Marvelous Instance of Sympathy

A very strong example of the influence of sympathy is reported to have occurred during the battle at Pea Ridge.  Hiram P. Lord, of the 25th Missouri, Col. Phelps, while charging up a ravine, fell as if dead, and his companions ran to him and asked if he was hurt.  He did not answer, and it was soon discovered that he had swooned.  On reviving he said he must have been struck by a ball, for he felt a pain in his left side, and had distinctly experienced the stunning and numbing sensation that results from a gun shot wound.  His person was examined, and no mark or indication of injury was perceptible.  He could not comprehend the mystery, but soon after resumed the fight, and forgot the sensation until he had returned to his camp, when he learned to his surprise and sorrow that his twin brother, George was among the dead.  George had been shot in another part of the field, and had been shot in the body, and at the same time that Hiram had believed himself mortally wounded.  The sympathy between the two brothers had ever been complete, and the illness of one was usually accompanied by the sickness of the other.  Strange, if true, say many but the strang[er, the truer, says the student of nature.]

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 3.  The bracketed section was cut off during the microfilming of the newspaper.  The same article was published under the headline “Strange,” in The Smokey Hill and Republican Union, Junction, Kansas, Thursday April 24, 1862, p. 1, and I have used it to insert the missing text.