ers, was little help in disposal. Edmund Ruffin, for instance, kibitzing on
Virginia fronts during the first half of the war, reported that vultures, previ-
ously ubiquitous, were nowhere to be seen. He conjectured that they were
frightened away during battles by the noise, particularly of artillery. Perhaps
the only blessing derived from the war’s equine carnage was what may be
termed the real beginning of modern veterinary medicine, especially the
etiology of glanders.^10
Hogs massed in pens came down with hog cholera during the war, and
cattle, sheep, and other food creatures suffered as well. What was worse
was simply the mass consumption of cattle, hogs, and sheep by soldiers of
both sides, wherever the war was fought. Usually the animals were simply
appropriated as troops marched and camped. Some were confined; most,
presumably, were at large in the same forests occupied by units on the
move or encamped waiting for battle. Here and there are officers’ reports
that enumerate the casualties. Most famous, perhaps, was Union general
Philip Sheridan’s account of his scourge of the civilian population of
the Valley of Virginia. In addition to the , horses and mules Sheri-
dan’s men appropriated without compensation to Shenandoah owners, he
reported the confiscation of more than , cattle and calves, ,
sheep, and , hogs. The last three groups were doubtlessly consumed
by Yankee troops. Overall, though, we cannot count the animals lost, except
by comparing figures in the federal censuses of and , the latter, of
course, taken after five years of peace and (presumed) recovery of popula-
tions. In seventeen counties of eastern Virginia and North Carolina—a sec-
tion of the immense piney-woods South long settled and with many hogs,
albeit not nearly so many as, say, southern Mississippi—in , swine still
numbered somewhat less than half the total of . The war’s crippling of
the region’s ability to feed itself, indeed, seems almost permanent. For suc-
ceeding censuses through reveal that the late antebellum hog popu-
lationneverrecovered. (We shall return to this subject.)
Meanwhile the war destroyed something else associated with hogs, cat-
tle, and the commons: farm fencing. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers
living in the field seldom found ready-made housing with stacks of fire-
wood just outside. More often soldiers were relentless woodsmen and scav-
engers. They downed and trimmed countless trees for log winter quarters,
gun emplacements, and combat shelters. Desperate need of fuel for heat-
ing and cooking led troops on both sides virtually to strip the South of thou-
sands of miles of split-rail fencing. The phenomenon complemented the