behind AotW

Tompion: a plug pushed into the muzzle of a rifle to keep out dirt and water.

This example, probably for an English-made Enfield model of 1853, made of brass and cork, was sold by the Horse Soldier in Gettysburg.

The soldier’s culpable negligence in failing to remove the tompion before firing, resulted sometimes in the bursting of the piece; sometimes in the projection of the tompion with sufficient force to penetrate, within short range, a man’s body; almost always, unfortunately, in more injury to others then to himself. The following is one of those cases …

Private George Meyers of the 13th New Jersey Infantry was accidentally wounded by one of his comrades’ tompion at Antietam on 17 September 1862 and he died in a hospital in Philadelphia about a month afterward.

Here are the woodcut illustrations which accompany the description of Private Meyer’s somewhat unusual case in the Army Surgeon General’s Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (1870-1883).

It occurs to me that the outcome might not have been much different if the man in the rank behind poor George had removed his tompion …