When the smoke cleared, the southerners who had survived the onslaught came out of hiding. They found that the blue belly aggressors that had looted and stolen everything of value, and everything you could eat including all livestock, death and destruction were everywhere. While in hiding few had enough to eat starvation was now upon the survivors.

There was no international aid, no Red Cross meal trucks. The Northern army had taken everything they could carry and eaten everything they could eat. But they couldn’t take it all. The devastated people of the south found for some unknown reason Sherman’s bloodthirsty troops had left silos full of black eyed peas.

You see at the time in the north the lowly black eyed pea was only used to feed stock. The northern troops saw it as the thing of least value, taking grain for their horses, livestock and other crops to feed themselves they just couldn’t take everything. So they left the black eyed peas in great quantities assuming it would be of no use to the survivors because all the stock that it could feed had either been taken or eaten.

Southerners awoke to face a new year in this devastation; facing massive starvation if not for the good luck of having the black-eyed peas to eat. From New Years Day 1866 forward the tradition grew to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck.

From the Robert E. Lee Chapter, Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1640
The Traveller