WHIP AND SPUR
BY
COL. GEORGE E. WARING, JR.
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
MCMIV
COPYRIGHT, 1897
BY DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
VIX 7
RUBY 34
WETTSTEIN 67
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX 93
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT 138
TWO SCOUTS 162
IN THE GLOAMING 186
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND 201
WHIP AND SPUR.
VIX.
When the work on the Central Park had fairly commenced, in the spring
of 1858, I found--or I fancied--that proper attention to my scattered
duties made it necessary that I should have a saddle-horse.
How easily, by the way, the arguments that convince us of these
pleasant necessities find their way to the understanding!
Yet, how to subsist a horse after buying one, and how to buy? The
memory of a well-bred and keen-eyed gray, dating back to the earliest
days of my boyhood, and forming the chief feature of my recollection
of play-time for years; an idle propensity, not a whit dulled yet, to
linger over Leech's long-necked hunters, and Herring's field scenes;
an almost superstitious faith in the different analyses of the bones
of the racer and of the cart-horse; a firm belief in Frank Forester's
teachings of the value of "blood,"--all these conspired to narrow
my range of selection, and, unfortunately, to confine it to a very
expensive class of horses.
Unfortunately, again, the commissioners of the Park had extremely
inconvenient ideas of economy, and evidently did not consider, in
fixing their schedule of salaries, how much more satisfactory our
positions would have been with more generous emolument.
How a man with only a Park salary, and with a family to support, could
set up a saddle-horse,--and not ride to the dogs,--was a question that
exercised not a little of my engineering talent for weeks; and many an
odd corner of plans and estimates was figured over with calculations of
the cost of forage and shoeing.
Stable-room was plenty and free in the condemned buildings of the
former occupants, and a little "over-time" of one of the men would
suffice for the grooming.
I finally concluded that, by giving up cigars, and devoting my energies
to the pipe in their stead, I could save enough to pay for my horse's
keep; and so, the ways and means having been, in this somewhat vague
manner, provided, the next step was to buy a horse. To tell of the days
passed at auction sales in the hope (never there realized) of finding
goodness and cheapness combined,--of the stationery wasted in answering
advertisements based on every conceivable form of false pretence; to
describe the numberless broken-kneed, broken-winded, and broken-down
brutes that came under inspection,--would be tedious and disheartening.
Good horses there were, of course, though very few good saddle-horses
(America is not productive in this direction),--and the possible
animals were held at impossible prices.
Those who rode over the new Park lands usually rode anything
but good saddle-horses. Fast trotters, stout ponies, tolerable
carriage-horses, capital cart-horses, there were in plenty. But
the clean-cut, thin-crested, bright-eyed, fine-eared, steel-limbed
saddle-horse, the saddle-horse _par excellence_,--may I say the only
saddle-horse?--rarely came under observation; and when, by exception,
such a one did appear, he was usually so ridden that his light was
sadly dimmed. It was hard to recognize an elastic step under such an
unelastic seat.
Finally, in the days of my despair, a kind saddler,--kept to his daily
awl by a too keen eye for sport, and still, I believe, a victim to
his propensity for laying his money on the horse that ought to win
but don't,--hearing of my ambition (to him the most laudable of all
ambitions), came to put me on the long-sought path.
He knew a mare, or he had known one, that would exactly suit me. She
was in a bad way now, and a good deal run down, but he always thought
she "had it in her," and that some gentleman ought to keep her for the
saddle,--"which, in my mind, sir, she be the finest bit of 'orse-flesh
that was hever imported, sir." That was enough. "Imported" decided my
case, and I listened eagerly to the enthusiastic story,--a story to
which this man's life was bound with threads of hard-earned silver, and
not less by a real honest love for a fine animal. He had never been
much given to saving, but he was a good workman, and the little he had
saved had been blown away in the dust that clouded his favorite at the
tail of the race.
Still, he attached himself to her person, and followed her in her
disgrace. "She weren't quite quick enough for the turf, sir, but she be
a good 'un for a gentleman's 'ack."
He had watched her for years, and scraped acquaintance with her
different owners as fast as she had changed them, and finally, when she
was far gone with pneumonia, he had accepted her as a gift, and, by
careful nursing, had cured her. Then, for a time, he rode her himself,
and his eye brightened as he told of her leaps and her stride. Of
course he rode her to the races, and--one luckless day--when he had
lost everything, and his passion had got the better of his prudence, he
staked the mare herself on a perfectly sure thing in two-mile-heats.
Like most of the sure things of life, this venture went to the bad,
and the mare was lost,--lost to a Bull's Head dealer in single driving
horses. "I see her in his stable ahfter that, sir; and, forbieten
she were twelve year old, sir, and 'ad 'ad a 'ard life of it, she
were the youngest and likeliest of the lot,--you'd swore she were a
three-year-old, sir."
