Feral Hogs Feasting on the Dead

[JeopardyPhD]

I love the Shiloh NMP's Misinformation Monday Facebook series. Today, they debunk Angel's glow after the battle.

This reminds me of another grotesque casualty-related thing that has stuck in my head. As a kid, I had one of those comic books of the battle (I think there were others on Gettysburg, etc.). The comic book showed a scene of a hog eating a body that was backlit by a lightning strike.

To my knowledge, this scene came from Wiley Sword's claim that feral hogs fed upon casualties during the stormy night of April 6th to 7th (I think supposedly from the diary of a Confederate soldier). The fact that there weren't more accounts of this (and this would have been noteworthy) make me a bit skeptical this actually occurred.

Also, this happening amid the lightning flashes of the storm just seems a bit too forced (like setting up the scene of a horror movie). Certainly, there were real enough horrors on the field, but the fact that this wasn't documented by others-- or documented on the decidedly less stormy night of April 7th, makes me think it's a lurid, literary embellishment. There were many other accounts of the storm (lightning illuminating the battlefield), of macabre casualty-related events, of the Lexington and Tyler's artillery bombardment, and of small ammunition fires-- but nothing really on the feral hogs.

Does anyone have more evidence that this actually occurred?

 

[wausaubob]

I love the Shiloh NMP's Misinformation Monday Facebook series. Today, they debunk Angel's glow after the battle.

This reminds me of another grotesque casualty-related thing that has stuck in my head. As a kid, I had one of those comic books of the battle (I think there were others on Gettysburg, etc.). The comic book showed a scene of a hog eating a body that was backlit by a lightning strike.

To my knowledge, this scene came from Wiley Sword's claim that feral hogs fed upon casualties during the stormy night of April 6th to 7th (I think supposedly from the diary of a Confederate soldier). The fact that there weren't more accounts of this (and this would have been noteworthy) make me a bit skeptical this actually occurred.

Also, this happening amid the lightning flashes of the storm just seems a bit too forced (like setting up the scene of a horror movie). Certainly, there were real enough horrors on the field, but the fact that this wasn't documented by others-- or documented on the decidedly less stormy night of April 7th, makes me think it's a lurid, literary embellishment. There were many other accounts of the storm (lightning illuminating the battlefield), of macabre casualty-related events, of the Lexington and Tyler's artillery bombardment, and of small ammunition fires-- but nothing really on the feral hogs.

Does anyone have more evidence that this actually occurred?

Wouldn't the hogs have been cautious with the sudden advent of thousands of soldiers present in the area? And I think the battlefield was cleaned up as soon as possible.

 

[UCVRelics]

I love the Shiloh NMP's Misinformation Monday Facebook series. Today, they debunk Angel's glow after the battle.

This reminds me of another grotesque casualty-related thing that has stuck in my head. As a kid, I had one of those comic books of the battle (I think there were others on Gettysburg, etc.). The comic book showed a scene of a hog eating a body that was backlit by a lightning strike.

To my knowledge, this scene came from Wiley Sword's claim that feral hogs fed upon casualties during the stormy night of April 6th to 7th (I think supposedly from the diary of a Confederate soldier). The fact that there weren't more accounts of this (and this would have been noteworthy) make me a bit skeptical this actually occurred.

Also, this happening amid the lightning flashes of the storm just seems a bit too forced (like setting up the scene of a horror movie). Certainly, there were real enough horrors on the field, but the fact that this wasn't documented by others-- or documented on the decidedly less stormy night of April 7th, makes me think it's a lurid, literary embellishment. There were many other accounts of the storm (lightning illuminating the battlefield), of macabre casualty-related events, of the Lexington and Tyler's artillery bombardment, and of small ammunition fires-- but nothing really on the feral hogs.

Does anyone have more evidence that this actually occurred?

Here is a post war newspaper article that mentions the hogs.

 

[lelliott19]

Another post-war one from 1866.

The Memphis Daily Argus. (Memphis, TN), April 8, 1866, 2.

 

[Crazy Delawares]

I've often wondered about hog stories even at Gettysburg. With so many hungry soldiers in the area, how did the hogs escape being caught and roasted?

