“How large the shell was”

This anecdote comes from a 17 Sept 1775 letter by Dr. Hall Jackson, tending to New Hampshire troops during the siege of Boston:

A shell the other day happening to fall in the Marsh, the fuse was extinguished;

some of our Country fellows pick’d it up, which was observed by one of our Generals (no matter for his name) who perhaps is well acquainted with the world, and mankind in general as any on the Continent, tho’ somewhat petulant in his temper; he called one of the men and asked him how large the shell was

he answered as big as a pumpkin,

pumpkins being of different sizes, it was no answer to the question;

the General dam’nd him for a pumpkin headed, Son of a Bitch, and repeated his question,

the fellow answered that he believed it would hold six quarts,

as the shell might be thicker or thinner this could not determine the bigness,

the General in a great passion demanded the diamiter of the shell from outside, to outside,

he might as well have demanded of the fellow to demonstrate the fictions of a Cone, or any other problems in Euclid,

the fellow however in great confusion made a rough guess at the General’s meaning, answered, something less than thirty inches (the shell was exactly ten).

The poor innocent fellow was order’d under guard for insulting the General, but our good natured Brigadier soon had him released.

I’m guessing the general “well acquainted with the world” was Charles Lee, and “our good natured Brigadier” was John Sullivan.

Dr. Jackson told this story to support his case against Dr. Benjamin Church’s centralized military hospitals. Soldiers from rural New Hampshire, he argued, needed to be treated by regimental surgeons who knew how to communicate with them.