If that dealer had had a soul above trotting-wagons, my story would
never have been written; but all was fish that came to his net, and
this thoroughbred racer, this beautiful creature who had never worn
harness in her life, must be shown to a purchaser who was seeking
something to drive. She was always quick to decide, and her actions
followed close on the heels of her thought. She did not complicate
matters by waiting for the gentleman to get into the wagon, but then
and there--on the instant--kicked it to kindlings. This ended the
story. She had been shown at a high figure, and was subsequently sold
for a song,--he could tell me no more. She had passed to the lower
sphere of equine life and usefulness,--he _had_ heard of a fish-wagon,
but he knew nothing about it. What he did know was, that the dealer was
a dreadful jockey, and that it would never do to ask him. Now, here was
something to live for,--a sort of princess in disgrace, whom it would
be an honor to rescue, and my horse-hunting acquired a new interest.
By easy stages, I cultivated the friendship of the youth who, in
those days, did the morning's sweeping-out at the Bull's Head Hotel.
He had grown up in the alluring shades of the horse-market, and his
daily communion from childhood had been with that "noble animal." To
him horses were the individuals of the world,--men their necessary
attendants, and of only attendant importance. Of course he knew of this
black she-devil; and he thought that "a hoss that could trot like she
could on the halter" must be crazy not to go in harness.
However, he thought she had got her deserts now, for he had seen her,
only a few weeks before, "a draggin' clams for a feller in the Tenth
Avener." Here was a clew at last,--clams and the Tenth Avenue. For
several days the scent grew cold. The people of the Licensed Vender
part of this street seemed to have little interest in their neighbors'
horses; but I found one man, an Irish grocer, who had been bred a
stable-boy to the Marquis of Waterford, and who did know of a "poor old
screw of a black mare" that had a good head, and might be the one I was
looking for; but, if she was, he thought I might as well give it up,
for she was all broken down, and would never be good for anything again.
Taking the address, I went to a stable-yard, in what was then the very
edge of the town, and here I found a knowing young man, who devoted his
time to peddling clams and potatoes between New York and Sing Sing.
Clams up, and potatoes down,--twice every week,--distance thirty miles;
road hilly; and that was the wagon he did it with,--a heavy wagon with
a heavy arched top, and room for a heavy load, and only shafts for a
single horse. In reply to my question, he said he changed horses pretty
often, because the work broke them down; but he had a mare now that
had been at it for three months, and he thought she would last some
time longer. "She's pretty thin, but you ought to see her trot with
that wagon." With an air of idle curiosity, I asked to see her,--I had
gone shabbily dressed, not to excite suspicion; for men of the class I
had to treat with are usually sharp horse-traders,--and this fellow,
clam-pedler though he was, showed an enthusiastic alacrity in taking
me to her stall. She had won even his dull heart, and he spoke of her
gently, as he made the most of her good points, and glossed over her
wretched condition.
Poor Vixen (that had been her name in her better days, and it was to
be her name again), she had found it hard kicking against the pricks!
Clam-carts are stronger than trotting-wagons, and even her efforts had
been vain. She had succumbed to dire necessity, and earned her ignoble
oats with dogged fidelity. She had a little warm corner in her driver's
affections,--as she always had in the affections of all who came to
know her well,--but her lot was a very hard one. Worn to a skeleton,
with sore galls wherever the harness had pressed her, her pasterns
bruised by clumsy shoes, her silky coat burned brown by the sun, and
her neck curved upward, it would have needed more than my knowledge of
anatomy to see anything good in her but for her wonderful head. This
was the perfection of a horse's head,--small, bony, and of perfect
shape, with keen, deer-like eyes, and thin, active ears; it told the
whole story of her virtues, and showed no trace of her sufferings. Her
royal blood shone out from her face, and kept it beautiful.
My mind was made up, and Vixen must be mine at any cost. Still, it
was important to me to buy as cheaply as I could,--and desirable,
above all, not to be jockeyed in a horse-trade; so it required some
diplomacy (an account of which would not be edifying here) to bring the
transaction to its successful close. The pendulum which swung between
offer and demand finally rested at seventy-five dollars.
She was brought to me at the Park on a bright moonlight evening in
June, and we were called out to see her. I think she knew that her
harness days were over, and she danced off to her new quarters as gay
as a colt in training. That night my wakefulness would have done credit
to a boy of sixteen; and I was up with the dawn, and bound for a ride;
but when I examined poor Vix again in her stable, it seemed almost
cruel to think of using her at all for a month. She was so thin, so
worn, so bruised, that I determined to give her a long rest and good
care,--only I must try her once, just to get a leg over her for five
minutes, and then she should come back and be cared for until really
well. It was a weak thing to do, and I confess it with all needful
humiliation, but I mounted her at once; and, although I had been a
rider all my days, this was the first time I had ever really ridden.
For the first time in my life I felt as though I had four whalebone
legs of my own, worked by steel muscles in accordance with my will, but
without even a conscious effort of will.
That that anatomy of a horse should so easily, so playfully, handle
my heavy weight was a mystery, and is a mystery still. She carried me
in the same high, long-reaching, elastic trot that we sometimes see a
young horse strike when first turned into a field. A low fence was near
by, and I turned her toward it. She cleared it with a bound that sent
all my blood thrilling through my veins, and trotted on again as though
nothing had occurred. The five minutes' turn was taken with so much
ease, with such evident delight, that I made it a virtue to indulge her
with a longer course and a longer stride. We went to the far corners of
the Park, and tried all our paces; all were marvellous for the power so
easily exerted and the evident power in reserve.
