In 19th Century,Rabies Was Menacing

By Bill Kemp, Archivist/librarian; McLean County Museum of History 12-5-10

BLOOMINGTON — “Kill your dogs!” declared a panicky Bloomington newspaper in November 1860. “Better every one of them should die than that one human being should suffer.” At issue was an outbreak of hydrophobia (known today as rabies) among the canine and feline populations of the city.

The appearance of rabies often sparked such overreaction in the 19th century. A virus usually transmitted via saliva from the bites of infected animals (including people), rabies attacks the central nervous system, and once symptoms appear it’s almost always fatal. The late stages of the disease beggar all description: hydrophobia (fear of water), hallucinations, hypersalivation, difficulty swallowing, extreme agitation, uncontrollable violent acts and paralysis.

Until Louis Pasteur and Emile Roux developed a vaccine in the mid-1880s, bite marks from rabid or suspected rabid animals often were treated by cutting away the flesh in and around the infected area and then cauterizing the wound with “lunar caustic” (fused silver nitrate).

In May 1852, The Bloomington Intelligencer, a predecessor to The Pantagraph, reported a dog belonging to Kersey H. Fell (brother of town of Normal founder Jesse Fell) was killed “having previously exhibited the most indubitable indications of hydrophobia.” The Intelligencer called for a city ordinance “against the running at large of the canine race,” hoping further that such action would “lead to the extermination of a few hundred of the curs with which our town is infested.”

That August, the city did pass an ordinance for registering dogs and prohibiting them from running at large. Residents were required to register their animals with the city marshal and pay an annual tax of $1.25 for each male and $3 for each female. Registered dogs wore a metal collar supplied by the city marshal. There was a steep fine for keeping unregistered pets, and during a rabies scare the city marshal and his deputies were given the power to shoot all free-ranging canines, be they registered or not.

Misinformation was a frequent bedfellow of hydrophobia. Perhaps the oddest belief surrounding rabies was that of the supposed curative powers of madstones, which were not stones at all but rather hard, roundish, porous-like concretions found in the stomachs of deer.

Well-accepted folk medicine tradition held that a madstone placed on the suppurating bite wound would soak up blood and “poisons.” When “full,” the stone would drop off, and after being cleaned in water and dried, the process would be repeated until it would no longer “adhere” to the wound.

In late 1900, The Pantagraph detailed the story of a madstone in the possession of Mrs. D.T. Crocker of South Lee Street in Bloomington. According to the article, the madstone had been in the family for more than 200 years, arriving in the U.S. with an ancestor from Wales. In the mid-19th century, the stone was split in two, with Crocker’s mother, Scynthia A. Ewing, getting one of the pieces. Ewing was said to have treated some 120 cases “with great success,” and the daughter continued the family tradition. Crocker, for instance, had seen a girl from LeRoy, and the madstone “adhered to the wound 18 times,” reported The Pantagraph.

Rabid dogs running wild remained a serious concern well into the 20th century. In December 1936, to cite one example, a “stray brindle mongrel” bit at least five city residents before the animal was “dispatched by means of a police bullet.” The state health department delivered five packages of free anti-rabies vaccine to Dr. Benjamin Markowitz, Bloomington’s public health director, and those bitten received the appropriate ministrations.

In January 1943, a rabid dog ran wild in Mt. Hope and Funk’s Grove townships in southwestern McLean County until it was shot dead by farmer Marvin Haughey. It had bitten and infected dairy cows, hogs and other dogs. “Farmers in the vicinity have been advised to kill less valuable animals, and to have the more valuable treated,” noted The Pantagraph.

Farmhand George Boeker, working on the Haughey place, was attacked by a rabid hog. “He managed to beat off the hog with his heavy boots and finally killed it,” read the news account. “The second hog went mad the same day in the lot with a drove of others. It was killed, but it is believed to have done much damage among the other hogs.”

Though rabies is no longer the scourge it once was, it is still with us. Just this summer, the McLean County Health Department reported the highest number of rabies-positive bats in 20 years.

From: pantagraph.com

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Life and Death of a Civil War Horse (Excerpted)

From: thomaslegion.net

The American Civil War (1861-1865) soldier preferred to shoot and kill horses rather than enemy combatants, because without horses, artillery became passive objects of heavy metal and without mounts the swift cavalryman was reduced to a plodding foot soldier now powerless to rapidly scout, locate and strike the enemy and its supplies. Take away the horse, and the triune army was stripped of two of its three major components, cavalry and artillery, leaving only disadvantaged infantrymen to carry the brunt. While cavalry, consisting of the finest mounts and chargers, was considered the eyes and ears of the army, the artillery branch, appreciating the brute strength of the solid-hoofed animals, consisted of mammoth bronze and iron weapons that were capable of eliminating an overwhelming advancing army.

During the conflict it is estimated that between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 equines died, including horses, mules, donkeys and even confiscated children’s ponies. It is estimated that the horse casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg alone, July 1 and July 3, 1863, exceeded 3,000. Diaries and letters of soldiers often mentioned the stench of dead steeds rising up from the fields of battle.

In an account of the events at Gettysburg, General Gibbons of the Union Army made this observation of the horses in Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing's 4th Artillery Brigade: One thing which forcibly occurred to me was the perfect quiet with which the horses stood in their places. Even when a shell, striking in the midst of a team, would knock over one or two of them or hurl one struggling in its death agonies to the ground, the rest would make no effort to struggle or escape but would stand stolidly by as if saying to themselves, "It is fate, it is useless to try to avoid it."

Horse and mule casualties far surpassed the total number of soldiers that died during the conflict. And was the fate of soldiers, more equines perished from disease or exhaustion than from being hit by bullets. Many died of glanders, which is a highly infectious disease that affects a horse’s nasal passages, respiration and skin. Besides battle causalities, horses had difficulty maintaining the four miles per hour pace regularly achieved by the cavalry. Horses also ate little and drank from muddied streams, and they often became gaunt and sickly.

