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" War can drive men to a dark place where the unspeakable becomes routine. Some respond by turning into Colonel Kurtz, while others do stuff that belongs on the front page of Buzzfeed. Cat-loving Civil War soldier Charles Porter falls firmly into the second camp. His darling feline was named Miss Cathy Couber Grubble, she lived with him on the CSS Neuse, and, according to his letters to his girlfriend back home, they were set to be married. &amp;quot;I have become engaged to a little Tar Heel girl,&amp;quot; he wrote to his human girlfriend Gillie in 1864. &amp;quot;She is about 3 foot, 8 inches high, with beautiful red hair, and the most magnificent eyes you ever saw. They are fine gray eyes, about such eyes as Fannie&amp;#039;s cat has got.&amp;quot; A gunner on the Neuse, an ironclad in the Confederate&amp;#039;s Navy fleet, Porter was considered a weirdo in his time but would have written a book based on a Tumblr were he alive today. Among his eccentricities were a lack of interest in the snuff-dipping damsels on shore in Kinston, North Carolina. He preferred the love of Miss Cathy, and we know this because he was honest about it with Gillie.  &amp;quot;You know how I admire cats above all others,&amp;quot; he wrote to her in one letter. He was also excited by her formal moniker. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t you think it&amp;#039;s a handsome name? And she is as handsome as her name is,&amp;quot; he wrote. At one point in 1864 Porter wrote to Gillie to tell her that he and Miss Cathy were still not married but the plans remained in motion. &amp;quot;When I am [married], I will send you an invitation. As flour is scarce here, we are going to have our wedding cake made of corn meal. If you cannot come to see us married, I will send a piece to dream on.&amp;quot; The obvious question is whether all of this is evidence of Porter &amp;quot;cracking under the pressure of war,&amp;quot; as Charlotte Observer columnist Josh Shaffer suggests, or if he was simply screwing around. Then there&amp;#039;s another new theory that I just came up with: Miss Cathy, who was downright child-sized at three-and-a-half feet, was actually a miniature Union spy dressed in a cat costume. Holly Brown, site interpreter for the CSS Neuse Interpretative Center, told the Kinston Free Press that it&amp;#039;s a lot less interesting than that. &amp;quot;I think, in this case, he really got it for a pet. He thought very fondly of the cat, and it was more his, rather than the ship&amp;#039;s, cat.&amp;quot; Sadly, the wartime love affair between Porter and Miss Cathy was eventually turn asunder. In June, 1864, Porter wrote this to Gillie: &amp;quot;I have not seen my Tar Heel for some time. And I don&amp;#039;t care much if I never see her anymore.&amp;quot; After the war he returned home and made Gillie his wife. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a18530/civil-war-cat-lover-charles-porter-15037753/?src=rss>