Yes, Frank Forester was right, blood horses are made of finer stuff
than others. My intention of giving the poor old mare a month's rest
was never carried out, because each return to her old recreation--it
was never work--made it more evident that the simple change in her
life was all she needed; and, although in constant use from the first,
she soon put on the flesh and form of a sound horse. Her minor bruises
were obliterated, and her more grievous ones grew into permanent
scars,--blemishes, but only skin deep; for every fibre of every muscle,
and every tendon and bone in her whole body, was as strong and supple
as spring steel.
The Park afforded good leaping in those days. Some of the fences
were still standing around the abandoned gardens, and new ditches
and old brooks were plenty. Vixen gave me lessons in fencing which a
few years later, in time of graver need, stood me in good stead. She
weighed less than four times the weight that she carried; yet she
cleared a four-foot fence with apparent ease, and once, in a moment
of excitement, she carried me over a brook, with a clear leap of
twenty-six feet, measured from the taking-off to the landing.
Her feats of endurance were equal to her feats of strength. I once
rode her from Yorkville to Rye (twenty-one miles) in an hour and
forty-five minutes, including a rest of twenty minutes at Pelham
Bridge, and I frequently rode twenty-five miles out in the morning and
back in the afternoon. When put to her work, her steady road gallop
(mostly on the grassy sides) was fifteen miles an hour.
Of course these were extreme cases; but she never showed fatigue
from them, and she did good service nearly every day, winter and
summer, from her twelfth to her fifteenth year, keeping always in good
condition, though thin as a racer, and looking like a colt at the end
of the time. Horsemen never guessed her age at more than half of what
it actually was.
Beyond the average of even the most intelligent horses, she showed
some almost human traits. Above all was she fond of children, and would
quiet down from her wildest moods to allow a child to be carried on the
pommel. When engaged in this serious duty, it was difficult to excite
her, or to urge her out of a slow and measured pace, although usually
ready for any extravagance. Not the least marked of her peculiarities
was her inordinate vanity. On a country road, or among the workmen of
the Park, she was as staid and business-like as a parson's cob; but
let a carriage or a party of visitors come in sight, and she would
give herself the prancing airs of a circus horse, seeming to watch
as eagerly for some sign of approval, and to be made as happy by it,
as though she only lived to be admired. Many a time have I heard the
exclamation, "What a beautiful horse!" and Vix seemed to hear it too,
and to appreciate it quite as keenly as I did. A trip down the Fifth
Avenue in the afternoon was an immense excitement to her, and she was
more fatigued by it than by a twenty-mile gallop. However slowly she
travelled, it was always with the high springing action of a fast trot,
or with that long-stepping, sidelong action that the French call _á
deux pistes_; few people allowed her to pass without admiring notice.
Her most satisfactory trait was her fondness for her master; she
was as good company as a dog,--better, perhaps, because she seemed
more really a part of one's self; and she was quick to respond to my
changing moods. I have sometimes, when unable to sleep, got up in the
night and saddled for a ride, usually ending in a long walk home, with
the bridle over my arm, and the old mare's kind face close beside my
own, in something akin to human sympathy; she had a way of sighing,
when things were especially sad, that made her very comforting to have
about. So we went on for three years, always together, and always very
much to each other. We had our little unhappy episodes, when she was
pettish and I was harsh,--sometimes her feminine freaks were the cause,
sometimes my masculine blundering,--but we always made it up, and were
soon good friends again, and, on the whole, we were both better for
the friendship. I am sure that I was, and some of my more grateful
recollections are connected with this dumb companion.
The spring of 1861 opened a new life for both of us,--a sad and a short
one for poor Vix.
I never knew just how much influence she had in getting my commission,
but, judging by the manner of the other field officers of the regiment,
she was evidently regarded as the better half of the new acquisition.
The pomp and circumstance of glorious war suited her temper exactly,
and it was ludicrous to see her satisfaction in first wearing her
gorgeous red-bordered shabrack; for a time she carried her head on one
side to see it. She conceived a new affection for me from the moment
when she saw me bedecked with the dazzling bloom that preceded the
serious fruitage of the early New York volunteer organizations.
At last the thrilling day came. Broadway was alive from end to end
with flags and white cambric and sad faces. Another thousand were
going to the war. With Swiss bugle-march and chanted Marseillaise, we
made our solemn way through the grave and anxious throng. To us it was
naturally a day of sore trial; but with brilliant, happy Vixen it was
far different; she was leaving no friends behind, was going to meet no
unknown peril. She was showing her royal, stylish beauty to an admiring
crowd, and she acted as though she took to her own especial behoof
every cheer that rang from Union Square to Cortlandt Street. It was the
glorious day of her life, and, as we dismounted at the Jersey ferry,
she was trembling still with the delightful excitement.
At Washington we were encamped east of the Capitol, and for a month
were busy in getting settled in the new harness. Mr. Lincoln used to
drive out sometimes to our evening drill, and he always had a pleasant
word--as he always had for every one, and as every one had for her--for
my charming thoroughbred, who had made herself perfectly at home with
the troops, and enjoyed every display of the marvellous raiment of the
regiment.