Union General William Sherman believed in the welfare and wellness of horses and said that “Every opportunity at a halt during a march should be taken advantage of to cut grass, wheat, or oats and extraordinary care be taken of the horses upon which everything depends.” Horses were ridden by generals and cavalry, but also pulled cannons and supply wagons. They were the targets of fire, because if you killed the horses, you halted the artillery movement or the cavalry charge.

Without mounts and mules, the Civil War would have been quite different because the animals were absolutely indispensable to both sides. And they paid dearly as a result of that indispensableness, as did many farmers and noncombatants, whose horses were confiscated routinely over the course of the war by both Union and Confederate forces, leaving them without draft animals that they depended upon for their livelihood.

One cannot overstate the vital importance of both steeds and mules during the Civil War. The cavalries on both sides rode them. The materiel and supplies that each side depended upon was hauled by them. The artillery pieces and heavy guns could not be moved from battle to battle, or maneuvered during the fight, without them. While horses carried the generals and other high ranking officers into the fray, they also transported the wounded soldiers from the battlefield to the hospitals behind the lines. Whether referred to as work horses or war horses, they were, truly, the backbone of the Army.

On Sept. 19, 1862, just two days after the Battle of Antietam, Alexander Gardner, an employee of the photographer Mathew Brady, began documenting the battle’s grim aftermath. One of Gardner’s photographs, titled “Dead Horse of Confederate Colonel; both killed at Battle of Antietam,” depicted a milky-white steed lying on the field in an eerily peaceful repose. Another showed a line of bloated Confederate bodies along the Hagerstown Pike.

One who lost his horse at Antietam said, "The third shell struck and killed my horse and bursting, blew him to pieces, knocked me down, of course, and tore off my right arm..." Pvt. Ezra E. Stickley, Company A, 5th Virginia Infantry

Although by 1864 the sight of one dead horse was common place, the handsome mount was difficult and costly to replace. It was also much easier to replace a soldier than a horse. As the conflict progressed, the Union Army struggled to acquire the 500 horses it needed daily to sustain its army in the field. Sheridan himself required 150 additional steeds each day during the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The army therefore bought and captured nearly 210,000 horses in 1864 in order to offset the mounts that had died. If the soldiers had died at that rate, plus wounded, it would have necessitated approximately 1,000,000 replacements, new recruits to be precise, to negate the shortfall for said year. A daunting if not impossible task. More than 1,000,000 horses died in the Civil War

(About) Dead Horse of Confederate Colonel; both killed at Battle of Antietam. Retouched by the writer for clarity. View center mass of the mount, and you will see a very visible circular entry wound indicating a large caliber, likely a canister ball (from cannon of course), that entered the gut of the horse killing it instantly and therefore dropping him where he once stood. A horse in battle could generally withstand several shots from small arms, but during the process it would run, unless it was tied, which was the practice of horse artillery, and as it died, including the secured horse, it would merely collapse on its side or in an otherwise unnatural position. The belief that it was canister shot is because of caliber, the immediate collapse and position of the horse, and the rider, the colonel, appears to have been hit simultaneously with his stead. September 1862 at Antietam Battlefield. Alexander Gardner. Library of Congress.

One witness at the awkward scene stated that "The number of dead horses was high. They lay, like the men, in all attitudes. One beautiful milk-white animal had died in so graceful a position that I wished for its photograph. Its legs were doubled under and its arched neck gracefully turned to one side, as if looking back to the ball-hole in its side. Until you got to it, it was hard to believe the horse was dead."  - Union General Alpheus Williams, Antietam, September 22, 1862

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Veterinary and Human Medicine in the Civil War (Part I of 2)

By Dr. Robert Altman,  4-9-14

Dr. Altman practiced as a veterinary doctor for many years. He broke his talk into two sections:
PART I: VETERINARY MEDICINE AND THE CIVIL WAR
At the beginning of the 19th Century the few animal practitioners in America were uneducated or at best self-educated. Many were farriers and farmers with animal husbandry knowledge but no medical knowledge. At the beginning of the Civil War there were only 50 graduate veterinarians in the entire country, all graduates of European schools. The first veterinary school, in Lyons, France, was established in 1762. In contrast, the first veterinary college in the U.S. was opened n 1862 in Philadelphia. The college folded because of insufficient enrollment, before any student could graduate. The New York College of veterinary surgeons was founded in 1857 and graduated only two students in 1867. Sixty one years later, in 1918, when we entered World War I, only 867 graduated. The New York State Veterinary College at Cornell was established in 1876. Its first graduate was Daniel Elmer Salmon, who went on to discover Salmonella (which was named after him). Dr. Altman’s father was a veterinary doctor in the Veterinary Corps, serving in France as a 1st Lieutenant in World War I.

The start of the Civil War witnessed the formation of dozens of cavalry regiments requiring the service of thousands of horses. A War Department General Order in May of 1861 provided for one veterinary sergeant for every Union cavalry regiment but said nothing of the qualifications necessary for the post. As late as 1863 there were only six veterinarians in the Union army. The War Department increased the rank given to veterinary sergeants to sergeants-major and then changed the title to veterinary surgeons, who received a salary of $75 a month.

In 1863 Giesboro Point (now headquarters of the Defense Intelligence Agency), was the largest Union cavalry depot with 32 stables, 6,000 stalls and a veterinary hospital that could hold 2,650 injured animals. Due to overcrowding, disease was rampant and infectious diseases such as glanders (Pseudomonas mallei nka Burkholderia mallei), which caused fever, a thick nasal discharge, swelling of glands in the neck region and often death. The long incubation period of this disease delayed its diagnosis so it spread widely. At Giesboro over 17,000 horses died in three years.

