Lady de Ros, the last survivor of those who danced at the Duchess
of Richmond’s ball in Brussels on the evening before the battle of
Waterloo, also the last among those who had mounted “Copenhagen,”
published a little volume of recollections of Wellington which
contained the following extract:
We often stayed with the duke at Abbaye, Mount St. Martin,
Cambrai, and one morning he announced that there would be a sham
battle, and that he had given orders to Sir George Scovell that
the ladies riding should be taken prisoners, so he recommended our
keeping close to him. I had no difficulty in doing so, as I was
riding the duke’s Waterloo charger “Copenhagen,” and I found myself
the only one within a square where they were firing. To the duke’s
great amusement, he heard one of the soldiers saying to another:
“Take care of that ’ere horse; he kicks out. We knew him well in
Spain,” pointing to “Copenhagen.” He was a most unpleasant horse to
ride, but always snorted and neighed with pleasure at the sight of
troops. I was jumping with him when the stirrup broke, and I fell
off. In the evening the duke had a dance, and said to me, “Here’s
the heroine of the day--got kicked off, and didn’t mind it.”
[Illustration: LEE’S CELEBRATED CHARGER “TRAVELLER”]
The first Duchess of Wellington, with whom “Copenhagen” was a great
favorite, wore a bracelet of his hair, as did several of her friends.
Her daughter-in-law, the second duchess, who died in August, 1894,
and who was much admired by the great duke, accompanying him on his
last visit to the field of Waterloo, showed the writer a bracelet and
breastpin made of “Copenhagen’s” mane. On my last sojourn of several
days at Strathfieldsaye in September, 1883, I received from the second
duke as a parting gift a precious lock of the Waterloo hero’s hair and
a sheaf of the charger’s tail. It may be mentioned _en passant_ that
Sir William Gomm’s redoubtable Waterloo charger “Old George,” once
mounted by Wellington, which lived to the unusual age for war-horses of
thirty-three years, is buried beneath a stone seat at Stoke Pogis, the
pastoral scene of Gray’s familiar and beautiful elegy.
On the authority of his eldest son, who mentioned the circumstance
to the writer, it may be stated in conclusion that the last time
Wellington walked out of Walmer Castle, on the afternoon of the day
previous to his death, it was to visit his stable and to give orders to
the groom concerning his horses.
* * * * *
Chief among the most celebrated battle-chargers of the nineteenth
century was “Marengo,” Napoleon’s favorite war-horse. He was named in
honor of one of the most remarkable victories ever achieved by the
illustrious soldier. The day was lost by the French, and then gained
by the resistless charges of cavalry led by Desaix and Kellermann.
Their success caused the beaten infantry to rally and, taking heart,
to attack the Austrians with fury, and the field was finally won. In
view of the several hundred biographies of Bonaparte, it is certainly
surprising that so little should be known with any degree of certainty
concerning the world-famous Arab which he rode for eight hours at
Waterloo, and previously in scores of battles, as well as during the
disastrous Russian campaign. To an American visitor to the Bonapartes
at Chiselhurst in the summer of 1872, Louis Napoleon, in speaking of
his own horses and those of his uncle, said:
The emperor’s “Marengo” was an Arabian of good size and style and
almost white. He rode him in his last battle of Mont St. Jean,
where the famous war-horse received his seventh wound. I mounted
him once in my youth, and only a short time before his death in
England at the age of thirty-six. Another favorite was “Marie,”
and was used by the emperor in many of his hundred battles. Her
skeleton is to be seen in the ancient castle of Ivenach on the
Rhine, the property of the Von Plessen family. Of the other sixty
or seventy steeds owned by Napoleon and used in his campaigns,
perhaps the most celebrated were “Ali,” “Austerlitz,” “Jaffa,” and
“Styrie.” He had nineteen horses killed under him.
The American might have mentioned, but did not, that Field-Marshal
Blücher had twenty shot in battle, while in the American Civil War
Generals Custer of the North and Forrest of the South are believed to
have lost almost as many in the short period of four years. “Marie”
is thus described by Victor Hugo in the words of a soldier of the Old
Guard:
On the day when he [Napoleon] gave me the cross, I noticed the
beast. It had its ears very far apart, a deep saddle, a fine head
marked with a black star, a very long neck, prominent knees,
projecting flanks, oblique shoulders, and a strong crupper. She was
a little above fifteen hands high.
