December 4

Pyrrhus of Epirus (318-272 b.c.e.) was a brilliant general. Hannibal considered him one of the greatest military commanders in the world, second only to Alexander the Great. Pyrrhus may have had a point when, after winning the Battle of Asculum in 281 B.C.E., he made the observation “one more such victory and, and I am undone.” On the 4th in 1864, during the American Civil War, Union General Judson Kilpatrick (pictured) at Waynesboro, Georgia, intercepted the Confederate forces under the command of General Joseph Wheeler as Wheeler attempted to stop Sherman’s March to the Sea. Wheeler was stopped and Sherman continued on, unimpeded, to burn Georgia to a crisp. However, Kilpatrick’s troops suffered more than three times the casualties that Wheeler’s troops did.