A German immigrant, Gustavus Asche-Berg was trained as a veterinarian and practiced in the Old World for 13 years and then practiced human medicine in the new world before joining the Union cause in the late summer of 1861. He first joined a Pennsylvania unit as a human surgeon, but soon switched to the 4th New Cavalry as a veterinarian. By March of 1862 a New York cavalry unit had lost 160 of the 780 horses originally assigned to it. With a smaller horse supply the Confederate States established giant horse infirmaries that emphasized rehabilitation of disabled animals rather than just buying new ones.

It is truly ironic that in the Civil War animals were treated by human physicians and soldiers were treated by veterinarians.

From: civilwarroundtablepalmbeach.org

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Giesboro Point Cavalry Depot, Parking for 30,000 Horses

From: civilwarwashingtondc1861-1865.blogspot.com, 8-17-11

The area once known as Giesboro Point is now occupied by the Department of Defense's Joint Base Bolling-Anacostia.  The installation's major tenant organization, the Defense Intelligence Agency, is observing its 50th anniversary this year.  However, nearly 150 years ago, this parcel of land was not a military intelligence headquarters, but the logistics hub of the Union Army's cavalry in the Eastern Theater.  By providing a ready supply of mounts to the Army of the Potomac, Giesboro Cavalry Depot made an important contribution as the army slugged it out in Virginia.  Over 200,000 horses were received, issued, died or sold at Giesboro during the war.

On the eve of the war, the 624 acre Giesboro (sometimes spelled Giesborough) tract was owned by George Washington Young, who had the dubious distinction of being the District's largest slaveowner.  (In 1862, when the Federal Government instituted compensated emancipation in D.C., Young received $17,771.85 for the release of the men, women and children he held in servitude.) The Giesborough Manor plantation, whose primary product had been tobacco, dated back to the colonial period.

In July 1863, the Cavalry Bureau was established to "systematize and regulate the purchase and supply of horses to the cavalry. The Secretary of War directed the bureau's new chief, Major General George Stoneman, to establish six cavalry depots including one near Washington.  Stoneman selected Young's farm at Giesboro Point as the most suitable site, likely due to its flat terrain and easy access to river transportation, and the Army took possession on August 12, 1863.   Young offered the property to the government for $100,000, but was rebuffed.  Instead, he was paid an annual rent of $6,000 from 1863 to 1866.  The seizing of property for military purposes in and around Washington was quite common during the war as hospitals, camps, warehouses, and a network of fortifications were established.  As part of the Defenses of Washington, Forts Carroll and Greble were constructed on the high ground above Giesborough Manor.

The army quickly built wharves along the property's Potomac shoreline, 32 stables,  buildings, and other necessary infrastructure. Young's brick manor house served as the depot's administrative headquarters.  Barracks, mess houses, storage buildings, wharves, and a church sprung up.  Constructions costs were estimated to have topped one million dollars.  No comparable cavalry depot in the world matched the scale of Giesboro.  The Depot was designed to hold up to 30,000 horses, although the largest number present at any one time was about 21,000.  From January 1864 to the end of the war, Giesboro handled 170,622 cavalry horses; issuing 97,580 for use by the Army and selling 48,721 as unfit for military service.  Waterworks consisting of a reservoir, steam pumps and 27,000 feet of piping were installed.  The Depot's staff of nearly 1500 grew its own vegetables, slaughtered its own beef and milled its own wheat. The  horseshoeing shop alone employed over 100 blacksmiths.  The Depot's steam grist mill grinded grain and cut hay and straw.  At full capacity, the Depot was estimated to generate 700 tons of manure a day. (And some people think today's nearby Blue Plains Treatment Plant smells on a summer afternoon).

The installation's veterinary hospital had stalls for treating 2,500 invalid horses.  The unprecedented concentration of horses did contribute to equine disease outbreaks, such as glanders, and more than 17,000 horses were lost to disease between January 1864 and April 1865.  With thousands of horses grouped in corrals, there was also a constant danger of stampedes.  The Alexandria Gazette reported of one stampede in 1863, which resulted in nearly 1,000 horses drowning in the Potomac River and Eastern Branch.  With each horse costing the government at least $150, the staggering financial cost of these losses brings to mind Lincoln's statement that "I can make more generals, but horses cost money."

Camp Stoneman, named after the chief of the Cavalry Bureau, was established adjacent to the depot to house cavalry troopers as they waited remounts.  When Jubal Early's Confederate army threatened Washington in July 1864, several hundred dismounted troopers from Camp Stoneman participated in the capital's defense.

Giesboro Cavalry Depot made an important contribution to the Army of the Potomac's cavalry arm, which had previously been outperformed by Southern horsemen.

As in other locales hosting large numbers of troops, much of the timber on Young's property was cut for use in army construction, fortifications and as firewood.  The Army Quartermaster estimated that over $13,000 in timber had been cut at Giesborough Farm.

Decommissioning of the Depot
With the end of the war, the Government began the process of decommissioning the Cavalry Depot.  The country's small peacetime regular army had no need for thousands of mounts.  Over 50,000 surplus horses, including many that had not been fit for military service,  were sold at public auctions held at Giesboro.  Dr. Samuel Mudd claimed that he attended one of these auctions, but did not purchase a horse as they were all in poor condition.  These equestrian sales brought $1,251,722 into the Treasury.  Other depot supplies were also sold off including thirteen frame building and $9,000 worth of manure.

Upon the army's return of his property in February1866, George Washington Young unsuccessfully tried to sell the tract.  An ad placed in a local newspaper extolled its virtues and proximity to Washington:

"625 acres... with a front of mile and-a-half; the greater part bottom land, and acknowledged to be the finest soil for gardening in the vicinity of Washington.  At present there are upon the place immense improvements erected by the Government which will afford great facilities for founding at once a town that would prove to Washington what Brooklyn is to New York."