When “Marengo” was slightly wounded in the near haunch, Napoleon
mounted “Marie,” and finished his final battle on her. On his
downfall, a French gentleman purchased “Jaffa” and “Marengo” and
sent them to his English estate at Glastonbury, Kent. The tombstone
of the former may be seen there, with the inscription, “Under this
stone lies Jaffa, the celebrated charger of Napoleon.”
The last trumpet-call sounded for “Marengo” in September, 1829. After
his death the skeleton was purchased and presented to the United
Service Institution at Whitehall, London, and is at present among its
most highly treasured relics. Another interesting souvenir of the
famous steed is one of his hoofs, made into a snuff-box, which makes
its daily rounds after dinner at the King’s Guards, in St. James’s
Palace. On its silver lid is engraved the legend, “Hoof of Marengo,
barb charger of Napoleon, ridden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena,
Wagram, in the Russian campaign, and at Waterloo,” and round the
silver shoe the legend continues: “Marengo was wounded in the near hip
at Waterloo, when his great master was on him in the hollow road in
advance of the French. He had frequently been wounded before in other
battles.” Near his skeleton may be seen an oil painting of “Marengo,”
by James Ward, R.A., who also was commissioned by Wellington to paint
a picture of “Copenhagen,” Napoleon’s pocket-telescope, and other
articles found in his carriage at Genappe, near Waterloo, where he was
nearly captured, but escaped by mounting the fleet “Marengo.” In the
museum is also displayed the saddle used by Blücher at Waterloo, and a
letter written by the fiery old field-marshal, the day after the fierce
battle, of which the following is a translation:
Gossalines June 19, 1815.
You remember, my dear wife, what I promised you, and I have kept
my word. The superiority of the enemy’s numbers obliged me to
give way on the 17th; but yesterday, in conjunction with my friend
Wellington, I put an end forever to Bonaparte’s dancing. His army
is completely routed, and the whole of his artillery, baggage,
caissons, and equipage are in my hands. I have had two horses
killed under me since the beginning of this short campaign. It will
soon be all over with Bonaparte.
From a recent Paris publication, written by General Gourgaud, we learn
that at St. Helena Napoleon said that the finest charger he ever
owned was not the famous “Marengo,” but one named “Mourad Bey,” of
which, unfortunately, no further information is afforded by the French
general. In his St. Helena diary, Gourgaud writes:
L’Empereur passé à l’equitation. Il n’avait pas peur à cheval,
parce qu’il n’avait jamais appris. “J’avais de bons chevaux le
Mourad-Bey etait le meilleur et le plus beau à l’armée d’Italie.
J’en avait un excellent: Aussi, pour invalide, l’ai-je mis à
Saint-Cloud, où il passait en liberté.”
The last horse used by Napoleon was purchased at St. Helena. He
was a small bay of about fifteen hands called “King George,” but
afterward named by the emperor “Scheik,” which became much attached
to him. Captain Frederick Lahrbush of the Sixtieth Rifles, who was
then stationed on the island and who, as he could speak French,
became intimate with Napoleon, gave me a description of “Scheik” and
bequeathed to me his silver Waterloo medal and a lock of the emperor’s
hair, received as a parting gift on his departure from St. Helena.
* * * * *
As far as I am aware, no great commander ever possessed so valuable a
charger as “Cincinnati,” General Grant’s favorite during the fourth
year of the Civil War, and after his great victory at Chattanooga,
during which he rode “Egypt,” another of his six war-horses. A few
weeks later, when in Cincinnati, Grant received the gift of the noble
steed, which he named after that city. He was a son of “Lexington,”
with a single exception the fastest four-mile thoroughbred that ever
ran on an American race-course, having made the distance in 7:19¾
minutes. The general was offered $10,000 for the horse, as his record
almost equaled that of his sire and his half-brother “Kentucky.” He
was a spirited and superb dark bay of great endurance, Grant riding
him almost daily during the Wilderness campaign of the summer of 1864,
and until the war closed in the following spring. “Cincinnati” was
seventeen hands, and, in the estimation of the illustrious soldier, the
grandest horse that he had ever seen, perhaps the most valuable ever
ridden by an army commander from the time of Alexander down to our own
day.
