Civil War Oddities #127

Federal purchasing agents were gleeful when they managed to buy shipment of big Belgian muskets. Issued without being tested, the pieces that weighed half again as much as the U.S. Model of 1842 proved to have a powerful "kick" When these clumsy pieces were first fired, the weapons ended up knocking so many men down that they soon went into storage.

Civil War Oddities #126

Artillery dual at long distance constituted the first battle of the civil war. Inside Fort Sumter, eighty-five Federals, who were aided by forty-three civilian workmen, managed to get off numerous shots at installations manned by more than 6,000 secessionists. During the thirty-eight-hour exchange of fire from sixty-nine big buns, more than 3,00 shells, some of them hot shot heated in a furnace, were fired. Not a man among the defenders or attackers was killed.

Civil War Oddities #125

An artillery duel at long distance constituted the first battle of the war. Inside Fort Sumter, eighty-five Federals, who were aided by forty-three civilian workmen, managed to get off numerous shots at installations manned by more than 6,000 secessionists. During the thirty-eight-hour exchange of fire from sixty-nine big guns, more than 3,000 shells, some of them hot shot heated in a furnace, were fired. Not a man among defenders or attackers was killed.

Civil War Oddities #124

While the Forty-second New York Regiment was encamped at Kalorama Heights, Virginia, Private Tinker captured a pigeon and made a pet of it. According to the Rebellion Record, the pigeon regularly followed when men of the Tammany regiment moved to another position. “Occasionally flying away at a great distance, it always returned and when weary, would alight on some wagon of the train.

Tinker’s pet reportedly went to Poolesville, Washington, Fort Monroe, and Yorktown. Staying with the regiment throughout the bloody days of the Wilderness, the pigeon is also credited with having been at Antietam and Harpers Ferry.

Civil War Oddities #123

In addition to four-legged pets, officers and men sometimes took a special fancy to feathered creatures.

Men belonging to a unit commanded by Confederate Brig. General Cobb claimed to have taught a rooster to crow when given a signal. At Fredericksburg, reported the Savannah Republic, every time Federals launched an advance the rooster responded to prompting. As a result, “just before our sharp-shooters opened upon them, the rooster’s clear, shrill clarion rang out on the sulphurous air. This strange defiance, while it cheered and amused out boys, fell with a depressing effect upon the ears of the enemy.”

Civil War Oddities #122

Harvard Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the recipient of an unusual gift from an unknown source. Identified as MCZ-570, a jar labeled “Richmond, Virginia, 1862” holds a lizard. How and why the creature was sent from the capital of the Confederacy to Massachusetts during heavy fighting remains a mystery.

Civil War Oddities #121

When there was a lull in the fighting near the Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania, regimental cooks butchered an ox that had wandered into Federal ranks. Because it had accompanied fighting men for several days and was regarded as a pet by the men from New York, some were so furious at the slaughter of the ox that they refused to eat its meat.