Young died in 1867, but his estate received $2,640 by the government as compensation for any damages the estate may have suffered during the war, far less than he $41,488.75 that his widow had requested.  In rejecting the request for greater compensation, a government official noted that the Youngs should be happy for all the improvements that Uncle Sam had made at no cost to them:

"The land has been greatly enriched by the thousands of animals kept upon it; miles of drainage pipes have been laid, thereby reclaiming fifty acres of swamp land to garden land, a large amount of new fencing has been constructed; valuable and costly wharfage built; the mansion house, barnes and outbuildings repaired and remodeled; new buildings erected and left upon the premises- all of which improvements made by the Quartermaster's Department of the Army of the United States inured to the benefit of the owner of the property without any immediate compensation being made on his part to the Government."

Although Giesboro Point never realized its potential, at least in George Washington Young's mind, to become Washington's "Brooklyn," the landscape has changed dramatically over the years.  In the years after the war, Young's heirs subdivided the Giesboro tract.  Starting in the 1870s, the plantation was used as a summertime resort for Washingtonians.  The main plantation house burned in a fire in 1881.  Later, the Firth Sterling Steel Company maintained a large mill on part of the property around the turn of the century.  The natural shoreline along the Anacostia, which originally terminated near the present-day NSF Anacostia-Bolling AFB boundary, has been extensively altered over the years through man-placed fill.   Around World War One, a military airfield was established on this filled in land comprising what became NSF Anacostia.

Today, there are no extant vestiges of the Cavalry Depot or Camp Stoneman.  The 2010 Master Environmental Assessment for Joint Base Bolling Anacostia noted that archeological surveys on base are "exceptionally difficult given the depth and extent of fill deposits across most of the base.."  But, the spirit of service to the defense of the nation lives on through the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians who each day serve their country at Joint Base Bolling-Anacostia.

Image 1:  November 1864 drawing of "The Great Horse Depot at Giesboro on the Potomac Below Washington" by Edward Lamson Henry.  (New York State Museum)

Image 2: A view of the wharf at Giersboro Cavalry Depot where boatloads of horses and hay were loaded.  Note the crane affixed to the wharf and what appears to be a track--with a push cart in the background-- running adjacent to the wharf.   (Library of Congress).

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The "War Horse" of the Civil War

By Kathleen Golden, April 4, 2012

Recently, Steven Spielberg released War Horse, a film that is based on a young adult novel by Michael Morpurgo. It tells the story of Joey, a Thoroughbred horse, who is sold by his owner to the British Army at the start of World War I. Joey experiences the horror of that war, first as a cavalry horse for the British, and then as an ambulance puller and artillery mover for the Germans. The unique concept of the book is that the story is told from Joey’s perspective. Reading the book, it struck me that the museum has its very own “War Horse”, and that his story is equally as heroic as Joey’s. Here’s Winchester’s story, in Winchester’s voice:

“I was foaled near Grand Rapids, Michigan, late in the fall of 1859. My bloodlines are those of the famous Morgan trotter Black Hawk, whose sire was a son of the first Morgan horse, Justin Morgan. I was brought into the service by an officer of the Second Regiment Michigan Cavalry of the U.S. Army in 1862, when I was almost three years old; I was named Rienzi after the town of Rienzi in the state of Mississippi, where the regiment was stationed when I was presented to the colonel of the regiment, Philip H. Sheridan. My first impression of Sheridan? He wasn’t a very big man, which suited me just fine. I was big for a Morgan, 16 hands high and strongly built, but even so, you can run a lot faster when you’re carrying less weight. Maybe that’s why I was able to make that dash from Winchester to Cedar Creek in time to rally the troops.

That dash from Winchester to Cedar Creek happened in October 1864; before that, General Sheridan and I participated in a number of engagements, including Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, Yellow Tavern (where that dashing Confederate cavalryman, Jeb Stuart, was killed), and Cold Harbor. I was wounded at Stones River, and again at Missionary Ridge and Fisher’s Hill, but the wounds were not serious. I maintained a level head and steady nerves through all of that. But my finest hour came on October 19, 1864, when the Confederates under Jubal Early engaged the Army of the Shenandoah at Cedar Creek. “Little Phil” and I returned from Washington, D.C. the evening before, and spent the night in Winchester, Virginia; when the sound of distant artillery could be heard at dawn the next morning, we sped off to the battlefield. Being fleet of foot, I covered the 15 mile distance in several hours, and we arrived at the battlefield around 10:30 am. We rallied the troops and repulsed the Confederate attack. Victory was ours!

I became something of a celebrity after that. The poet Thomas Buchanan Read wrote a poem entitled “Sheridan’s Ride.” My favorite stanza goes like this:

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!"

In honor of the Union victory, my name was changed from “Rienzi” to “Winchester”. Personally, I still considered myself “Rienzi”. I was in attendance at Appomattox Courthouse on 9 April, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to General Grant, and the Civil War was officially over. I retired after the war and spent my remaining years in Chicago with my master.”

Winchester (or Rienzi) died in October 1878. Sheridan had him preserved and mounted, and presented him to the Military Service Institution, Governors Island, New York, in 1879. He remained on display there until 1922, when a fire in the museum forced the Military Service Institution to transfer a number of artifacts, Winchester included, to the Smithsonian's National Museum. A ceremony was held on Saturday June 3rd, 1922, at Governors Island, where members of the Grand Army of the Republic cheered Winchester as he was ready to leave Governors Island. The event was covered by numerous newspapers.

Upon his arrival at the Smithsonian, Winchester was placed in the west gallery of the National Museum (these days known as the Arts and Industries Building). He remained there until the Museum of History and Technology opened in 1964. At that time, Winchester became a fixture in the Armed Forces Hall, where he remained in his glass case for 40 years.

In 2004, the museum opened a new exhibition on military history, “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War”. It was inconceivable that we would not include Winchester in the section on the Civil War; after all, there is some truth to the idea that he helped win the war. If Sheridan had not arrived at Cedar Creek in time to rally his troops and push the Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley, the Confederates might have gathered momentum and posed a real threat to Washington, and the war might have had a different outcome. He is on display in a case with other memorials of the war: relics from the battlefield at Gettysburg, presented to Winfield Scott Hancock in 1885; Grand Army of the Republic and Confederate Veterans badges and ribbons. Memorialization of the Civil War began shortly after the end of the war, with the formation of veterans groups on both sides. Later on, it was extended to the erection of monuments to the dead and statues of the heroes, and the creation of parks on the battlefield sites. Veterans groups, most notably the Grand Army of the Republic, began holding encampments. When Winchester died, it was in this spirit of remembrance that Sheridan had him preserved.