The general very rarely permitted any person but himself to mount him.
Only two exceptions are recalled by the writer, once when Admiral
Daniel Ammen, who saved Grant when a small boy from being drowned,
visited him at his headquarters at City Point on the James River, and
when, a little later, President Lincoln came to the same place from
Washington to spend a week with the general. On the admiral’s return
from a two-hours’ ride, accompanied by a young aide-de-camp, Grant
asked how he liked “Cincinnati.”
Ammen answered, “I have never backed his equal.”
“Nor have I,” said the general.
In his “Personal Memoirs” Grant writes:
Lincoln spent the last days of his life with me. He came to City
Point in the last month of the war, and was with me all the
time. He lived on a despatch-boat in the river, but was always
around headquarters. He was a fine horseman, and rode my horse
“Cincinnati” every day. He visited the different camps, and I did
all that I could to interest him. The President was exceedingly
anxious about the war closing, and was apprehensive that we could
not stand another campaign.
Soon after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and his army at
Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in April, 1865, “Cincinnati” was
retired from active service, thereafter enjoying almost a decade of
peace and comfort on Admiral Ammen’s Maryland estate near Washington
until the end came in September, 1874, and he then received honorable
burial. The charger is fully entitled to a prominent place among the
most celebrated chargers of the nineteenth century, which includes
General Lee’s “Traveller,” General Sherman’s “Lexington,” and General
Sheridan’s “Winchester,” which died in 1878, and was skilfully mounted
by a taxidermist. “Winchester” is included among the relics of the
Mexican and later wars in the interesting collection of the Military
Service Institution on Governor’s Island, New York Harbor.
It is interesting to record that Washington, who was six feet and two
inches in stature, weighed at the time of the siege of Yorktown 195
pounds; Wellington, five feet seven inches, weighed at Waterloo 140
pounds; Napoleon, five feet six inches, at the same date, 158 pounds;
and Grant, five feet eight inches, weighed at Appomattox Court House
145 pounds; General Lee at Gettysburg weighed 180 pounds; Sherman at
Atlanta 165 pounds; and Sheridan, in the battle of Cedar Creek, about
150 pounds. Washington was the tallest, and Sheridan the shortest of
the seven generals whose war-horses are described in this article. It
will be seen, therefore, that Washington’s war-horse “Nelson” had a
much heavier weight to carry than the chargers “Copenhagen,” “Marengo,”
and “Cincinnati,” in their masters’ concluding campaigns.
* * * * *
The most celebrated charger in the Confederacy during our four years’
war was General Robert E. Lee’s “Traveller,” described to the writer by
Sheridan, who first saw him on the day of surrender at Appomattox, as
“a chunky gray horse.” He was born near Blue Sulphur Springs in West
Virginia in April, 1857, and when a colt won the first prize at the
Greenbrier Fair under the name of “Jeff Davis.” When purchased by the
great Virginian early in February, 1862, his name was changed by Lee
to “Traveller,” his master being very careful always to spell the word
with a double _l_. The horse was sixteen hands, above half bred, well
developed, of great courage and kindness, and carried his head well up.
He liked the excitement of battle, and at such times was a superb and
typical war-steed. General Fitzhugh Lee said to me that “Traveller” was
much admired for his rapid, springy walk, high spirit, bold carriage,
and muscular strength.
It may be doubted if any of the great commanders mentioned in American
history possessed greater admiration for a fine horse than General
Lee, who said, “There is many a war-horse that is more entitled to
immortality than the man who rides him.” On the third day of the battle
of Gettysburg, when Pickett’s gallant charge had been successfully
repulsed by Hancock, and the survivors of his broken and decimated
command were returning to the Confederate position, Lee appeared and
spoke encouragingly to his defeated troops. While he was thus occupied,
observing an officer beating his horse for shying at the bursting of
a shell, he shouted: “Don’t whip him, Captain! Don’t whip him! I have
just such another foolish horse myself, and whipping does no good.” A
moment later an excited officer rode up to Lee and “Traveller,” and
reported the broken condition of his brigade. “Never mind, General,”
responded Lee, cheerfully; “all this has been my fault. It is I that
have lost the battle, and you must help me out of it in the best way
you can.”