On the 4th of July we crossed the Potomac and went below Alexandria,
where we lay in idle preparation for the coming disaster. On the 16th
we marched, in Blenker's brigade of Miles's division, and we passed the
night in a hay-field, with a confusion of horses' feed and riders' bed,
that brought Vix and me very closely together. On the 18th we reached
the valley this side of Centreville, while the skirmish of Blackburn's
Ford was going on,--a skirmish now, but a battle then. For three nights
and two days we lay in the bushes, waiting for rations and orders.
On Sunday morning McDowell's army moved out;--we all know the rest.
Miles's thirteen thousand fresh troops lay within sight and sound of
the lost battle-field,--he drunk and unable, even if not unwilling, to
take them to the rescue,--and all we did was, late in the evening, to
turn back a few troopers of the Black Horse Cavalry, the moral effect
of whose unseen terrors was driving our herds, panting, back to the
Potomac. Late in the night we turned our backs on our idle field, and
brought up the rear of the sad retreat. Our regiment was the last to
move out, and Vix and I were with the rear-guard. Wet, cold, tired,
hungry, unpursued, we crept slowly through the scattered _débris_ of
the broken-up camp equipage, and dismally crossed the Long Bridge in a
pitiless rain, as Monday's evening was closing in. O, the dreadful days
that followed, when a dozen resolute men might have taken Washington,
and have driven the army across the Chesapeake, when everything was
filled with gloom and rain and grave uncertainty!
Again the old mare came to my aid. My regiment was not a pleasant one
to be with, for its excellent material did not redeem its very bad
commander, and I longed for service with the cavalry. Frémont was going
to St. Louis, and his chief of staff was looking for cavalry officers.
He had long known Vixen, and was kind enough to tell me that he wanted
_her_ for the new organization, and (as I was her necessary appendage),
he procured my transfer, and we set out for the West. It was not
especially flattering to me to be taken on these grounds; but it was
flattering to Vixen, and that was quite as pleasant.
Arrived at St. Louis, we set about the organization of the
enthusiastic thousands who rushed to serve under Frémont. Whatever
there was of ostentatious display, Vixen and I took part in, but this
was not much. Once we turned out in great state to receive Prince
Plon-Plon, but that was in the night, and he didn't come after all.
Once again there was a review of all the troops, and that _was_
magnificent. This was all. There was no coach and four, nor anything
else but downright hard work from early morning till late bedtime, from
Sunday morning till Saturday night. For six weeks, while my regiment of
German horsemen was fitting up and drilling at the Abbey Race-track,
I rode a cart-horse, and kept the mare in training for the hard work
ahead.
At last we were off, going up the Missouri, sticking in its mud,
poling over its shoals, and being bored generally. At Jefferson
City Vixen made her last appearance in ladies' society, as by the
twilight fires of the General's camp she went through her graceful
paces before Mrs. Frémont and her daughter. I pass over the eventful
pursuit of Price's army, because the subject of my story played only
a passive part in it. At Springfield I tried her nerve by jumping her
over the dead horses on brave Zagonyi's bloody field; and, although
distastefully, she did my bidding without flinching, when she found it
must be done. The camp-life at Springfield was full of excitement and
earnestness; Price, with his army, was near at hand (or we believed
that he was, which was essentially the same). Our work in the cavalry
was very active, and Vix had hard service on insufficient food,--she
seemed to be sustained by sheer nervous strength.
At last the order to advance was given, and we were to move out at
daybreak; then came a countermanding order; and then, late in the
evening, Frémont's farewell. He had been relieved. There was genuine
and universal grief. Good or bad, competent or incompetent,--this is
not the place to argue that,--he was the life and the soul of his
army, and it was cruelly wronged in his removal. Spiritless and full
of disappointment, we again turned back from our aim;--then would have
been Price's opportunity.
It was the loveliest Indian-summer weather, and the wonderful opal
atmosphere of the Ozark Mountains was redolent with the freshness of a
second spring. As had always been my habit in dreamy or unhappy moods,
I rode my poor tired mare for companionship's sake,--I ought not to
have done it,--I would give much not to have done it, for I never rode
her again. The march was long, and the noonday sun was oppressive. She
who had never faltered before grew nervous and shaky now, and once,
after fording the Pomme-de-Terre in deep water, she behaved wildly; but
when I talked to her, called her a good girl, and combed her silken
mane with my fingers, she came back to her old way, and went on nicely.
Still she perspired unnaturally, and I felt uneasy about her when I
dismounted and gave her rein to Rudolf, my orderly.
Late in the night, when the moon was in mid-heaven, he came to my
tent, and told me that something was the matter with Vixen. My adjutant
and I hastened out, and there we beheld her in the agony of a brain
fever. She was the most painfully magnificent animal I ever saw.