Kathleen Golden is an associate curator in the Division of Army Forces History.

Image: Winchester in Washington, DC, after the war

From: blog.americanhistory.si.edu

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The Horses of War

By C. Kay Larson, 2-2-13

The Civil War is not normally called a horse’s war, but it most certainly was: cavalry and artillery horses, draft and pack horses and mules, approximately one million on the Union side alone. The seat of war was also the lap of America’s horse culture – or, rather, cultures, north and south.

As the historian David Hackett Fischer points out, the First Families of Virginia, the fountain of Southern culture, were descendants of aristocracy and gentry ― Armisteads, Lees, Randolphs, Washingtons ― who largely emigrated from southwest England. This rural, manorial region supported King Charles I during the English Civil War, and owned slaves until the early Middle Ages. At least among the officers and Southern gentry, horses were signs of elite power, a symbolism that translated onto the American battlefield and, after the war, the statuary pedestals of countless Southern town squares.

In contrast, the “First Families of the North” ― Winthrops, Saltonstalls and Welleses ― were most associated with Suffolk, Essex and Cambridge, a Puritan region of yeoman farmers and artisans. Horses were more utilitarian, bred to work, not to race or ride to oversee the plantation.

Nineteenth-century romanticism enhanced the “chivalry” image. Sir Walter Scott’s novel “Ivanhoe,” set in the age of crusading knights, was a blockbuster hit in the American South. Through it, Southern planters idealized themselves as models of medieval honor, manhood, classical learning – and equestrian skills.

When hostilities began, the Confederate military was led by this dashing upper class, foremost among them Robert E. Lee. Son of the Revolutionary War general “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Robert married Mary Custis, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. He graduated second in his class at West Point and excelled in horsemanship.

Indeed, the cavalry was a sure path to glory in the Confederate Army. J. E. B. Stuart and Jubal Early were the two most famous Confederate cavalry officers, though others gained solid reputations. The legendary mounted raiders Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan disrupted drives across Tennessee by the Union generals Don Carlos Buell and William S. Rosecrans.

Steeds were more than status symbols, though: when fighting was fierce or retreats had turned into routs, generals might personally rally their troops. The visual symbolism and bravery of mounted officers created an aura of élan and command on the battlefield. During the 1864 campaigns in Virginia, General Lee rode along along the breastworks encouraging the men, turned retreating troops and chased down stragglers. Once, when Lee was exposed to cannon fire, an artilleryman remembered that “Old Mas’ Bob rode out of the smoke on Traveller, amid the loud shouts of A. P. Hill’s Corps.”

The Southern cavalry was a rich man’s undertaking: members had to provide their own horses. This resulted constant shortages of both trained horses and men to ride them. During Lee’s advance to Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, his forces confiscated horses from Pennsylvania farmers. However, mounts must be trained for combat, to not react to guns and cannon, so likely they proved ineffective at first.

Despite an initial supply problem and lack of leadership and mission focus, by mid-1863 the Union cavalry was coming into its own. Union quartermasters smartly purchased many Morgans, a uniquely American breed known for endurance, versatility, heart and courage. The largest cavalry battle of the war, involving 17,000 horsemen, occurred on June 9, 1863, at Brandy Station, Va. Stuart’s forces were preparing to advance in order to screen Lee’s march north toward Gettysburg. Begun by a Union surprise attack, the Confederates finally fended off the enemy. Yet the Union soldiers’ strong stand resulted from the fact that for the first time, they had trained and been commanded as a coherent corps. After the Battle of Gettysburg, Union cavalry fought 15 battles in 16 days and captured or destroyed half of Stuart’s cavalry, as well as 4,000 or so horses and mules and 1,000 loaded wagons. The South’s food crisis also gave Union cavalry operations an edge; by early 1865 well-fed Northern cavalry mounts were able to beat malnourished Confederate horses to their own supply trains and depots in Virginia.

Union cavalry proved itself in the Western Theater, too. In General Rosecrans’s Middle Tennessee campaign that year, cavalry under David Stanley made daring attacks on rifle pits and cannons north of Shelbyville. Perhaps the most successful raiding operation of the war was conducted by a former music teacher, Benjamin Grierson, who during the 1863 Vicksburg campaign cut a 600-mile swath of destruction through Mississippi to disrupt Confederate Gen. John Pemberton’s supply lines.

But the real heroes were the horses themselves. Cavalrymen and scouts understood what their horses could do for them. Horses could sense enemy forces before they reached a rider’s earshot. Take Nellie, a 6-year-old Union horse who was first ridden in service by a soldier pursuing the Confederate general Morgan during his three-state Ohio River Valley raid in 1862 and ’63. During the Knoxville, Tenn., campaign, Nellie was ridden every day and active in every engagement from August 1863 through April 1864. In one fray, she fell and her rider was taken prisoner. Nellie, however, scrambled to her feet and escaped to swim the Tennessee River and regain Union lines. (After a few days the cavalryman tromped into camp.) Later Nellie was with Sherman’s march into Georgia. Through it all, she was always sure-footed, regardless of rocky passes or the darkest night. She knew, one observer said, “The shriek of a shell and the direction of their flight, almost as well as her owners.”

Mounts of famous generals became almost as well-known as their riders: among others, Ulysses S. Grant’s Cincinnati, Lee’s Traveller, Custer’s Custis Lee, Stonewall Jackson’s Little Sorrell, Philip Sheridan’s Rienzi and George G. Meade’s Old Baldy (wounded five times in battle).