As with Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo, so was it with Grant and
Lee, who saw each other but once during their many fierce encounters
about Richmond in the eleven months previous to the final surrender,
and then only at a great distance, Grant, as he told me, recognizing
the gray horse, but not his rider. The illustrious soldiers had met
in Mexico while serving under General Scott, but after separating in
April, 1865, never saw each other again but once--when General Lee
called at the White House to see President Grant.
Soon after the close of the Civil War, Lee accepted the presidency
of Washington and Lee University. For five years, until his death,
he almost daily rode or fed his favorite charger. At the hero’s
funeral, “Traveller” was equipped for service and placed close to
the hearse. When the flower-covered coffin was carried out from the
church, the faithful horse put his nose on it and whinnied! He survived
his attached master for two years, when a nail penetrated his right
forefoot while grazing in a field, and, although it was immediately
removed, and everything possible was done to save him, lockjaw
developed, and he died during the summer of 1872. “Traveller’s”
skeleton was preserved, and is to be seen at Lexington, Virginia, as
well as Stonewall Jackson’s famous “Sorrel,” which was skilfully set
up by a veteran taxidermist. “Traveller,” like Sheridan’s celebrated
charger “Winchester,” enjoyed the very great distinction of having
his illustrious master for a biographer. In the sketch Lee mentions
his other horses, saying: “Of all, ‘Traveller’s’ companions in
toil,--‘Richmond,’ ‘Brown Roan,’ ‘Ajax,’ and quiet ‘Lucy Long,’--he is
the only one that retained his vigor. The first two expired under their
onerous burdens, and the last two failed.” During the Mexican War,
the general’s favorite was “Grace Darling,” a handsome and powerful
chestnut, which was seven times wounded, but never seriously.
Referring to the photograph of “Traveller,” General Custis Lee wrote to
me:
You will observe that my father’s position in the picture which
I send you, is that “to gather the horse,” in order to keep him
quiet. The legs are crossed behind the girth, and the hand is
slightly raised. “Traveller” injured both my father’s hands at the
second battle of Manassas, and General Lee could not thereafter
hold the reins in the regulation manner.
The brilliant Sherman’s favorite war-horse was killed under him in
the first day of the bloody battle of Shiloh, and two others were
shot while in charge of his orderly. Later in the four years’ contest
his most famous steeds were “Lexington” and “Sam.” The former was a
Kentucky thoroughbred, and is mentioned in his memoirs. Sherman was
photographed on “Lexington” in Atlanta, and he rode him in the grand
review in Washington, May 24, 1865. The horse that under the homely
name of “Sam” most firmly established himself in the affection and
confidence of the general was a large, half-thoroughbred bay, sixteen
and a half hands, which he purchased soon after losing his three steeds
at Shiloh. “Sam” possessed speed, strength, and endurance, and was so
steady under fire that Sherman had no difficulty in writing orders from
the saddle and giving attention to other matters. While as steady as a
rock under fire, “Sam” was nevertheless prudent and sagacious in his
choice of shelter from hostile shot and shell. The charger was wounded
several times when mounted, and the fault was wholly due to his master.
He acquired wide reputation as a forager, and always contrived to
obtain a full allowance of rations, sometimes escaping on independent
expeditions for that purpose.
What first endeared “Sam” to Sherman was that he became a favorite
with his son Willie, whom the writer well remembers when he came to
Vicksburg on a visit during the siege only a brief period before his
untimely death. The general told us that he always felt safe when his
boy was absent on “Sam,” knowing that he would keep out of danger and
return in time for dinner. Sherman rode him in many pitched battles,
and placed him on an Illinois farm, where he was pensioned, dying of
extreme old age in the summer of 1884. The general’s son Tecumseh
writes: “Sam was hardly the heroic horse to place with the others
you mention, but he was a strong, faithful animal who did perfectly
the varied and dangerous work allotted to him, and made a march as
long and difficult as any recorded in history--that from Vicksburg to
Washington,” via Atlanta, Savannah, Columbia, and Richmond.