Crouched on the ground, with her forelegs stretched out and wide apart,
she was swaying to and fro, with hard and stertorous breath,--every
vein swollen and throbbing in the moonlight. De Grandèle, our quiet
veterinary surgeon, had been called while it was yet time to apply the
lancet. As the hot stream spurted from her neck she grew easier; her
eye recovered its gentleness, and she laid her head against my breast
with the old sigh, and seemed to know and to return all my love for
her. I sat with her until the first gray of dawn, when she had grown
quite calm, and then I left her with De Grandèle and Rudolf while
I went to my duties. We must march at five o'clock, and poor Vixen
could not be moved. The thought of leaving her was very bitter, but
I feared it must be done, and I asked De Grandèle how he could best
end her sufferings,--or was there still some hope? He shook his head
mournfully, like a kind-hearted doctor as he was, and said that he
feared not; but still, as I was so fond of her, if I would leave him
six men, he would do his best to bring her on, and, if he could not, he
would not leave her alive. I have had few harder duties than to march
that morning. Four days after, De Grandèle sent a message to me at our
station near Rolla, that he was coming on nicely, and hoped to be in
at nightfall. "Vixen seems to be better and stronger." At nightfall
they came, the poor old creature stepping slowly and timidly over the
rough road, all the old fire and force gone out of her, and with only a
feeble whinny as she saw me walking to meet her. We built for her the
best quarters we could under the mountain-side, and spread her a soft
bed of leaves. There was now hope that she would recover sufficiently
to be sent to St. Louis to be nursed.
That night, an infernal brute of a troop horse that had already killed
Ludlow's charger, led by some fiendish spirit, broke into Vixen's
enclosure, and with one kick laid open her hock joint.
In vain they told me that she was incurable. I could not let her die
now, when she was just restored to me; and I forced from De Grandèle
the confession that she _might_ be slung up and so bound that the wound
would heal, although the joint must be stiff. She could never carry me
again, but she could be my pet; and I would send her home, and make her
happy for many a long year yet. We moved camp two miles, to the edge
of the town, and she followed, painfully and slowly, the injured limb
dragging behind her; I could not give her up. She was picketed near my
tent, and for some days grew no worse.
Finally, one lovely Sunday morning, I found her sitting on her haunches
like a dog, patient and gentle, and wondering at her pain. She remained
in this position all day, refusing food. I stroked her velvet crest,
and coaxed her with sugar. She rubbed her nose against my arm, and was
evidently thankful for my caresses, but she showed no disposition to
rise. The adjutant led me into my tent as he would have led me from the
bedside of a dying friend. I turned to look back at poor Vixen, and she
gave me a little neigh of farewell.
They told me then, and they told it very tenderly, that there was no
possibility that she could get well in camp, and that they wanted me
to give her over to them. The adjutant sat by me, and talked of the
old days when I had had her at home, and when he had known her well.
We brought back all of her pleasant ways, and agreed that her trouble
ought to be ended.
As we talked, a single shot was fired, and all was over. The setting
sun was shining through the bare November branches, and lay warm in
my open tent-front. The band, which had been brought out for the only
funeral ceremony, breathed softly Kreutzer's touching "Die Kapelle,"
and the sun went down on one of the very sad days of my life.
The next morning I carved deeply in the bark of a great oak-tree, at
the side of the Pacific Railroad, beneath which they had buried my
lovely mare, a simple VIX; and some day I shall go to scrape the moss
from the inscription.
RUBY.
I was a colonel commanding a regiment of German cavalrymen in South
Missouri, and must have a horse; it was desirable to be conspicuously
well mounted, and so it must be a showy horse; being a heavy weight and
a rough rider, it must be a good horse. With less rank, I might have
been compelled to take a very ordinary mount and be content: my vanity
would not have availed me, and my rough riding must have ceased.
But I was chief ruler of the little world that lay encamped on the
beautiful banks of the Roubie d'Eaux; and probably life was easier to
all under me when I was satisfied and happy. I am not conscious of
having been mean and crabbed, or of favoring those who favored me to
the disadvantage of those who did not. I cannot recall an instance of
taking a bribe, even in the form of a pleasant smile. It was probably
easier, in the long run, to be fair than to be unfair, and therefore
the laziest private ever ordered on extra duty could not lay his hand
on his heart and say he thinks it was done because he was not diligent
in foraging for turkeys and hens for my private mess. I had very early
in life been impressed with the consciousness that the way of the
transgressor is not easy; and as I wanted my way to be easy, I fell
into the way of not transgressing.
This may not have been a very worthy motive to actuate the conduct of
a military commander; but perhaps it was as good as the average in our
Department of the Southwest, where, if the truth must be told, virtue
did not have it all its own way,--we were different from troops farther
east; and although it made me sometimes wince to have my conduct
ascribed to a noble uprightness of purpose, and showed that it would
really have been more honest not to have been quite so good, yet one
should perhaps be satisfied with having carried out one's intention of
treating every man in the command, officer or soldier, as nearly as he
should be treated as the interests of the public service, the good of
the individual himself, and one's own personal convenience would allow.
Therefore, I say, I am not conscious of having favored those who
favored me, to the disadvantage of those who did not; neither do I
think that (at this stage of our acquaintance) the Grafs and Barons
and simple Mister Vons, of whom the command was so largely composed,
entertained the hope of personal benefit when they laid their
kindnesses at my accustomed feet, and tried to smooth my way of life.
