wilkinson book

I found this great site of civil war days in North Carolina. he tells you many interesting things.
this is one of his stories. click on the title of this post for good reading.
My maternal great grandmother once saw a group of yankee soldiers heading for her home.
She knew they would take anything edible, and she had a smokehouse full of meat, so she dashed in the smokehouse and stoked up the fire and threw several strings of red pepper on the fire and came out and locked the door. The soldiers ordered her to open the smoke house door. She fumbled with the lock as long as she could so the red pepper would get a good start at burning. She also warned them that the smoke house would be full of smoke. When she got the lock opened, some of them rushed in, intent on taking all her meat. Instead, they came stumbling out, coughing and temporarily blinded. “What-cha got in there, woman?” “I’m sorry, sir, but skippers were getting in my meat and I had to poison them”. That was during the civil war. That was the first incident I have heard of poison gas warfare used in the civil war. They did not bother her meat.