As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Glimpses of reality are far more informative than mini series by Ken Burns in his fiction. War is a most comedic thing of miserable men of exhaustion sleeping in ways and areas that a lucid mind would never be caught in.
In the swamps around Richmond Virginia, a Confederate officer exhausted fell with his men to sleep during the end of a march which stopped after dark. At bugle, he was seen sitting and kicking at his foot and commanding it to wake up.........when in consternation of his sleepy state he realized he was kicking the foot of a dead Yankee and that is why he was not feeling anything in his foot.
It is amazing how in exhaustion, people can sleep on rocks and sticks, through a rain and have bugs crawling all over them. They also can have horses about them without being stomped on or killed in most cases.
"Next morning, while lying sound asleep wrapped in my blanket, I became painfully conscious of a crushing weight on my foot. Opening my eyes, there stood a horse almost over me, quietly cropping the grass, with one forefoot planted on one of mine. Having no weapon at hand, I motioned and yelled at him most lustily. Being the last foot put down, it was the last taken up, and, turning completely around, he twisted the blanket around the calks of his shoe, stripped it entirely off of me, and dragged it some yards away. There being no stones nor other missiles available, I could only indulge in a storm of impotent rage, but, notwithstanding the trampling I had undergone, was able "to keep up with the procession."
Edward A. Moore. The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson
Amusing things until those things happen to you, but are a far more real history than what is every portrayed. Private more was fortunate he did not have a rock to chuck at the horse, as the blanket probably would have flopped in the flight and spooked the animal and all the other horses into the Yankee lines.........and most Confederates only has provisions after a battle with dead Federals on the field.
Odd how no one ever talks about the bone pickers, except in passing in picking up a canteen or blanket, and yet the Soldiers all had knives, guns, and personal items that were spirited away.
"Orders had again been issued forbidding the cannoneers riding on the caissons and limbers; but, in crossing the Potomac that day, as the horses were in better shape and the ford smooth, Captain Poague gave us permission to mount and ride over dry-shod. For which breach of discipline he was put under arrest and for several days rode—solemn and downcast—in rear of the battery, with the firm resolve, no doubt, that it was the last act of charity of which he would be guilty during the war."
Edward A. Moore. The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson
agtG
