whose horse-stories have preceded mine, of the specified feats of
their animals. The _rôle_ of a horse's performances is necessarily
limited, and it is probably impossible for a well-constituted mind to
recite the simple story of his deeds without seeming to draw largely
on the imagination. Consequently, an unexaggerated account of what
Ruby actually did (and I cannot bring my mind to an embellishment of
the truth) would hardly interest a public whose fancy has been thus
pampered and spoiled. But for this, these pages could be filled with
instances of his strength and agility that would almost tax belief.
Suffice it to say that while, like most good high leapers, he would
cover but a moderate breadth of water, he would get over anything
reasonable in the shape of a fence that could be found about the town.
I was a heavy weight,--riding nearly two hundred pounds,--and
necessarily rode with judgment. If there was a low place in a fence,
we never chose a high one; but, at the same time, if there were no
low places, we took the best we could find. Ruby seemed to know that
the two of us were solid enough to break through any ordinary pile of
rails, and what we could not jump over we jumped _at_. More than once
did he carry away the top rail of a snake fence with his knees, and
land fair and square on the other side; but it was a very high leap
that made this necessary.
He would jump on to the porch of the quartermaster's office (approached
from the ground by four steps), and then jump over the hand-rail and
land on the ground below again, almost wagging his tail with delight at
the feat.
His ear was quicker than mine for the peeping of quail and for the
drumming of grouse, and, in the absence of a good dog, there is no
doubt that my pot (for which alone I have been said to hunt) was better
filled by reason of his intelligence in the field, and because he would
allow one to shoot from the saddle. The birds never mistook me for a
sportsman until I was quite in among them, blazing away.
In coming home from the prairie, we generally rode round by the way of
a certain sunken garden that stood a couple of feet below the level
of the road. A five-foot picket-fence that stood at the roadside had
fallen over toward the garden, so that its top was hardly four feet
higher than the road. This made the most satisfactory leap we ever
took,--the long, sailing descent, and the safe landing on sandy loam,
satisfied so completely one's prudent love of danger.
I think I missed this leap more than anything at Lebanon when, finally,
we set out for Arkansas.
We made our first considerable halt early in May, at Batesville,
on the White River,--a lovely, rose-grown village, carrying, in the
neatly kept home of its New England secessionists, evidence that
they remembered their native land, where, in their day, before the
age of railroads, the "village" flourished in all its freshness and
simplicity. It had now acquired the picturesque dilapidation, in the
manner of fences and gates and defective window-panes, that marked
the Southern domicile during the war. Ruby had strained himself quite
seriously during the march, and had been left to come on slowly with
the quartermaster's train. This left me quite free for the social life,
such as it was, to which we--the only available men that had been seen
there since Price gathered his forces at Springfield--were welcomed
with a reserved cordiality. Our facilities for forming a correct
opinion of society were not especially good, but I fancied I should
have passed my time to as good advantage in the saddle.
We soon left for an active expedition in the direction of Little Rock,
of which it is only necessary to say, here, that it lasted about a
month, and brought the writer acquainted with some very unsatisfactory
horses,--a fact which heightened his pleasure, on striking the White
River bottom again, at finding that Ruby had been brought over the
ferry to meet him. Tired as I was, I took a glorious brisk trot through
the Canebrake Road, with a couple of leaps over fallen trees, that
revived the old emotions and made a man of me again.
While we lay at Batesville we were unusually active in the matter of
drill and reorganization; and this, with our engagements in the town,
kept us too busy for much recreation; but Ludlow and I managed to work
in a daily swim in the White River, with old saddles on our horses,
and scant clothing on our persons. Talk of aquatic sports! there is
no royal bath without a plucky horse to assist; and a swim across
the swift current at Batesville, with a horse like Ruby snorting and
straining at every stroke, belittled even the leaping at Lebanon.
From Batesville we commenced our memorable march to join the fleet
that had just passed Memphis, following down the left bank of the river
to Augusta, and then striking across the cotton country to Helena,--a
march on which we enjoyed the rarest picturesqueness of plantation
life, and suffered enough from heat and hunger and thirst, and
stifling, golden dust to more than pay for it.