At the 1864 battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, en route from Washington, Sheridan rode Rienzi hard to meet and regroup his fleeing forces, after General Early’s Confederates had broken their lines. As Sheridan rode among them, the men “threw up their hats, shouldered their muskets, and as I passed along turned to follow with enthusiasm and cheers.” Sheridan directed: “We must face the other way; we will go back and recover our camp.” They did.

Sources: Boston Evening Transcript, July 22, 1863 and Sept. 2, 1864; Boston Herald, June 21, 1864; Thomas Nelson Conrad, “Rebel Scout”; C. Kay Larson, “Great Necessities”; James M. McPherson, “Battle Cry of Freedom”; Jeffrey R. Morris and Richard B. Morris, eds., “Encyclopedia of American History”; National Museum of the Morgan Horse; Elizabeth Brown Pryor, “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Letters”; Philip Sheridan, “Memoirs”; U. S., War Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Anthony Waskie, “Old Baldy.”

C. Kay Larson is a member of the board of the New York Military Affairs Symposium and the author of “Great Necessities: The Life, Times, and Writings of Anna Ella Carroll, 1815-1894 and “South Under a Prairie Sky: The Journal of Nell Churchill, U. S. Army Nurse and Scout.”

Image: Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his war horse, Cincinnati. Library of Congress

From: opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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How Improved Veterinary Science Led to Discovery of Salmonella

By Matt Richmond, Originally published on April 27, 2015

Today is Cornell University’s 150th anniversary. Its charter was signed in Albany in 1865. One of the school’s founders, Ezra Cornell, was a farmer and made veterinary science a priority. This is the story of the career of the first doctor of veterinary medicine to graduate from Cornell.

Daniel Salmon was 18 years old in 1868 when he traveled to Ithaca to go to college. Today the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell is a sprawling maze of labs, barns and hospitals. Back then it was much simpler.

“There was just one academic building in the very beginning,” says Donald Smith, former dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. “Cascadilla Hall was there for students and faculty as a residence and there was very little else except a farm, a working farm.”

Salmon’s doctorate from Cornell University was the first awarded in the U.S. The bacteria salmonella was named after him, though his assistant Theobald Smith actually discovered it. And Salmon helped found veterinary colleges in Washington, D.C., and Uruguay. He also developed the first federal meat inspection system in the U.S.

When Salmon’s career reached its peak 30 years after arriving at Cornell, it came right as the  profession began to change, too. Smith says at first veterinarians were in the cities and made sure horses could get people where they needed to go.

“And the Civil War was a period when they lost probably a million horses and mules from trauma, but mostly from starvation and disease,” says Smith.

The theory that disease is caused by microscopic germs was developed in the 1870s. Then Louis Pasteur first tested his rabies vaccine in 1885. And as Salmon’s career developed, veterinarians began to move out of the cities to work with farmers, treating diseases.

Today, at a state lab run by Cornell, technicians work on samples from farm animals. They load slides with those samples to see what microbes are in there.

“So within ten minutes we’ll know if we have a salmonella or not and we can report that back to the client immediately,” says lab manager Rebecca Franklin-Guild.

Obviously, finding salmonella for the first time was much trickier. They had simple microscopes in Salmon’s day. They had to find what they thought could be a pathogen in a sick animal. Then they had to inject it into a healthy animal. And if that animal got sick, then they knew they had found a disease. And when salmonella was found, Salmon and his assistant were actually looking for a virus called hog cholera.

“We sort of envy them,” says microbiology professor Craig Alltier. “They were able to just do whatever they wanted to do to try to diagnose disease and advance science.”

Alltier is still studying salmonella today, but he focuses on the genes that let this single-celled organism figure out when it’s inside a host’s intestine.

“Imagine this bacterium. Here it is living in your aunt’s egg salad at the church picnic. Suddenly, it’s eaten, it’s taken into the body, it’s in your stomach, it’s in your intestine,” says Alltier. “The bacteria has to change and adapt very quickly to those sorts of conditions.”

Salmon’s research assistant first identified the bacteria in 1885. But Salmon’s career didn’t end there. Around the same time, he put in place a federal meat inspection program at the Bureau of Animal Industry. He left the federal government under a cloud in 1905. Salmon was a part-owner of an ink company doing business with his department.

He went on to found a veterinary school in Uruguay and ended up working in Montana. And 150 years after he entered school, his name is revered as one of the earliest scientists to focus on diseases that moved from animals into humans.

Image: Dr. Daniel Salmon, the first doctor of veterinary medicine from Cornell University.

From: innovationtrail.org

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The New York College of Veterinary Surgeons

From: nyu.edu

East 26th Street in 1924
(Picture--the low building on the right is the former site of the Veterinary College)

NYU's veterinary school was founded in 1857 as the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons. In 1899 it merged with the American Veterinary College to become the New-York American Veterinary College within the NYU School of Medicine.

In 1913, it became a state institution but remained under the auspices of NYU. The school was discontinued in 1922 due to lack of funds.

Learn about veterinary medicine during the Civil War era at www.CivilWarRx.com.

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History of the American Veterinary Medical Association

From: avma.org

Correspondence among practitioners along the East Coast led to a national convention of veterinary surgeons in 1863 in New York. The first meeting was attended by 40 delegates representing seven states: New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, Ohio and Delaware.

Elected officers included the French-trained Dr. Alexandre Liautard, who headed the American Veterinary College in New York and was a dominant voice in the profession during this period. Under the direction of Liautard, New York became the unofficial headquarters of the USVMA and the American Veterinary Review was founded to be the voice of the profession. The USVMA was renamed the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 1898.

In 1900, Liautard returned to France and the American Veterinary Review changed its name to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA); it featured contributions from noted veterinary practitioners in what was rapidly becoming a recognized medical profession. By 1913, the AVMA had grown to 1,650 members. Membership requirements were revised so that being a graduate of a three-year, accredited veterinary school became mandatory (prior to this, self-proclaimed practitioners could be members of the association).

