The Last Words of General Sedgwick May 9, 1864. Spotsylvania, Virginia. Union General John Sedgwick saw his men ducking. Confederate snipers were 1,000 yards away. He laughed at their fear. 'They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance,' he said. A bullet struck him under the left eye seconds later. He died instantly.
Source
Smithsonian Magazine and multiple Civil War histories; quote attested in Sedgwick's biography by Richard Elliott Winslow III, 'General John Sedgwick' (1982)
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