 

[JeopardyPhD]

Thank you for the newspaper articles. I don't doubt that dogs, hogs, and other animals may have disinterred bodies after the battle-- I'm just more skeptical that this occurred during the fighting with 40,000 or more men around. It's also interesting that the first article has the dates of the battle wrong. Both articles seem to have sort of an op-ed flavor to them with the end goal of raising money for burials/monuments.

 

[JeopardyPhD]

The Argus article seems particularly lurid (considering the source, I shouldn't be surprised).
Mentioning Union soldiers taking teeth as trophies? The possibility of people using skulls as drinking cups?

The hog angle fits nicely into their persuasive attempt-- the graves are in bad shape, there are Union sympathizers all over who might desecrate the Confederate graves (sidebar into an impassioned speech about Southern rights), and even if you are a "Union man," you should still donate to the cause. You can see how the angle was to get any Southern-sympathizing Memphian's blood to boil.

Also, plenty of factual errors (Gladden's death being near the close of the battle?) sprinkled in

 

[bayonet]

Thanks for ruining my breakfast, I was about to have some bacon

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

"I remember that as we were crossing there was a rebel sharpshooter on the Fredericksburg side, who had annoyed us very much with his pestiferous shots. Naturally when we got on top the bank we ran up to look for this chap.

We came upon a rebel lying there with his eyes closed, and just breathing. He had been disemboweled, apparently by a shell. And there was a hog, one of the wild kind common in the South, who had been sniffing round, and had begun to eat him.

We forgot old scores in that sad sight, and, in the interest of humanity, one of our boys shot the hog."


Source: page 85

Stories of our soldiers : war reminiscences : Coffin, Charles Carleton, 1823-1896 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

263 p. : 21 cm

archive.org

 

[Library Lady]

Thanks for ruining my breakfast, I was about to have some bacon

Well now, if that was bacon from a Midwestern-raised hog, then you shouldn't worry. According to a Civil War environmental history book I read, Midwestern farmers tended to fence the livestock and feed them from the farm crop (think more like a modern-day feedlot) whereas Southern farmers tended to fence their crops and let the livestock run wild to fend for itself. This is why Midwestern-raised hogs tended to be larger with more and better quality meat. Given that pork was the protein of choice in the South and Southern states were already importing it from Midwestern (soon to be Union) states by 1860, it makes me wonder why messing with your food supply by leaving the Union was considered a good idea.

 

[Grant's Tomb]

I wonder how long it took for both armies to devise a system of gathering the dead and wounded from the field

 

[James Brenner]

I love the Shiloh NMP's Misinformation Monday Facebook series. Today, they debunk Angel's glow after the battle.

This reminds me of another grotesque casualty-related thing that has stuck in my head. As a kid, I had one of those comic books of the battle (I think there were others on Gettysburg, etc.). The comic book showed a scene of a hog eating a body that was backlit by a lightning strike.

To my knowledge, this scene came from Wiley Sword's claim that feral hogs fed upon casualties during the stormy night of April 6th to 7th (I think supposedly from the diary of a Confederate soldier). The fact that there weren't more accounts of this (and this would have been noteworthy) make me a bit skeptical this actually occurred.

Also, this happening amid the lightning flashes of the storm just seems a bit too forced (like setting up the scene of a horror movie). Certainly, there were real enough horrors on the field, but the fact that this wasn't documented by others-- or documented on the decidedly less stormy night of April 7th, makes me think it's a lurid, literary embellishment. There were many other accounts of the storm (lightning illuminating the battlefield), of macabre casualty-related events, of the Lexington and Tyler's artillery bombardment, and of small ammunition fires-- but nothing really on the feral hogs.

Does anyone have more evidence that this actually occurred?

I think I had that comic book, too. It's been a long time, but I think it was a Classics Illustrated - one of their one-off special ones that cost a whopping 25 cents.

 

[Rhea Cole]

The sheer number of hogs raised in the Southern United States in the 19th Century staggers the imagination. For example:

"Cincinnati, at the confluence of four rivers, pigs from across the country would arrive on foot in streaming droves of hundreds and sometimes thousands, swineherds trudging enormous lengths get their livestock to market before the snows set in. In 1836, this seasonal rush from Kentucky alone saw 82,000 pigs pass through North Carolina's Cumberland gap, many of them on their way to 'Porkopolis.' Other animals came along too, but the volumes paled in comparison. In 1847, one of the Gap's toll gates recorded 692 sheep, 898 cattle, 1,317 horses, and 51,753 hogs."