Four women graduated from U.S. Veterinary schools in 1915 and began practicing.

The American Journal of Veterinary Research joined JAVMA in 1940 and the publication evolved to become the primary forum for veterinarians to publish basic and clinical research studies.

Today, the American Veterinary Medical Association has more than 86,500 members. These professionals use their skills to care for the health and well being of humans, animals, and the environment.

In addition to caring for the nation's more than 70 million dogs, 80 million cats, 11 million birds, 7 million pet horses, and millions of other companion animals, veterinarians serve in medical research, prevention of bio- and agroterrorism, and food safety and contribute greatly to scientific breakthroughs throughout the world.

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Horse Doctors Way Back When

By Tanya Hanson, September 15, 2010

Last week something fun and wonderful happened to me, way sooner than I expected it to. The release of Redeeming Daisy, the second inspirational novella about the Martin family of Hearts Crossing Ranch. So soon on the heels of Marrying Mattie, my sensual Western Historical released two weeks ago, I found myself not only in Seventh Heaven but also realizing that both heroes, some 130 years apart,  are horse doctors. So I reckoned a trip down Vet History Lane was a good topic for today. And anybody who comments gets in a name-draw for a pdf. copy of Redeeming Daisy.

Okay. Long ago, the caretakers of the horses of the ancient Roman army were called veterinarii. The term itself derives from the Latin root for beast of burden.  The first veterinary school was founded in Lyon, France, in 1762.

But in colonial America, words like veterinarian, horse doctor, or even animal doctor weren’t part of the vocabulary. (In fact, fifty years ago or so, vet care for house pets was often considered frivolous.) For the colonists, animal disease was surrounded by mystery, superstition and ignorance—pretty much the same as for human ailments. Simple cures were largely unknown, because even physicians had little information on bacteria and anatomy.  Often a sick horse was tended by a herdsman or farrier (blacksmith) with roots, herbs, and often witchcraft.  The prevailing and unfortunate creed was—the more it hurt, the better it must heal. This mentally just breaks my heart.

By the early 1800’s, professional veterinarians, most of them graduates of the  London Veterinary College founded in 1791, began migrating to America’s cities. Without suitable veterinary schools here, young men apprenticed with these professionals and went on to become animal doctors. There were also medical doctors who used their knowledge of humans to treat animals, and other doctors who served both “man and beast.”
                                                                                         
On the frontier, most horse doctors were self-taught, like Call Hackett in Marrying Mattie. He has studied science at university level and extensively educates himself by reading treatises by such animal scientists as William Youatt. He performs necropsies when he can in a little lab he has set up in a shed on his land. Pike Martin in Redeeming Daisy is, of course, a fully accredited twenty-first century large animal vet.
                                                                       
Back in the 1800’s, books and pamphlets on horse medicine helped spread knowledge. The first surgical anesthesia upon a horse was performed in London in 1847 and helped advance animal surgery in America. Prior, surgical techniques were rarely attempted on horses: forcible restraint and terrible anguish were just not pleasant for anybody, especially the animal.  I get chills just imagining such torture on a senient creature who has no intellectual concept of  “Hey, big horsie. This is gonna hurt like a son of a gun, but it’s downright good for you.”

Dr. Isaiah Michener of Pennsylvania, whose education credentials are unknown, started a practice in 1836 and contributed many articles to Philadelphia periodicals and country newspapers. His criticism of the funds spent “to build theatres, railroads and canals” while the ravages of livestock diseases were neglected began to spread. Hence, the first veterinary association was launched in Philadelphia in 1854.

The development of veterinary schools soon followed. New York College of Veterinary Surgeons, chartered in 1857 at New York University is generally claimed to be the first veterinary college established in America. Prompted by funding from the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act as well as concerns over post-Civil War animal disease epidemics,   Iowa State College (now University)   offered  its first animal science  class in 1872 and officially founded its veterinary school in 1879.  

By the late 19th century, a collective of institutions, agricultural organizations, and scientific periodicals united veterinarians in a common cause.  The U.S. Veterinary Medical Association was founded in 1863, later renamed American Veterinary Medical association in 1898.

One fun fact:  In 1912, Chandler, Arizona was established by and named for Dr. A.J. Chandler, a veterinarian who graduated with honors in 1882 from Montreal Veterinary College at McGill University. He left a successful practice in Detroit to come to Arizona in 1887 to set health standards for the growing cattle industry. Creating a network of canals and electric pumps to draw ground water, he transformed his ranch into a green empire in an arid land. He was able to raise enough grain and alfalfa on 300 acres to feed 2,000 head of cattle and several hundred sheep.

Dr. M. Phyllis Lose, VMD, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School in 1957, the first female equine vet, or horse doctor, in the United States.

FROM: petticoatsandpistols.com

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The U.S. Army Veterinary Corps

By Andy Watson, AMEDD Regimental Historian

Veterinarians officially and unofficially have been a part of the Army since its inception. Reliance on animals for transportation, nutrition, and commerce were essential to early army operations and logistics. While there were farriers and other “horse tenders” attached to the American Army from the time of the Revolutionary War, medical expertise and official recognition did not occur until much later.

Veterinary medicine, similar to other scientific disciplines in the United States slowly made gains during the 19th Century.

A few civilian veterinarians were hired to support the Army during the War with Mexico (1846-1848). Later, the rank of veterinary sergeant existed briefly at the beginning of the Civil War in order to support some cavalry regiments, but the position was dropped in 1862. In 1863 each regiment of cavalry was authorized a regimental veterinary surgeon with the rank commensurate of a regimental sergeant major. Experience and field observation often overrode the lack of fixed standards in veterinary care; hence there were very few graduate veterinarians. To supplement the need for assistance civilian veterinarians were again hired, this time in greater numbers.

