Confederate Guns Aim at Eagle Foe

Mascot of Wisconsin Troops at Corinth Stir Ire of Southerners

General Price Admits He Would Rather Kill Bird Than Capture Brigade

By Jack Burgess

War clouds rolled and surged over the Eastern United States, the Confederate Congress assembled, and the doughty sons of the South rode beneath the Stars and Bars even before the spring day in 1861 when Chief Sky, a young Indian, spotted a young eagle high up in a pine tree in northern Wisconsin.

The war's thunder had not then broken the stillness of the great woods. The momentous events in which the young red man's find was to play so conspicuous a part had not even cast a shadow in that remote section of the nation.

No hint was discernible that this strong young bird was to cause a great Confederate leader, General Sterling Price, to place a tremendous worth upon its capture or death. But that is history.

Up on the mountain between Wayneboro and Staunton there is an old Mississippi veteran who reckons he might be among the last of those "boys in gray" who saw service with Price in the Levee State. Joseph Meek, and he counts his years at ninety and one, is serving what he calls his "last enlistment" with some kin there before he answers the last roll call.

In halting speech, his aged memory being spurred from time to time by opportune words, Veteran Joe tells of the "Yankee Buzzard" that cost the Confederacy an important victory in the year 1862. He tells of the admiration the gray-clad soldiers felt for their winged foe, the tribute that General Price paid it, and tells also of the history of the bird as gleaned from Northern prisoners taken after the battle.

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"Charges and countercharges swept over the battlefield," began the old soldier so glibly that I sometimes suspected the ancient hero of missing one engagement with another and sort of having a blanket description for all his battles. "We pressed the Union lines right hard time after time, but never could quite gain the right ground or hold what we did gain," he continued.

"Each time we got a new foothold and the blue ranks dropped back some, the old eagle leaped right off its perch and flew screaming over the regiment and those Northerners certainly rallied to the battle screams of that bird. It ended in our retreat, and it was all the fault of 'Old Abe.'

"I learned the name of the bird from one of the prisoners we took, and later he told me some of the bird's history. It was while returning to my company that I chanced upon a group around General Price just in time to hear the general say:

" 'I'd rather have you fellows capture or kill that eagle than slaughter a whole brigade of the enemy or to take a dozen battle flags. The greatest courage in the world is not enough to lick those Northerners while they have the inspiration of that fool bird.' "

Wisconsin's war records sustantiate the story told Joseph Meek by the Union prisoner which Mr. Meek passes on at this late day, a war story almost overlooked by historians past and present.

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According to the ancient narrator this is the tale spun by the youthful Westerner who fell into the Confederates' hands on that eventful day:

The Indian who had spied and captured the fledgling eagle that long ago spring day rejoined his companions with his prize. They were then near the boundary line of Price and Ashland Counties in the Northern part of the Northern State. Traveling along, the band of red skins came to the pioneer farm home of a family named McCann at Jim Falls, just above Chippewa Falls on the river of that name. Chief Sky bargained with Mrs. McCann for a bushel of corn and offered his eagle in exchange.

The eagle was not able to fly at the time, and Mrs. McCann accepted the Indian's offer. Later as the bird grew larger and stronger it often escaped and sometimes was recaptured as far away as half a mile. He became so much of a nuisance that Mr. McCann finally decided to get rid of it and took the bird to Chippewa Falls where a company of soldiers paid $5 for it for a mascot. The company became known after that as the "Eau Claire Eagles."

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On the way to Camp Randall at La Croose a man offered the soldiers $200 for their mascot, but the offer was refused. At the camp the mascot attracted a great deal of attention especially when one day he seized a corner of the flag, draped it over his back, flapped his wings and screamed valiantly while the men were passing through the camp gate.

In battle, according to the old Confederate, the bird's seat was in the form of a shield on top of which was a small slanting platform, all of which was mounted on a six-foot staff. Six inches above all was a crosswise rung of wood on which "Old Abe" usually sat.

On the 12th of October, 1861, the veteran's records relate, the regiment to which the bird belonged started for the South.

In St. Louis the crowd that watched the Yanks march through was Southern in sentiment.

"Can't you hear their greetings to that eagle?" smiled old Joe.

"Yankee buzzard!" Wisconsin goose!" "The Crow!"

