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.

Civil War Oddities #120

Confederates belonging to Company B of the Forty-third Mississippi Regiment were the envy of their comrades. From an unknown source they managed to secure a camel and used it to transport baggage of the officer’s mess.

Most horses were afraid of the strange creature, so its driver was under orders to stop just outside the camp/ In a forced march toward Luka, Mississippi, just prior to the battle of Corinth, the camel blundered into the line of march and spooked horses so badly that there was a stampede in which several men were injured.

Members of Company B referred to their curious critter simply as “the camel,” and apparently never conferred a name on it. To them, it seemed just as well when “the camel” was killed by a minie ball during the siege of Vicksburg.

Civil War Oddities #119

Men of at least three Wisconsin regiments took pet badgers to war with them, and an artillery battery from the same state had a raccoon. At least one Confederate unit from Arkansas had as its mascot a wild cat, and a Louisiana regiment took a pelican to war. Members of J. E. B. Stuart’s first Virginia Cavalry cautiously kept their raccoon described as enormous tied to a captured gun.

Civil War Oddities #118

When Ohio volunteers skirmished with seven hundred secessionists at West Liberty, Kentucky, on October 23, 1861, a triumphant account published in Cincinnati reported that twenty-one enemies were killed and victors returned with an entourage.

Captured, according to the news account, were 34 prisoners, 52 horses, 10 or 12 mules, 2 jacks and one large bear. Like the cub kept as a mascot by another outfit, this animal was probably half tame, but was estimated to weight about three hundred pounds.

Civil War Oddities #117

Diaries and letters reveal that men in blue as well as men in gray spent time with pets to break the monotony of camp life. Many mongrel dogs were fed scraps, and several units adopted squirrels. One of them, owned by a drummer, is said to have learned to dance to the beat of its master’s instrument. Officers of a Minnesota outfit bragged to comrades that their mascot was a bear cub that “smelt powder in a dozen engagements before being sent home in good condition.”