The headquarters' mess was generally well supplied,--and no questions
asked. My relations with most of the command were kindly, and it
apparently came to be understood--for German cavalrymen are not without
intelligence--that the happiness of the individual members of the
regiment depended rather on the happiness of its colonel than on any
direct bids for his favor. Be this as it may, I am not conscious of
having received such direct appeals, and I am entirely conscious of the
fullest measure of happiness that my circumstances would allow; not an
ecstasy of delight,--far from that,--but a comfortable sense of such
well-fed, well-paid, well-encamped, and pleasantly occupied virtue as
had left nothing undone that my subordinates could be made to do, and
did nothing that my conditions rendered difficult. My own good-humor
was equalled by that of the regiment at large, and the beetling sides
of the Ozark valleys nowhere sheltered a happier campful of jolly good
fellows than the Vierte Missouri Cavalry.
We lay on the marvellous Roubie d'Eaux, at its source; no such
babbling brook as trickles from the hillside springs of New England,
but a roaring torrent, breaking at once from a fathomless vent in the
mountain. The processes of formation with these South Missouri rivers
are all hidden from sight, but, far away in the topmost caves of the
Ozark hills, the little streamlets trickle, and unite for a larger and
ever larger flow, gorging at last the huge caverns of the limestone
rock and bursting upon the world a full-grown river. Within our camp
this wonderful spring broke forth, and close at hand was a large
grist-mill that it drove. We were a self-sustaining community,--in
this, that we foraged our own corn and ground our own meal. With
similar industry we provided ourselves with fish, flesh, and fowl.
The trees were bare with the November frosts, but the Indian summer had
come, and, day after day, it bathed every twig and spray with its amber
breath, warming all nature to a second life, and floating the remoter
hills far away into a hazy dreamland.
But personally, notwithstanding all this, I was not content: I was
practically a dismounted cavalryman. Indeed, it would even have been
a pity to see a colonel of infantry riding such brutes as fell to my
lot, for good weight-carriers were rare in that section. I had paid a
very high price for a young thoroughbred stallion (afterwards, happily,
sold for a large advance), only to find him a year too young for his
work, and the regiment had been scoured in vain for an available mount.
I would have gone any reasonable length, even in injustice, to secure
such an animal as was needed. It was not easy to make up one's mind to
order a soldier to give up a horse he was fond of, and some soldier had
an especial fondness for all but the worthless brutes. My reluctance to
do this was perhaps not lessened by the fact that it was forbidden for
officers to ride United States horses. It finally became evident that
the chances were very small of ever finding a suitable animal, and I
even went out, on one shooting excursion, mounted on a mule.
Up to this time the regiment had been all that could be asked, but
now it seemed to contain a thousand ill-tempered, sore-headed men.
The whole camp was awry. Some of the officers intimated that this was
all the fault of the adjutant; that the orders from headquarters had
lately been unusually harsh. This officer, when remonstrated with,
insisted that he had only transmitted the exact orders given him, and I
knew that my own action had always been reasonable,--on principle so.
Sometimes one almost wished himself back in civil life, away from such
constant annoyances.
We had in the regiment one Captain Graf von Gluckmansklegge, who was
in many respects the most accomplished and skilful officer of us all.
His life had been passed in the profession, and he had only left his
position of major in a Bavarian Uhlan regiment to draw his sabre in
defence of "die Freiheit," in America, as senior captain of the Fourth
Missouri Cavalry. He was an officer of Asboth's selection, and had
many of that veteran's qualities. Tall, thin, of elegant figure, as
perfect a horseman as good natural advantages and good training could
make, and near-sighted, as a German cavalry officer must be, he was
as natty a fellow as ever wore an eye-glass and a blond mustache. He
was, at the same time, a man of keen worldly shrewdness and of quick
judgment,--qualities which, in his case, may have been sharpened by
long practice at those games of chance with which it has not been
unusual for European officers to preface their coming to draw their
sabres in defence of "die Freiheit" in America.
With Gluckmansklegge I had always been on friendly terms. Among the
many lessons of his life he had learned none more thoroughly than
the best way to treat his commanding officer; and there was in his
manner an air of friendly deference and of cordial submission to rank,
accompanied by a degree of personal dignity, that elevated the colonel
rather than lowered the captain,--a manner that probably makes its way
with a newly fledged officer more surely than any other form of appeal
to his vanity. One sometimes saw a brand-new second-lieutenant made
happier than a king by this same touch of skill from an old soldier
in his company, whom he knew to be far his superior in all matters of
service. To be quite frank, if I have an element of snobbishness in my
own organization, it has been more nurtured into life by the military
deference of better soldiers than myself under my command than by all
other influences combined; thus modified do the best of us become in
the presence of unmerited praise.
One evening Gluckmansklegge came to my tent door: "Escoose, Col-o-nel,
may I come?" And then, flinging out his eye-glass with a toss of the
head, he went on, with his imperfect English, to tell me he had just
learned from his lieutenant that I could find no horse to suit me;
that he had a good one strong enough for my weight, and, he thought,
even good enough for my needs. He had bought him in St. Louis from the
quartermaster, and would I oblige him by trying him? He was quite at my
service, at the government price, for he, being lighter, could easily
replace him. Did I remember his horse,--his "Fuchs"? "He is good, nice,
strong horse, an he yoomp!--yei!!"
