The Calvin Shedd Papers > Background > Loggerhead Turtles
Loggerhead Turtles
| Date(s) of Letter(s) | Little, Henry F. W. The Seventh Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion. Concord, New Hampshire: Seventh New Hampshire Veteran Association, 1896. |
| April 30, 1862 May 4, 1862 June 1, 1862 June 7, 1862 |
"After we got tired of the [bird] egg business we made trips in boats to the same place for the celebrated Logger-head turtles, taking one of the fishermen with us in order that we might learn how to capture them. We hardly ever came back without two or three turtles, and we could keep those we did not wish to use immediately, until wanted, by making a pen with stakes and planks in the breakwater or ditch just outside the walls of the fort....Logger-head turtles were of a very large variety, and were nice to eat. Often from one fair sized turtle we would get a washtub half full of eggs, but we never really relished them very well as they had an oily taste we did not fancy. We remember a very large turtle which some of the men of Company G brought in early one morning, and having no pen to put him in, they bored a large whole through the after part of his top shell, and fastened one end of a large rope to him, making the other fast to a huge stake....These turtles are very stout and quite heavy to handle, sometimes taking as many as two or three men to turn them upon their backs, -- as that is the only way they can be efficiently handled. (Little, pp. 41-42). |