The Civil War • The Unexplained

At the death of his father Jacob Zint in 1929, an original tintype photo of Major Charles Hipp, Capt. Schmidt Civil War letters, a letter from Hipp to Schmidt from battlefield, and Prussian Bisk “Guardian Angel “ were all inherited by son Jacob at age 18.

His father Jacob had received these items from Mary Miller Hipp. Son Jacob was born in 1911, died in 1984. In 1981, Jacob and I went to the same front steps where his father had been presented these items, and gifted them to me (because of my 37th Ohio volunteer research.) The same story of the “Guardian Angel” which Jacob’s father had been told on those same steps, Jacob told to me: “When Mary Hipp in 1908 gave my father these Hipp heirlooms, before showing him ‘Guardian Angel’, she had explained how bisque angel had been passed down in Hipp military family with instructions to each Hipp going off to war, if angel protected from damage it will protect its owner from injury in warfare! It must be hung above that soldier’s head wherever he camps.”

Charles had taken angel to Mexican War (where protected him), and now took it to Civil War. It had protected him until Battle of Ezra Chapel, where cannon fire knocked angel from tent pole top, breaking it! Charles hadn’t time to worry about broken angel, as he rode into battle, receiving wound which caused arm’s amputation at shoulder! Mary says “How you think I felt when husband had returned from war with left arm missing and holding in his other hand broken angel?” Jacob speechless, as Mary quickly, mysteriously added, “I was so relieved, overjoyed with sight of broken angel! I’ll go get angel and explain my reaction.”

In 1908, Jacob was standing on steps of 223 E. Main St. Hipp home (Charles having died in 1903; Mary would die in 1910) holding oval framed photo of Charles Hipp, when Mary Hipp returned with the “Guardian Angel.” Jacob had waited to hear why Mary was “relieved, overjoyed” when Charles came home missing arm and holding the broken angel. Mary held out angel. She wordlessly pointed to the broken off to shoulder left arm of the angel… then pointed to missing left arm image of her husband in oval frame. Jacob had remained confused, until Mary explained “You see this angel Charles had taken to war to protect him, when fell and broke, only its left arm lost to shoulder…identical to my husband’s loss of left arm as evidenced in armless sleeve in photo! I instantly realized had the angel been broken across body or head shattered, Charles unprotected would have lost his life, but the “Guardian angel” had lost its left arm; being the only thing it couldn’t protect, Charles had only lost that unprotected left arm!”

In 1981, when Jacob gave me the “Guardian Angel” (on same steps of Hipp home), he told me when his father gave him the angel, being Catholic who believed in miracles, said it was the most dramatic moment of his life!

In April of 1984, I carried Charles Hipp’s oval framed photo and the “Guardian Angel” back to Georgia, to site of the Battle of Ezra Chapel and had a personal moment of full circle closure where 125 years to the day Major Charles Hipp had lost “unprotected” arm.