Chapter 8, Winter Summary

Meat is scarce or nonexistent. Charley and several others are detailed to provide beef for the men, but there are no cattle. The doctor directs them to the Rebel horses captured that morning. They are normally used to pull artillery, but since the men must have meat, Charley and the others are ordered to slaughter and butcher them. Charley is accustomed to killing chickens, cows and pigs, but he had always thought kindly of horses that were used for work and befriended in Minnesota. The men must shoot them in the heads and then slit their throats before skinning and gutting them. This makes Charley extremely ill, almost ready to desert. The men are instructed to say that it is beef, but the men eating it know better; it has yellow fat, not white as in beef. They eat it anyway...