Soldiers and sailors on both sides flung, dropped or rolled hand grenades at each other with mixed success during the war

摘要

It was akin to shooting fish in a barrel. The Hoosiers of the 45th Illinois were pinned down in a crater that June 25,1862, the result of a Union mine used in an attempt to blow up a section of the Rebel works at Vicks- burg. The Federal attack had faltered in the reeking pit, and the Confederates had taken the opportunity to hurl ad hoc hand grenades, modified artillery shells, down up the helpless Yankees. A Union officer reported that "the enemy.. .with their hand-grenades render it difficult for our working parties to remain in the crater at all.The wounds inflicted by those missiles are frightful."