December 4

Pyrrhus may have had a point when he made the observation that “one more victory like this, and we are undone.” On the 4th in 1864, during the American Civil War, Union General Judson Kilpatrick[i] at Waynesboro, Georgia, intercepted the Confederate forces under the command of General Joseph Wheeler[ii] 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.

[i] Socialite Gloria Vanderbilt is Kilpatrick’s great-granddaughter.
[ii] Wheeler served in both the Civil War and the Spanish-American war.