Civil War for the day

The Civil War was always good for arcane stuff, and this (via Steve Warren of the Civil War Round Table at the Union League in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is no exception:

On the evening of 18 September 1864, while Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie's Indian troops were awaiting word from General Richard Gano about the whereabouts of the wagon train they were after, something remarkable appeared to the Confederate force. The Native American troops were astonished to see a white deer, which they believed to be a good luck omen, before the attack on the wagon train the very next night.

Rico says it wasn't this deer, obviously; Stand Watie's deer has been dead for 150 years...