From the Richmond Dispatch, 1/12/1863, p. 1, c. 5
Boy Shot. - About three o’clock on Saturday evening, a lad named Patrick Kearney, who was standing on the basin bank, under the shed in front of Messrs Crenshaw’s commission house was shot by some person unknown, the ball passing between the breast bone and rib, and going through his body. The lad was taken up and carried to his father’s house where he now lies in a critical condition. It was at first thought, from the fact that there were a number of ducks in the basin, and the quarters of the City Battalion are in close proximity to the southern bank, that one of the men had thoughtlessly discharged the load of his musket at the ducks, and that the ball, striking the water obliquely, had glanced, inflicting the on the lad alluded to above. The officers on being notified of the occurrence made the most rigid enquiry into the affair, but could learn nothing tending to show that the act had been committed by any of the men belonging to the Battalion.