Private Charles W. Merrill of Company F, 19th Massachusetts Infantry, was given a small pocket New Testament by the Rev. Davis Foster on August 12, 1862. He carried it in the left breast pocket of his uniform throughout the campaigns that followed.
On December 13, 1862, the 19th Massachusetts crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg and assaulted the heavily entrenched Confederate position behind the stone wall on Marye's Heights — one of the most lopsided slaughters of the war. A musket ball struck Merrill in the chest; it was stopped by the pocket Testament. A second bullet caught him in the face, entered near his right eye, and exited his left ear. He survived both wounds.
Word of the incident reached President Lincoln. On May 8, 1863, Lincoln sent Merrill a personally inscribed copy of the Bible: 'For Charles W. Merrill, 19th Massachusetts, A. Lincoln.' Both Bibles — the bullet-stopped Testament and the Lincoln-inscribed Bible — descended through the Merrill family and are now preserved at the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum in Rowley, Massachusetts. The story was featured by Smithsonian Magazine.