Whittling Sticks

From Three Months in the Southern States, April - June 1863 by Lieut-Col.

Fremantle. Fremantle was an English "tourist" who came to America to see the conflict firsthand.

July 2nd, 1863 (Morning of the second day of the battle of Gettysburg)

  
I climbed up a tree in company with Captain Schreibert of the Prussian
 army. Just below us were seated Generals Lee, Hill, Longstreet, and Hood, 
in consultation — the two latter assisting their deliberations by the truly
American custom of whittling sticks.

"Battle Scarred Veteran" at Gettysburg,  photo taken by Detroit Publishing Co. in 1903, from Library of Congress Collection