The Memoirs of Jarvis Hanks Jarvis Hanks - biography Memoirs Continued Part 1: Early Life and the Decision to Enlist Part 2: The Harsh Reality of Army Punishment Part 3: An American farmer's greed; battle in a Canadian farmer's field Part 4: Drilling in Winfield Scott's camp at Buffalo Part 5: At the Battle of Lundy’s Lane Part 6: The siege of Fort Erie Part 8: PEACE! Drummerboy Jarvis Hanks' account of the Battle of Lundy's Lane Boys at War

Part 7: Very Close Shaves As there were no regular barbers attached to the army, the soldiers used to shave themselves, and each other. One morning several were shaving in succession, near a parapet. Sergeant Wait sat down facing the enemy, and Corporal Reed began to perform the operation of removing the beard from his face, when a cannon ball took the Corporal's right hand, and the Sergeant's head; throwing blood, brains, hair, fragments of flesh and bones, upon a tent near them, and upon the clothing of several spectators of the horrible scene. The razor also disappeared and no vestige of it was ever seen afterwards. The Corporal went to the hospital and had his arm amputated, and a few men rolled up the Sergeant's body in his blanket, carried it out and buried it. Probably less than twenty minutes transpired between the time he sat down to be shaved and the time he was reposing in the home of the soldier's grave. I can never forget another man who was killed in an instant while apprehending little or no danger. He was a very large and tall soldier, upwards of six feet. He was reclining on his knapsack, supporting his head with his right hand and elbow, when a 10 1/2 inch shell exploded fifty or sixty feet above our heads. A large piece of it fell upon the centre of his body, and cut him in two, as effectually and as instantaneously as ever the axe of the guillotine severed the head of one of its victims. In a few moments, he too was wrapped up in his blanket, carried out and buried. Cannon balls would sometimes pass so near that we were almost knocked over by the pressure they produced upon the air. When this happened, and we were not hurt, we exclaimed "that went as swift as any goose egg!" This expression, I believe, was first uttered by one of the officers and reiterated a thousand times by the privates and musicians. It is singular that we could be so reckless in the midst of danger; but so it was.