Did William Coggeshall Save Lincoln's Life?

[John Fazio]

(09-20-2016 10:58 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Found the following online ref: the history of grenades (also found that the military units named "Grenadiers" in England took their name from this weapon long before our Civil War and that "shrapnel" is named after a British officer who invented this evil type of explosive).

"The problem was that the grenades themselves were pretty useless. They were either too small to have much effect or too heavy to throw very far, and the fuses were prone to going out if the grenade landed on wet ground. That’s if you could get it lit; in an age before Zippo lighters, that meant having a lantern handy, or sparking a tinder box. Either way, throwing a grenade took some preparation. By the early 19th century they had mostly vanished, and the Grenadier companies became shock troops – with their size and bulk they were ideal for spearheading bayonet charges or assaulting a defended position.

"Grenades made a brief comeback during the American Civil War, when both sides used them – many traditional ones with fuses, but also experimental impact-fired ones. These weren’t very successful; at one battlefield, over a hundred intact grenade bodies were found, but no fragments to indicate that any had gone off. The result was that, by the end of the century, grenades had faded away again.

"Then came the First World War, and the carnage of the trenches. In this new form of warfare, the grenade returned with a vengeance."

I believe that William Coggeshall's story came to life 47 years after Lincoln's inaugural trip? That would conveniently place its telling in the middle of WWI as grenades returned to the limelight.

Laurie:

Thank you for the thorough research. I do believe you have exploded the notion that the device in question was a grenade of the kind used later in the war. It must have been another kind of audible explosive device. They are quite common. In fact, I raised five and my wife raised two. If you like that joke, laugh. If not, just say it bombed.

John