Key West Lou COMMENTARY

THE MINNIE BALL PREGNANCY

By Louis Petrone
Political and social problems can become a bit heavy. For lighter fare, I deviate with a walk back in history or something unique which is claimed to have occurred.

 

Today’s topic involves pregnancy. A virgin one. An unanticipated one. A strange one.

 

The time is 1863. The Civil War. The place a battle ground in Mississippi. Historically referred to as the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi.

 

A minie ball was involved. A minie ball was the bullet/round shot that soldiers on both sides used in their guns. Back then, bullets were referred to as minie balls.

 

A Yankee shot his rifle at a Confederate soldier. The minie ball shot passed through the reproductive organs of the Confederate soldier. His scrotum to be exact.

 

A few seconds later, the same minie ball penetrated a young lady who was standing on the porch of her nearby home.

 

Dr. Le Grand Capers was nearby. He was a doctor serving in the medical corp of the Confederate army. Capers claimed he tended to both their wounds. Subsequently, the girl became pregnant from the fertile minie ball. Capers delivered the baby. He did even more. He introduced the girl to the Confederate soldier.

 

The young lady claimed at all times that she was a virgin, although she became pregnant and delivered. Her mother did not believe her cries of Mommy, I never had sex! Not until Dr.Capers told the mother the whole story. Then she believed.

 

The baby born was a male. Three weeks after he was delivered, the girl’s mother called Dr. Capers. The baby’s scrotum was swollen. Dr. Capers removed a mashed and battered minie ball from the baby’s scrotum.

 

The couple married and had two additional children.

 

Capers eventually settled in Vicksburg and became a professor at a medical school in New Orleans.

 

In those days, The American Medical Weekly was THE medical publication. Much like the New England Journal of Medicine today.

 

Capers wrote an article about the minie ball pregnancy which was published in the American Weekly Journal in 1874.

 

Turns out the story as written by Capers was a spoof! A joke! There was no minie ball pregnancy.  Dr. Capers intended the story as a  joke and did not think anyone would believe it. But they did! Big time!

 

The article received national and international attention.

 

At some point after its publication, Dr. Capers issued a statement indicating the article was a joke. It appears no one paid attention. To recent times, the article has been cited as authoritative in proving that virgin births can occur.

 

In 1959, a leading medical publication no less than the New York State Journal of Medicine cited the minie ball pregnancy as such authority/proof in an article entitled “Two Unusual Cases of Gunshot Wounds of the Uterus.”

 

As recently as 1982, Dear Abbey cited the mini ball pregnancy as proof that an impregnated woman can still be a virgin.

 

Capers must laugh in his grave each time the story is told.

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