I did remember his horse, and I had seen him "yoomp." It had long
been a subject of regret to think that such an animal should be in
the regiment, yet not on my own picket-line. It was well known that
great prices had been offered for him, only to make Gluckmansklegge
fling his eye-glass loose, and grin in derision. "Fuchs is--how you
call?--'heelty,' an gesund; wenn you like, your Ike will go to my
company to bring him." I did like, and I had no scruples against
buying him for one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Ike, a handsome
contraband, went early the next morning with a halter for the Fuchs,
and I was up bright and betimes to try him.
I had only seen the horse before under the saddle, perfectly equipped,
perfectly bitted, and perfectly ridden, an almost ideal charger. There
was a great firebrand scar on the flat of each shoulder, where he had
been fired for a cough,--so said Gluckmansklegge;--others intimated
that this effaced a U. S. brand; but, except this, not a sign of a
blemish. In form, action, style, color (chestnut), and training he
was unexceptionably good, and might well excite the envy of all good
horsemen who saw him _under the saddle_. Knowing him so well, I went
rather eagerly to the picket-line to refresh myself with the added
sensation that the actual ownership of such a horse must give.
There stood the new purchase,--a picture of the most abject misery;
his hind legs drawn under him; the immense muscles of his hips lying
flabby, like a cart-horse's; his head hanging to the level of his
knees, and his under-lip drooping; his eyes half shut, and his long
ears falling out sidewise like a sleepy mule's. I had bought him for a
safe price, and he would probably do to carry Ike and the saddle-bags;
but I felt as far as ever from a mount for myself, and went back to my
tent wiser and no happier than before.
Presently Ike appeared with the coffee, and asked how I liked the new
horse.
"Not at all."
"Don't ye? well now, I reckon he's a consid'able of a hoss."
I sent him to look at him again, and he came back with a very
thoughtful air,--evidently he had been impressed. At last he said,
"Well now, Colonel, I don't reckon you bought that hoss to look at him
on the picket-line, did ye?"
"No, Ike, or he should be sold out very cheap; but he is not the
_kind_ of horse I supposed he was; he ought to work in a mule-team."
"Well now, Colonel, mebbe he is; but you can't never tell nothin' about
a hoss till you get him between ye; and I reckon he's a consid'able of
a hoss, I reckon he is."
Ike was wise, in his way, and his way was a very horsy one,--so my
hopes revived a little; and when Gluckmansklegge came up on a capital
little beast he had been handling (secretly to replace the Fuchs),
I had the new venture saddled and brought round. He came blundering
along, head and ears and tail down, and stood like a leathern horse
for me to mount, Gluckmansklegge dropping his eye-glass and grinning.
It was as well to find out first as last whether he had anything in
him or not, and I gathered up the curb-rein, which brought his head
into superb position and settled him well back upon his haunches; but,
as the movement had been made with dignity, I gave him both heels,
firmly,--when we went sailing!--how high I don't know, probably not
fifteen feet, but it seemed that, and covering a good stretch to the
front. It was the most enormous lift I had ever had, and (after an
appreciable time in the air), when he landed square on all four feet,
it was to strike a spanking, even trot, the bit playing loose in his
mouth, his head swaying easily with his step, and his tail flying. I
had never been more amazed in my life than by the wonderful grace and
agility of this splendid brute. As he trotted along with his high,
strong, and perfectly cadenced step, he showed in the swing of his head
all the satisfaction of an athlete turning, conscious, lightly away
from the footlights, after his especial _tour de force_.
As Gluckmansklegge rode up, he said, "Well, Col-o-nel, how you like?
Nice pretty strong horse, what?"
And then, his English failing him, he fell, through an attempt at
French, into German, in which his tongue was far more ready than my
ear. Still it was easy to gather enough to understand some of the
processes by which the animal's natural qualifications for his work had
been developed into such unusual accomplishments; and then he glided
into the complimentary assertion that no one but the colonel of his
regiment could ever have hoped to buy him at any price,--and of course
he did not consider it a sale. His original outlay, which he could
not afford to lose, had been reimbursed; but the true value of the
horse, his education, he was only too glad to give me. And then, the
pleasure of seeing his colonel suitably mounted, and the satisfaction
of seeing the horse properly ridden, really threw the obligation on
his side. Then, with his inimitable _naïveté_, he not only expressed,
but demonstrated, in every look and gesture, more delight in watching
our movements than he had felt in his own riding. "Praise a horseman
for his horsemanship, and he will ride to the Devil." Gluckmansklegge
(I did not suspect him of a desire for promotion) pointed to a strong
rail-fence near by, and suggested that the combination of man and
horse for that sort of thing was unusual. Whether it was a banter or
a compliment, it would have been impossible for any man who properly
esteemed himself and his riding to stop to consider. Turned toward the
fence, the Fuchs, checking his speed, seemed to creep toward it, as a
cat would, making it very uncertain what he proposed; but as he came
nearer to it, that willingness to leap that an accustomed rider will
always recognize communicated itself to me, and, with perfect judgment,
but with a force and spirit I had never hoped to meet in a horse of
this world, he carried me over the enormous height, and landed like a
deer, among the stumps and brush on the other side, and trotted gayly
away, athlete-like again, happier and prouder than ever horse was
before.