Helena was a pestiferous swamp, worth more than an active campaign to
our enemies, filling our hospitals, and furrowing the levee bank with
graves. It was too hot for much drilling, and we kept our better horses
in order by daybreak races. With the local fever feeling its way into
my veins, I was too listless to care much for any diversion; but Ike
came to me one evening to say that he "reckoned" Ruby was as good a
horse as anybody had in the "camps," and he might as well take a hand
in the games. I told him I had no objection to his being run, if he
could find a suitable boy, but that both he and I were too heavy for
race-riding.
"I don't weigh only about a hundred and a half," said the ambitious man.
"Well, suppose you don't, that is ten pounds too much."
"I reckon a man can ride ten pound lighter 'n he is if he knows how
to ride; anyhow, if Rube can't skin anything around here, I don't know
nothin' about horses."
"Ike, did you ever run that horse?"
"Well, Colonel, now you ask me, I did jest give Dwight's darkey a
little brush once."
Conquering my indignation and my scruples, I went over, just for the
honor of the establishment, and made up a race for the next day.
I have seen crack race-horses in my time, but I never saw more
artistic riding nor more capital running than that summer morning on
the River Road at Helena, just as the sun began to gild the muddy
Mississippi. The satisfaction of this conquest, and the activity with
which new engagements were offered by ambitious lieutenants, who little
knew the stuff my man and horse were made of, kept off my fever for
some weeks; but I steadily declined all opportunity of racing with
horses outside of our command, for I had been reared in a school of
Puritan severity, and had never quite overcome my convictions against
the public turf. A corporal of an "Injeanny rege_ment_" took occasion
to crow lustily--so I heard--because "one of them French coveys" was
afraid to run him a quarter for five dollars. It appeared that a
cleanly European was always supposed by this gentry to be French; and
in the army at large I was better known by the company I kept than by
my New England characteristics.
Naturally, Ike thought that, while Ruby was engaged in this more
legitimate occupation, he ought not to be ridden for mere pleasure;
and it was only when a visitor was to be entertained, or when I went
out on plea of duty, that I could steal an opportunity to leap him;
but he took one fence that fairly did him credit. It was a snake fence
measuring four feet and two inches, with a deep ditch on each side cut
close to the projecting angles of the rails. Ruby carried me over the
first ditch into the angle between the rails, then over the fence into
the narrow space on the other side, and then over the second ditch into
the field. It was the most perfect combination of skill, strength, and
judgment that was possible to horse-flesh; and I think Gluckmansklegge,
who was with me and had suggested the venture, despaired of ever
getting his promotion by any fair means, when we rejoined him by the
return leap and rode safely to camp.
Unhappily, even entire satisfaction with one's horse is powerless to
ward off such malaria as that of the camp at Helena, and in due time I
fell ill with the fever. The horse was turned over to the care of the
quartermaster, and Ike and I came wearily home on sick-leave.
Late in the autumn we returned to St. Louis, where one of the German
officers told me that the regiment had joined Davidson's army at "Pilot
K-nopp"; and after the Hun, our new adjutant, arrived from the East, we
set out for headquarters, and took command of the cavalry brigade of
Davidson's army.
From November until January we were tossed about from post to post,
wearing out our horses, wearying our men, and accomplishing absolutely
nothing of value beyond the destruction of an enormous amount of
the rough forage, which would otherwise have been used to feed
"nags,"--stolen or to be stolen,--and would have thus tended to foster
the prevailing vice of the region.
At last we settled down in a pleasant camp at Thomasville,--a good
twelve miles away from Davidson,--and were at rest; it was only those
near him who suffered from his fitful caprices, and he was now encamped
with the infantry.
