Page updated 05/23/2004
The Pen Mightier than the Sword.—While the Army of the Potomac was making its way into Virginia, a party of soldiers, hungry and fierce, had just reached a rail fence, tied their horses, and pitched their officers' tents, when four pigs incautiously approached the camp. The men, on noticing them, immediately decided on their capture. They stationed two parties, one at each end of a V in the fence, with rails to complete the two sides of a square; two men were then sent to scatter corn before the pigs, and lead them along inside the V, when the square was finished and the pigs penned. A cavalry officer, whose men had attempted their destruction with their sabres, came up, and said to the army correspondent who tells the story, “Ah! the pen is still mightier than the sword!”
Brockett, Dr. L. P., The Camp, The Battle Field, and the Hospital; or, Lights and Shadows of the Great Rebellion, Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1866
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