"These and various other uncomplimentary names 'Old Abe' seemed to resent. Just as if he knew exactly what the attitude of the crowd was, he suddenly snapped his cord and flew into the crowd, flapping off a number of caps and bonnets. He flew to rest on the chimney of a near-by mansion. The soldiers were fearful he would like his liberty too well, but after half an hour of scolding the crowd he came down and allowed himself to be caught.

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The bird became strongly attached to his regiment and especially to his company. It was also familiar with every man in the company and many of the other men of the regiment. He was very particular as to his friends, liking some and hating others. He was taught all sorts of tricks by his comrades and became a well-trained bird, indeed.

There was another pet in the regiment, related the prisoner. It was a dog named "Frank." The eagle and the dog became friends for the canine used to hunt small game and shared its prey with "Old Abe." When Frank's barking could be heard in the near-by woods the eagle showed a lively interest and screamed at the top of his voice.

One of his keepers, a prisoner said, tried to translate the bird's calls according to the eagle's emotions. When surprised he whistled a wild melody, toned to a melancholic softness; when hovering over his food he began a spiteful chuckling; when pleased to see an old friend he said in plaintive cooing, "How do you do?"

In battle his scream was wild and commanding, five or six notes in succession--with a startling trill that was perfectly inspiring to the men.

"Old Abe" was bound to his perch by a 30-foot cord at most times, and by a three foot cord during a march, and this tying he is said to have thoroughly detested. However, in the summer of 1862 some one clipped his wings and so a cord wasn't needed to hold him down.

"In the battle of Corinth," the old veteran reminiced, "our loquacious prisoner said a bullet severed his cord and that the eagle flew above the field of battle several times and urged the men below to greater deeds of daring. How many times it occured I do not know, only that I saw it myself once and so know that part of it was true anyway."

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The war records of the Wisconsin troops do narrate that their mascot did glory in battle and that he delighted in standing close to the cannon as they roared and seemed to like to hear the rattle of musketry. He was only wounded once in the more than 40 battles in which he served as inspiration for his comrades, and strangely enough, that was in the battle of Corinth where General Price called attention of a whole regiment of men to the bird as a target.

Of "Old Abe's" bearers, and the records list six of them, only one was ever wounded in battle and that not a serious casualty. The others fell victims to disease and like prosaic fates.

It was current talk among the prisoners, Meek said, of how the bird's keepers could "clean up" tidy sums by disposing of eagle feathers at from ten to twenty dollars apiece, but so far history does not relate of any one claiming to have one of those feathers. So much for the loyalty of the men toward their champion.

The Wisconsin State archives also record the fact that when the three years for which the men of "Old Abe's" company had enlisteds, many returned to their homes, while those who re-enlisted were given a month's furlough. The eagle is said to have been among the first to "re-enlist," and obtain his leave of absence. He was taken back to Eau Claire and throughout the journey was made much of.

Again referring to Wisconsin records of after the War Between the States, we find, according to information from the secretary of state there, that "Old Abe" was given to the State of Wisconsin when the regiment was mustered out and that for many years he lived in a room in the basement of the State Capitol--a room fitted for his exclusive comfort.

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One day in 1881, in the winter time, when he was about 20 years of age, some paints and oils in a room adjacent to his Capitol home caught on fire. Sickened by the fumes from the paints, he was never well again and on March 26, 1881, died.

His skin was stuffed and mounted and placed in the State Capitol which had been his home for so many years. It was a splendid tacidermy job and the old eagle's followers were unanimous in declaring "Old Abe" looked as lifelike as could be. Then in 1904 came tragedy again to the famous bird. The Capitol Building was burned and "Old Abe" passed into oblivion. The war relic was as widely mourned as the bird had been when it died.

It is according to Mr. Meek's "best recollections" that on that eventful 1904 day, a Mississippi paper paid compliment and tribute to the feathered foe of the Southland in an editorial extolling the courage and inspiration the eagle had furnished the Northern cause.

Mr. Meek also points out the way the price of the eagle soared, as related by his former foeman and supplemented by the Wisconsin records. The Indian "found" it; Mrs. McCann paid a bushel of corn for it; Mr. McCann sold it for $5; a man in La Crosse offered $200 for it, and in St. Louis a man is said to have offered the regiment $500 for the bird. Later a large farm was offered in exchange for the pet and after the war the Northern State's records tell of an offer of $10,000, and still later of the famous P. R. Barnum being willing to part with double that sum for the honor of owning and exhibiting the eagle.