Pleasant as we found it with our little duty and much sport, I can
never look back to Thomasville without sorrow. To say that I had
acquired a tenderness for Ruby would not be strictly just; but I felt
for him all the respect and admiration and fondness that is possible
short of love. Vix had been my heroine, and my only one; but Ruby was
my hero, and I depended on him for my duty and my pleasure more than I
knew. With his full measure of intelligence he had learned exactly his
_rôle_, and he was always eager, whenever occasion offered, to show the
world what a remarkably fine horse I had,--being himself conscious, not
only of his unusual virtues, but, no less, of the praise they elicited.
One sunny Southern day, toward the end of January, Davidson had ridden
over, with his following, to dine with us; and as we were sitting
before our mess-tent, mellow with after-dinner talk of our guns and
our dogs and our horses, the General was good enough to remember that
he had seen me riding a chestnut that he thought much too finely bred
for field work: had I been able to keep him? Then Ruby was discussed,
and all his successes were recalled, first by one friend and then by
another, until Davidson needed ocular proof of our truthfulness.
Ike had taken the hint, and brought Ruby round in due time,--glistening
like gold in the slanting rays of the setting sun, but blundering along
with his head down and ears drooping in his old, dismal way.
"O no, I don't mean that horse," said Davidson; "I mean a very
high-strung horse I have seen you ride on the march."
"Very well, General, that is the animal; he keeps his strings loose
when he is not at his work."
"No, I have seen you riding a far better horse than that; I am too old
a cavalryman to be caught by such chaff."
To the great glee of the Hun, whose faith in Ruby was unbounded,
Davidson's whole staff turned the laugh on me for trying to deceive the
General just because he had been dining.
I mounted, and started off with one of Ruby's enormous lifts, that
brought the whole company to their feet. It was the supreme moment with
him. Full of consciousness, as though he knew the opportunity would
never come again, and quivering in anticipation of his triumph, he was
yet true to his training, and held himself subject to my least impulse.
We had lain in our camp for more than a week, and there was not a
vestige left of the recently substantial fences,--only the suggestive
and conspicuous gateways that stood to mark the march of our armies
from the Chesapeake to the Indian Nation. But Ruby built fences in his
imagination higher than any he had ever faced, and cleared them without
a scratch, landing close as though the Helena ditch were still to be
taken.
It would take long to tell all he did and how perfectly he did it; he
went back at last to his canvas blanket, loaded with adulation, and as
happy as it is given a horse to be.
In his leaping he had started a shoe, and Ike took him in the morning
to the smith (who had taken possession of an actual forge), to have it
reset. A moment later, the Hun cried, "My God, Colonel, look at Ruby!"
Hobbling along with one hind foot drawn up with pain, he was making
his last mournful march, and we laid him that day to rest,--as true a
friend and as faithful a fellow as ever wore a chestnut coat.
He had reared in the shop, parted his halter, and fallen under a
bench, breaking his thigh far up above the stifle.
WETTSTEIN.
It is a pleasant thing to be a colonel of cavalry in active
field-service. There are circumstances of authority and responsibility
that fan the latent spark of barbarism which, however dull, glows in
all our breasts, and which generations of republican civilization
have been powerless to quench. We may not have confessed it even
to ourselves; but on looking back to the years of the war, we
must recognize many things that patted our vanity greatly on the
back,--things so different from all the dull routine of equality
and fraternity of home, that those four years seem to belong to a
dreamland, over which the haze of the life before them and of the
life after them draws a misty veil. Equality and Fraternity! a pretty
sentiment, yes, and full of sensible and kindly regard for all mankind,
and full of hope for the men who are to come after us; but Superiority
and Fraternity! who shall tell all the secret emotions this implies? To
be the head of the brotherhood, with the unremitted clank of a guard's
empty scabbard trailing before one's tent-door day and night; with the
standard of the regiment proclaiming the house of chief authority;
with the respectful salute of all passers, and the natural obedience
of all members of the command; with the shade of deference that even
comrades show to superior rank; and with that just sufficient check
upon coarseness during the jovial bouts of the headquarters' mess,
making them not less genial, but void of all offence,--living in this
atmosphere, one almost feels the breath of feudal days coming modified
through the long tempestuous ages to touch his cheek, whispering to him
that the savage instinct of the sires has not been, and never will be,
quite civilized out of the sons. And then the thousand men, and the
yearly million that they cost, while they fill the cup of the colonel's
responsibility (sometimes to overflowing), and give him many heavy
trials,--they are his own men; their usefulness is almost of his own
creation, and their renown is his highest glory.
