the Confederate States ever authorized
the use of explosive or poisoned musket or rifle balls._

II. I most emphatically assert that the United States _did purchase,
authorize, issue and use explosive musket or rifle balls_ during the
late civil war, and that they were thus officially authorized and used
at the battle of Gettysburg.

It happened in 1864, the day after the negro troops made their desperate
and drunken charge on the Confederate lines to the left of Chaffin's
farm and were so signally repulsed, that the writer, who was located in
the trenches a mile still further to the left, picked up, in the field
outside the trenches assailed by the negroes, some of the cartridges
these poor black victims had dropped, containing the very "_explosive_"
ball described in the above quotation and charged to the Confederates. I
have preserved one of these balls ever since. It lies before me as I
write. It is similar to figure A, and with a _zinc_ and not a _copper_
disc. _It never contained any fulminating powder._ The construction of
the ball led me to make investigations to ascertain its purpose. At
first, I thought it might be made to leave in the body of the person
struck by it three pieces of metal, instead of one, to irritate, and
possibly destroy life. But this theory appeared to me so "fiendish" that
I was unwilling to accept it, and I became convinced, after more careful
examination, that the purpose of the ball was to increase the momentum,
by forcing in the cap and expanding the disc so as to fill up the
grooves of the rifle. The correctness of this view will be proven in
this paper.

In the first place, although the charge made by the author of the
Pictorial History of the Civil War against the Confederates of having
used explosive and poisoned balls, has been made before, and often
repeated since, it has never been supported by one grain of proof. How
did this author ascertain that the balls he picked up on the battlefield
of Gettysburg were sent by the Confederates? How did he learn that one
was an _explosive_ and the other a _poisoned_ projectile? Did he test
the explosive power of the one and the poisonous character of the other?
He gives no evidence of having done so, and advances no proof of his
assertions.

It is a very remarkable fact that no case was ever reported in Northern
hospitals, or by Northern surgeons,