Gettysburg Afterwards - Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

[whitworth]

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"One prosperous farmer hid his huge Conestoga draft horse in his elegant parlor next to an expensive rosewood piano. When the Louisiana Tigers came calling, he denied having such a horse. However, the neighing from his parlor betrayed the animal’s presence, and it was led away. The farmer was left with a fistful of worthless CSA currency and a parlor that smelled like a barnyard."


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"After all, we gained very little by our horse stealing. The impressed animals were, for the most part, great, clumsy, flabby Percherons or Conestogas, which required more than twice the feed our compact, hard-muscled little Virginia horses required, and yet could not do half the work they did, nor stand half the hardship and exposure. It was pitiable, later, to, see these great brutes suffer when, compelled to dash off at full gallop with a gun, after pasturing on dry broom sedge and eating a quarter of a feed of weevil-eaten corn. They seemed to pine for the slow draft and full feed of their Pennsylvania homes."

Confederate artillery Officer at Gettysburg