Sitting that evening at my tent door, opposite the spring, bragging,
as the custom is, over the new purchase, it occurred to me that that
stream of water and that bit of horse-flesh had some qualities alike;
so I christened the latter "Roubie d'Eaux," which was soon translated
and shortened to "Ruby,"--a name henceforth familiar throughout the
regiment.
To become my property was the only thing needed to make him perfect,
for Ike was born in a racing stud in Kentucky, and had practised all
the arts of the craft, up to the time when, being both jockey and "the
stakes" in a race he rode, he was lost to a Missouri gentleman of
fortune, and became a body-servant. He was once confidential:--
"Well, now, Colonel, you see, this is how it was: I hadn't nothin'
ag'in my master,--he was a right nice man; but then, you see, he
drinked, and I didn't know what might become of me some time. Then,
you see, I knowed this man was stiddy, an' he'd jess done bought a
yallar gal I kinder had a notion for, an' so,--don't ye see why?--well,
the hoss could have won the _race_ fast enough, but then, you see, my
master,--well, he was a drinkin' kind of a man, an' I thought I might
as well fix it. I knowed I was up for stakes, an' that's how I come to
Missouri; I ain't no Missouri man _born_, but that's how it was."
He had become a good body-servant without forgetting his stable
training, and his horses bore testimony to his skill and fidelity.
After going through the routine of a well-regulated stable, he gave
each horse a half-hour's stroking with the flat of his hands, brisk and
invigorating; and the result was a more blooming condition and more
vigorous health than is often seen in horses on a campaign. The best
substitute that could be secured for a stable was a very heavy canvas
blanket, covering the horse from his ears to his tail and down to his
knees, water-proof and wind-proof. It was a standing entertainment with
the less dignified members of the mess to invite attention to Ruby
as he stood moping under this hideous housing. Certainly I never saw
him thus without thinking that his time had at last come, and that he
surely would never again be able to carry me creditably. Yet, as Ike's
devotion continued, he grew better and better, commanding daily more of
the respect and admiration of all who knew him, and attaching himself
to me more and more as we learned each other's ways.
One never loves but one horse entirely, and so Ruby never quite filled
Vixen's place; but as a serviceable friend, he was all that could be
desired. The unsupplied want of my life, that had made me restless
and discontented, was now satisfied, and my duties became easy, and
my pastimes (the principal times of South Missouri warfare) entirely
agreeable.
It was no slight addition to these sources of contentment to feel that
the command had at last awakened to a sense of its dereliction, and
was fast reforming its ways. I had hardly owned Ruby for a fortnight
before the old cheerfulness and alacrity returned to the regiment, and
by the time we broke up our camp on the Roubie d'Eaux and went over to
Lebanon for the shooting season, the entire organization was in a most
satisfactory condition.
Our life in Lebanon was an episode of the war that we shall not
soon forget. To the best of my knowledge and belief, after Price had
retreated from Pea Ridge, the only organized forces of armed Rebels
to be found north of the White River were local bands of jay-hawkers,
whose rebellion was mainly directed against the laws of property,
and the actuating motive of whose military movements was "nags." The
stealing of horses, with the consequent application of Lynch law, was
all that the native male population had to keep them out of mischief,
for weeks and weeks together. There was just enough of this sort of
armed lawlessness to furnish us with a semblance of duty; not enough
seriously to interrupt our more regular avocations.
Lebanon is on the high table-land of the Ozarks, in the heart of a
country flowing with prairie-hens and wild turkeys, and bountifully
productive of the more humdrum necessaries of life. Thanks to the
fleeing of Rebel families, we found comfortable quarters without too
severely oppressing those who had remained. What with moving the
court-house away from the public square, leaving the space free for a
parade, and substituting a garrison flag-staff for the town pump, we
kept our men from rusting; and when, after a time, we had established
a comfortable post-hospital and a commodious military prison, Lebanon
was as complete and well-ordered a station as could be found in
South Missouri. I had the questionable honor and the unquestionable
comfort of holding its command from the end of January to the end of
April,--three dreamy months, that seem now to have been passed in a
shooting-lodge, under favorable auspices.
As a legacy of the "Hundred Days," when the "Fourth Missouri" was the
"Frémont Hussars," we had an able-bodied and extremely well-selected
regimental band, that soothed our over-tasked senses when we came in
from our work in the fields, gathering where our enemies had sown, and
(under the suspended game-laws of the State) shooting grouse and quail
in the early spring.
Naturally, most of my official duties were such as could be performed
by an extremely well-regulated adjutant; and I usually passed his busy
half-hour (in private) with Ruby. There had been an impetuosity about
the horse at the outset which it was desirable to quell, and I rode him
regularly in a nicely fenced kitchen-garden, where, after he learned
that fences are not always intended for leaping-bars, he fell slowly
into the routine of the training-school, and easily acquired a perfect
self-command and _aplomb_ that enabled him, under all circumstances, to
await his rider's instructions.