Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Civil War Oddities #101


When a private in an infantry unit was wounded, it was customary for an officer to dismount and provide him with a horse if he was strong enough to “retire from the field.” Fighting on his own two feet instead of in the saddle proved awkward and uncomfortable, or worse, for many a colonel who accepted the unwritten code according to which “wounded men capable of survival come first.”