Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 22.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

Zzza question of bread and meat.

And this brings us to a question of bread and meat, and I tell you it was at that time a very serious matter. My comrades know how we were put to it for something to eat. Sometimes we had bread (such as it was), sometimes meat, sometimes neither. Men resorted to all sorts of devices to get a square meal. If perchance they met a farmer they at once cultivated him as a long-lost brother, and made all sorts of excuses to call; took the girls to ride, etc., and never left without eating some meal, either dinner or supper. Our orderly sergeant, a Frenchman of many accomplishments, is said to have called on the widow Hancock, in Dinwiddie county, and, on taking his leave, also took her gray cat, and his mess ate her in a stew, smothered in garlic, the next day. ‘They say so’; I don't know. A Frenchman has the reputation of eating anything.