Hillsborough Recorder (NC)

May 22, 1861

Page 2

CHANCES OF BEING KILLED IN WAR—Marshall Saxe, a high authority in such things, was in the habit of saying that to kill a man in battle, the man’s weight in lead must be expended. A French medical and surgical gazette, published at Lyons, says this fact was verified at Solferino, even with the recent great improvement in firearms. The Austrians fired eight millions, four hundred rounds. The loss of the French and Italians was two thousand killed and ten thousand wounded. Each man hit cost seven hundred rounds, and every man killed, cost four thousand two hundred rounds. The mean weight of balls is one ounce; thus, we find that it required, on an average, two hundred seventy-two pounds of lead to kill a man. If any of our friends should get into a military fight, they should feel great comfort in the fact that seven hundred shots may be fired at them before they are hit, and four thousand two hundred before they “shuffle off the mortal coil.”

[Transcribed by Sharon Strout]