WARREN LETTER: TIGER CORPORAL

"They was a corporal ..... I dont recall Grandaddy giving his name but 

he was kind of a colorful fellar. It was sometime in the Spring of '62, 

he had acquired a "bumble-bee" warshirt from family back home. He wore 

this shirt in the fight as it was supposed ot bring him luck and protect 

him from bullets, I suspect it was some hoodoo out of the Teche .

 In addition he wore a "high welled" beaver hat.  Grandaddy said he made 

quite a sight out there on the field.Co B got into a rather hot little fight 

skirmishing one afternoon. This fellow was an anchor on a skirmish line and

 was way out on the left. During the fight, a ball passed through his high 

welled hat near the band and cracked his head.  Naturally this knocked him 

ass over tea kettles, when he fell, his face ended up in the hat. That ball

 had caused an ugly head wound cuttin a groove in his scalp and knockin him 

cold as a redfish.  Well as you know head wounds like this bleed terribly. 

It wasnt long afore his hat filled with blood - the hole from the ball bein 

so far up.The ned of it was that this Corporal drowned in his own blood. The

 other fellars was tied up in this fight and didnt have the presence of mind 

to check him till sometime later - by then it was to late and he had drowned on 

his own blood.Grandaddy said that indeed the fellar wasnt killed by a bullet

 so to speak. So his lucky shirt had kinda worked. But it wasnt a good idea

 to subscribe to hoodoo and this is what he got in the end.