General Joseph Wheeler’s cavalrymen were normally pretty good at foraging, but not this time. A Civil War account from Raleigh, North Carolina:

“I remember when Wheeler’s cavalry passed through town that the men, when halted, just dropped in the streets and slept, so that passers-by were forced to step over them, but in spite of starvation and weariness, the old indomitable spirit would assert itself. One of the poor fellows, while the column was passing by Christ Church, looked up at the weathercock and remarked to a comrade that it was the first and only instance of Wheeler’s boys seeing a chicken which they could not get at.”

Devereux, Margaret. Plantation Sketches. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1906

(Photo: Detail from photo of Christ Church, Raleigh NC. Photo by F.B. Johnston. Library of Congress.)

(Drawing: Based on a drawing by Alfred Waud. Library of Congress.)

ARB — 27 Dec. 2020