A few months before his death Sherman said to me: “Now remember,
Wilson, when I am gone, you are not to hand around a hat for a
monument. I have paid for one in St. Louis, and all you have to do is
to place me under it.”
“General,” was the reply, “your wishes shall be respected; but of
course your troops of friends and admirers will certainly erect statues
in New York and Washington, and I am certain our Society of the Army of
the Tennessee will expect to honor their great commander with a statue
in some city of the West.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right,” said the old hero, “if they think I am
worthy of them; but don’t put me on a circus horse.”
This comment I repeated at the Metropolitan Club luncheon which
followed the unveiling of Saint-Gaudens’s equestrian statue of the
illustrious soldier. While McKim, who designed the pedestal, the poet
Stedman, and others smiled, the gifted sculptor looked solemn. The
steed, whose feet are not all where Sherman wished them to be, is
supposed to be a counterfeit presentment of “Lexington.”
* * * * *
Philip H. Sheridan, who was in half a hundred battles and skirmishes
without ever being wounded, wrote to an army friend in January, 1876:
In regard to the black horse, I am glad to say that he is still
living, and is now in my stable. He has been a pensioner for the
past eight years, never being used save in the way of necessary
exercise. He is of the Black Hawk stock, was foaled at, or near,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was brought into the army by one of
the officers of the Second Michigan Cavalry, of which I was made
Colonel in 1862. Early in the spring of that year, while the
regiment was stationed at Rienzi, Miss., the horse was presented to
me by the officers, and at that time was rising three years old. He
is over seventeen hands in height, powerfully built, with a deep
chest, strong shoulders, has a broad forehead, a clear eye, and is
an animal of great intelligence. In his prime he was one of the
strongest horses I have ever known, very active, and the fastest
walker in the army, so far as my experience goes.[3] I rode him
constantly from 1862 to the close of the war, in all the actions
and in all the raids, as well as campaigns in which I took part. He
was never ill, and his staying powers were superb. At present he
is a little rheumatic, fat and lazy; but he has fairly earned his
rest, and so long as I live he will be taken care of.
The celebrated charger died in October, 1878, when Sheridan made a
slight addition to his biography, saying:
He always held his head high, and by the quickness of his movements
gave many persons the impression that he was exceedingly impetuous.
This was not the case, for I could at any time control him by a
firm hand and a few words, and he was as cool and quiet under
fire as one of my old soldiers. I doubt if his superior for field
service was ever ridden by any one.
The poet-painter Buchanan Read, Herman Melville, and many minor writers
made “Winchester” the subject of poems and sketches, while several
sculptors and painters delineated him in marble and bronze and on
canvas. On every returning Memorial day many gray-haired survivors of
Sheridan’s rough-riders who remember the services of his
Steed as black as the steeds of night,
cross over from New York to Governor’s Island museum, and place flowers
on the glass case containing the celebrated charger, whose body,
after being set up by a skilled taxidermist, was, accompanied by his
accoutrements, presented by the general to the United States Military
Service Institution.
Near the close of his career, when General Grant lost his fortune in
Wall Street, he voluntarily surrendered all his property with a single
exception. He retained Read’s spirited painting of Sheridan’s “Ride,”
representing “Winchester” and his master, the greatest _sabreur_
that our country has produced, perhaps not surpassed by any cavalry
commander since the days of Murat. Read’s poem of “Sheridan’s Ride”
will probably outlive his famous picture.
Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldier’s temple of fame,
There with the glorious General’s name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
“Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester--twenty miles away.”
May I be permitted, in conclusion, to mention that none of the hundreds
of battle-chargers ridden by Washington, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant,
Lee, Sherman, and Sheridan, suffered mutilation by the barbarous modern
practice of docking their tails, which even uncivilized savages never
perpetrate on their horses.
[Illustration]