I may not depict the feelings of others; but I find in the recollection
of my own service--as succeeding years dull its details and cast the
nimbus of distance about it--the source of emotions which differ widely
from those to which our modern life has schooled us.
One of the colonel's constant attendants is the chief bugler, or,
as he is called in hussar Dutch, the "Stabstrompaytr"; mine was the
prince of Trompaytrs, and his name was Wettstein. He was a Swiss, whose
native language was a mixture of guttural French and mincing German.
English was an impossible field to him. He had learned to say "yes" and
"matches"; but not one other of our words could he ever lay his tongue
to, except the universal "damn." But for his bugle and his little gray
mare, I should never have had occasion to know his worth. Music filled
every pore of his Alpine soul, and his wonderful Swiss "Retreat" must
ring to this day in the memory of every man of the regiment whose
thoughts turn again to the romantic campaign of South Missouri. What
with other buglers was a matter of routine training was with him an
inspiration. All knew well enough the meaning of the commands that
the company trumpets stammered or blared forth; but when they rang
from Wettstein's horn, they carried with them a _vim_ and energy that
secured their prompt execution; and his note in the wild Ozark Hills
would mark the headquarters of the "Vierte Missouri" for miles around.
From a hill-top, half a mile in advance of the marching command, I
have turned the regiment into its camping-ground and dismounted it in
perfect order by the melodious telegraphy of Wettstein's brazen lips
alone.
That other chief attribute of his, Klitschka, his little beast,
stayed longer with me than his bugle did, and is hardly less identified
with the varied reminiscences of my army life. I bought her, as a
prize, with the original mount of the regiment, in Frémont's time,
and was mildly informed by that officer that I must be careful how
I accepted many such animals from the contractor, though a few for
the smaller men might answer. Asboth, Frémont's chief of staff, with
a scornful rolling up of his cataract of a mustache, and a shrug of
his broad, thin shoulders, said, "Whyfor you buy such horses? What
your bugler ride, it is not a horse, it is a cat." His remark was not
intended as a question, and it ended the conversation. Months after
that, he eagerly begged for the nine-lived Klitschka for one of his
orderlies; being refused him, she remained good to the end. She was an
animal that defied every rule by which casual observers test the merit
of a horse; but analytically considered she was nearly perfect. Better
legs, a better body, and a better head, it is rare to see, than she
had. But she lacked the arched neck and the proud step that she needed
all the more because of her small size. By no means showy in figure
or in action, it took a second look to see her perfect fitness for
her work. Her color was iron-gray, and no iron could be tougher than
she was; while her full, prominent eye and ample brain-room, and her
quick paper-thin ear, told of courage and intelligence that made her
invaluable throughout four years of hard and often dangerous service.
Like many other ill-favored little people, she was very lovable, and
Wettstein loved her like a woman. He would never hesitate to relax
those strict rules of conduct by which German cavalrymen are supposed
to govern themselves, if it was a question of stealing forage for
Klitschka; and he was (amiable fellow!) never so happy as when, from a
scanty supply in the country, he had taken enough oat-sheaves to bed
her in and almost cover her up, while other horses of the command must
go hungry; and was never so shaken in his regard for me as when I made
him give up all but double rations for her.
Double rations she often earned, for Wettstein was a heavy youth,
with a constitutional passion for baggage out of all proportion to
his means of transportation. Mounted for the march, he was an odd
sight. Little Klitschka's back, with his immense rolls of blankets and
clothing before and behind, looked like a dromedary's. Planted between
the humps, straight as a gun-barrel, the brightest of bugles suspended
across his back by its tasselled yellow braid, slashed like a harlequin
over the breast, his arms chevroned with gorgeous gold,--Wettstein,
with his cap-front turned up so as to let the sun fall full on his
frank blue eyes and his resolute blond mustache, was the very picture
of a cavalry bugler in active campaign.
