[Confederate] General Richard Ewell fought bravely at Gettysburg, but [allegedly] he sometimes thought he was a bird and would eat only a few grains of wheat or sunflower seeds at a meal. He also sat in his tent for hours quietly chirping to himself.
Bonus: Another passage found on his Wikipedia page:
Rather short at 5 feet 8 inches, he had just a fringe of brown hair on an otherwise bald, bomb-shaped head. Bright, bulging eyes protruded above a prominent nose, creating an effect which many likened to a bird—an eagle, some said, or a woodcock—especially when he let his head droop toward one shoulder, as he often did, and uttered strange speeches in his shrill, twittering lisp. He had a habit of muttering odd remarks in the middle of normal conversation, such as "Now why do you suppose President Davis made me a major general anyway?" He could be spectacularly, blisteringly profane. He was so nervous and fidgety he could not sleep in a normal position, and spent nights curled around a camp stool. He had convinced himself that he had some mysterious internal "disease," and so subsisted almost entirely on frumenty, a dish of hulled wheat boiled in milk and sweetened with sugar. A "compound of anomalies" was how one friend summed him up. He was the reigning eccentric of the Army of Northern Virginia, and his men, who knew at first hand his bravery and generosity of spirit, loved him all the more for it.
— Larry Tagg, The Generals of Gettysburg
It’s worth noting that a little research revealed that the literal chirping and eating seeds were rumors that had circulated, and therefore may have been apocryphal. Even were that the case, he was certainly eccentric!
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Eyewitness Reports.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 18. Print.
Further Reading:
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