Life of Civil War veteran linked to living today

A great example of how one life matters to so many.

Kenneth City man discovers a part of himself in a forgotten Civil War survivor
By William R. Levesque, Times staff writer
In print: Sunday, August 31, 2008


KENNETH CITY — A Confederate bullet smashed into Cornelius Ridgeway's left breast and lodged near his heart during an 1864 battle in Virginia, another bloody day in the Civil War.

So many things could kill a person then. Infection. Disease. An operation to remove a bullet long before the days of blood transfusion.

As a Delaware native with a mix of Indian, black and European blood — locals called them Delaware Moors — Ridgeway had been allowed to join only an all-black regiment.

More than a century later, records provide tantalizingly few clues about the then 22-year-old's year in a hospital, except that he survived. A wound like his was usually fatal. If Ridgeway had died in that hospital, much that followed would have been different, much would have been lost to history.

A white Pinellas County resident born long after that Civil War battle knows this well. His name is John Carter.
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