Smoking, gabbling, singing, rollicking, from morning until night,
and still on until morning again if need be, he never lost spirit nor
temper. He seemed to absorb sunshine enough during the day to keep
every one bright around him all night. When at last his bugle had been
stilled forever, we long missed the cheer of his indomitable gayety;
wearying service became more irksome than while his bubbling mirth had
tempered its dulness; and even little Klitschka, although she remained
an example of steady pluck, had never so potent an influence as while
he had put his own unfailing mettle into her heels. After she was
bequeathed to me, she was always most useful, but never so gay and
frisky as while she carried her own devoted groom. No day was too long
for her and no road too heavy; her brisk trot knew no failing, but she
refused ever again to form the personal attachment that had sealed her
and Wettstein to each other.
The two of them together, like the fabled Centaur, made the complete
creature. He with the hardened frame and bright nature of his Alpine
race, and she with her veins full of the mustang blood of the Rocky
Mountains, were fitted to each other as almost never were horse and
rider before. Their performances were astonishing. In addition to a
constant attendance on his commander (who, riding without baggage,
and of no heavier person than Wettstein himself, sometimes fagged out
three good horses between one morning and the next), the Trompaytr
yet volunteered for all sorts of extra service,--carried messages
over miles of bad road to the general's camp, gave riding-lessons and
music-lessons to the company buglers, and then--fear of the guard-house
and fear of capture always unheeded--he never missed an opportunity for
the most hazardous and most laborious foraging.
He was a thorough soldier,--always "for duty," always cleanly, always
handsome and cheery, and heedlessly brave. If detected in a fault
(and he was, as I have hinted, an incorrigible forager), he took
his punishment like a man, and stole milk for himself or fodder for
Klitschka at the next convenient (or inconvenient) opportunity, with an
imperturbability that no punishment could reach.
Once, when supplies were short, he sent me, from the guard-house where
he had been confined for getting them, a dozen bundles of corn-blades
for my horses; not as a bribe, but because he would not allow the
incidents of discipline to disturb our friendly relations; and in the
matter of fodder in scarce times he held me as a helpless pensioner,
dependent on his bounty. When in arrest by my order, his "Pon chour,
Herr Oberist," was as cordial and happy as when he strolled free past
my tent. Altogether, I never saw his like before or since. The good
fortune to get such a bugle, such a soldier, and such a mount combined,
comes but once in the lifetime of the luckiest officer. It was only
his uncouth tongue that kept him from being pilfered from me by every
general who had the power to "detail" him to his own headquarters.
So universal, by the way, was this petty vice of commanding officers,
that one was never safe until he adopted the plan, in selecting a
staff officer, of securing his promise to resign from the service,
point-blank, if ordered to other duty, and more than one offended
general has been made indignant by this policy. With Wettstein, I felt
perfectly easy, for the average capacity of brigadier-generals stopped
far short of the analysis of his dual jargon. Several tried him for
a day, but they found that his comprehension was no better than his
speech, and that his manifest ability was a sealed book to them. He
always came home by nightfall with a chuckle, and "Le général versteht
mich nicht. Je blase 'marrrsch' für 'halt.'"
So it was that, for a couple of years, this trusty fellow trotted at
my heels through rain and shine, by day and by night, with his face
full of glee, and his well-filled canteen at the service of our little
staff. Mud and mire, ditches and fences, were all one to him and
Klitschka; and in Vix's day they followed her lead over many a spot
that the others had to take by flank movement.
Our work in Missouri was but little more than the work of subsistence.
We were a part of an army too large for any Rebel force in that region
to attack, and too unwieldy to pursue guerillas with much effect. But
now and then we made a little scout that varied our otherwise dull
lives; and at such times Wettstein always attached himself to the most
dangerous patrolling party, and Klitschka was usually the first to
bring back news of the trifling encounters.