Notes for Joseph FOSTER

Notes for Joseph FOSTER

The following is from the book "History of Spartanburg County, South
Carolina" by Rev. J.B.O. Landrum and was written around 1900. Rev.
Landrum was pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Chuch in Sprtanburg County
and most of the family histories in the book were about his church
members.
In one of the battles during the Civil War, Seven Pines, VA., he ws shot
through the head with a mini ball. The ball ranging below the brain
entered near the eyeball and made its exit behind one ear. His recovery
was one of the most remarkable occurrences in the histroy of surgery.
From this dreadful wound he recovered in a few months and reenteed the
service in Virginia and had not been there long when he was cut in two by
a cannon ball in an engagement on Blackwater, Carlsville, VA, May, 1863.
He was a member of the company of Captain A.H. Foster, Palmetto
Sharpshooters.
The version in the notes of my great Aunt, Mary Sue Thorne, is a little
bit different. She writes from the recollections of her father, Gabriel,
brother of Joseph. She writes that Gabriel had 5 brothers killed in the
Civil War. One was the first person in medical history to survive
removal of a bullet from the brain. He then went back into the war and
was killed by a miniball in the heart.