Hogs, turkeys & ducks were herded to market on great droves every fall. Absent refrigeration, delivering live animals to market was the only way it could be done.

This is the eastern half of the map that Sherman used to plot the March to the Sea.

In this detail, the 1860 Census data for every county is listed. Note the phenomenon number of swine.

Having established that millions of hogs came to market every fall, the question rises. What form of husbandry was typical.

Link

Pigs Were Farmers' Best Friends - Great Smoky Mountains National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Pigs Were Farmers’ Best Friends

www.nps.gov

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Emerging Civil War Gettysburg hogs eat bodies. Read more here.

Link

“A Harvest of Death”: The Days After Gettysburg - Emerging Civil War

In the days following the Battle of Gettysburg, the most of both the Union and Confederate armies had already left the area. However, approximately 30,000 soldiers of both armies still remained in Gettysburg. About 21,000 of these soldiers were receiving treatment in the hospitals (often...

emergingcivilwar.com

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Link

Amphibian migration season to cause some closures at East Fork State Park

Pictured above is the Spotted Salamander and Wood Frog, two commonly found amphibians at East Fork State Park. The last photo is of a group of event participants looking for these amphibians in the wet, low lying areas. Spring is just around corner and that means life at East Fork State Park is...

www.clermontsun.com

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Link

Pigs Eat Humans Far More Often Than People Would Expect - Grunge

While cattle-caused fatalities are tracked, how often farmyard hogs kill is uncertain, but it definitely does happen, and possibly more than you would think.

www.grunge.com

 

[huskerblitz]

I love the Shiloh NMP's Misinformation Monday Facebook series. Today, they debunk Angel's glow after the battle.

Oh, I missed this! I'm glad they came out with something. Several of us here tried to find contemporary accounts but couldn't find anything earlier than the 90s.

 

[Rhea Cole]

Oh, I missed this! I'm glad they came out with something. Several of us here tried to find contemporary accounts but couldn't find anything earlier than the 90s.

ANGEL GLOW may be apocryphal, however…

Foxfire bioluminescent fungus.

Anybody who doesn't know that bioluminescent fungus glows in the dark has never camped out in Tennessee's woodlands. At Picket State Park there are Glow Worm Tours of luminous fungi. We even have synchronized fireflies that wink on & off together. Read more here.

Link

Chasing the Light of Bioluminescence

Something enchanting lives in Appalachia’s forests. From green glows to bright sparks, bioluminescent lights glow in the summer nights.

appvoices.org

Link

Synchronous Fireflies - Firefly Conservation & Research

FINDING SYNCHRONOUS FIREFLIES Seeing a sparkling carpet of fireflies in your backyard can be a magical experience. But imagine seeing them all flashing at once—in a symphony of light. Synchronous species of fireflies are very special—and they exist only in a handful of places throughout the...

www.firefly.org

Link

Shimmering Forests, Shores & Canyons: Where to See Bioluminescence in the South

Glowing worms, synchronized fireflies, sparkling plankton, drifting comb jellies, and eerie fungi illuminate Southern nights, transforming forests, canyons, and coastlines into magical natural light shows.

styleblueprint.com

Link

https://digital.tnconservationist.org/article/Glow+Worm+Hikes+at+Pickett+C.C.C.+Memorial+State+Park/4558568/789036/article.html

In 2001 potential source for Angel Glow identified. Read more here,

Link

Glowing Wounds

<p>The Battle of Shiloh was a devastating American civil war battle in which both the North and the South suffered heavy losses. But it's also known for the mysterious phenomenon known as Angel's Glow. What glowed were the soldiers' wounds which amazingly gave them a better chance at...

www.utmb.edu

 

[ColonelBuckwalter]

Wouldn't the hogs have been cautious with the sudden advent of thousands of soldiers present in the area? And I think the battlefield was cleaned up as soon as possible.

We have hogs in Florida. They are pretty... shall we say they don't care about much. But they're so vicious, I would have assumed that both armies woukd have been in accord firing at them.