After the Civil War the smaller army still had mobility requirements and increased standards of its veterinary care. Existing cavalry regiments (6) were still authorized one veterinary surgeon and newly formed cavalry regiments (4) were authorized two veterinary surgeons, one of which would be designated the “Senior Veterinary Surgeon”. Army General Orders of 1879, later included in Army Regulations of 1881 provided that all appointed veterinary surgeons “be graduates of established and reputable veterinary schools or colleges.” Congressional legislation in 1899 improved the status
of senior veterinarians in the cavalry regiments, when they were accorded rank between cadet and second lieutenant.

The turn of the 20th Century in “Progressive Era” America and a desire to improve quality of life led
An investigation of “embalmed meats” at the close of the Spanish-American War (1898) mirrored the spirit of the time (The Jungle, foundation of the FDA) and established the use of Army veterinarians for food inspection.

From 1901 to 1906 a handful of veterinarians were detailed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Subsistence Department of the Army for meat inspection. Later, post commanders were able to utilize veterinarians to inspect locally purchased beef.

Even before the build-up of the American Army for World War I, early planners saw the wisdom of increasing the size and permanency of the Army Veterinary Service. On 3 June 1916 the National Defense Act in Section 16, specified the appointment, duties, and implementation of veterinarians in the Army. This act also provided for an official Veterinary Corps with officer rank and a promotion structure.

Due to the reliance on animal transportation, many times over newer mechanical conveyances, the U.S. Army veterinarian gained status within the American Expeditionary Force. Similarly their efforts in “remounting” and treating horses and mules assisted the war effort in Europe, where animal stocks had been greatly depleted.

The veterinarians would also begin a mission magnified in later years as they enhanced of camp conditions through better sanitation.

While World War I may have been the high-point for animal transportation care, World War II served as the standard for food inspection on a massive scale. Although animal care was provided for military working dogs, horses, and mules; food inspection served as 90% of veterinarian’s job during WWII. To supply the enormous Army, 142 billion pounds aggregate of meat and dairy products were inspected from 1940 through 1945. Complimenting this task were 11 labs in the United States and 23 units or labs overseas.

Within weeks of the invasion of South Korea by North Korea in June of 1950 Veterinary Service Units arrived to provide support. Their duties consisted largely of food inspection and also provided animal care for local livestock and military working dogs. In some cases the “fluid” battlefield found Army Veterinarians on the move and frequently in harm’s way.

In the 1950s the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Research Service working with a U.S. Army medical unit with suitable x-ray equipment and Veterinary personnel, assisted in the trial irradiation and ultimately eradication of screw worms.* (Cochliomyia hominivorax) The fly larvae, once a scourge to livestock and some humans in the Americas, enters its host through open wounds and then consumes portions of the host’s flesh.

During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army veterinarians worked with the local populace to help curb a rabies epidemic within the country. Other challenges included not only food procurement, but also ice as well. Increasing numbers of military working dogs and mascots caused another shift in veterinary care as several small animal clinics and dispensary detachments were established for U.S. Forces in Vietnam.

More recently Army Veterinarians have been integral to military efforts in Afghanistan by maintaining animal health in an agrarian society. Similarly, the numbers of military working dogs in theater have increased as have certain threats such as rabies. Food safety also remains a constant task of importance. Continuous testing, service in the field, and research allow the Veterinary Corps to preserve public and animal health.

From: history.amedd.army.mil/newsletters

Image: Traveller Skeleton

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The Cavalry Soldier

From: muttermuseum.org

The cavalry soldier is apt to look with some contempt as he rides by the weary footman carrying his knapsack; but he should bear in mind how much he is dependent upon him, and how much of the confidence with which he rides to the front is due to the staunch columns of infantry he leaves in his rear, and how soon he may be compelled to seek refuge from the enemy’s sharpshooters and artillery in the rear of the same columns of infantry.

A cavalry soldier should not exceed in weight one hundred and sixty pounds, should be active and strong, physically sound, with a natural fondness for horses and experience in handling them. His duties are more arduous and severe than those of the footman. His first care should be his horse at all times. The two are inseparable, and one is of little account without the other. A dismounted cavalry soldier, leading a broken-down horse and trudging wearily along in the rear of the column, is a pitiable and ridiculous sight; whilst the perfect cavalry soldier, neatly dressed, arms and accoutrements in perfect order, his horse well fed and thoroughly groomed, and riding with ease, grace, and self-possession, is always an object of admiration.

The general duties of the cavalry soldier are the same as those of the infantry soldier, varying only on account of his horse and the difference in the character of the service.

Great care and attention are necessary to keep the horse in condition for service. The following hints are offered: —

The horse should always be used moderately, having much additional weight to carry. The habitual gait of cavalry is a walk, and it should not be increased, unless necessary or acting under orders.

Horses should never be watered or fed when heated, nor should they be used violently.

Immediately after watering or feeding. Heating food, such as corn or wheat, should not be fed in large quantities at a time, but divided into two or more feeds; and this is particularly necessary when hay or grass is scarce. They should be fed salt two or three times a week.

The horse should be carefully groomed. When heated, in cold or chilly weather, particularly in the open air, if required to stand still he should have a blanket thrown over him until he is cool; nor should he be washed or drenched with water, except when cool. If covered with mud, it is better to let it remain until the horse is dry, and then let him be groomed as soon as he is dry: it should not be permitted to remain any longer than necessary. If the mud is rubbed off when wet, it causes the sand to be rubbed into the skin, and is much more difficult to remove afterwards.

The back should always be examined after riding. Any evidence of soreness should be arrested by a judicious folding of blanket and care in adjusting the saddle, by shortening or lengthening the crupper. Any swelling or scalding from the saddle should be frequently washed in cold water, to check inflammation.

When halting on the march, horses have a disposition to roll, that frequently injures the saddle and accoutrements. This may be in a great measure prevented by removing the saddle and rubbing the horse’s back with currycomb, brush, or a whisp of straw or twigs. During such halts, every opportunity to let the horse graze a little, or feeding him on a handful of hay or grass, or other feed, gathered by the way, should not be neglected: the horse’s stomach is small in proportion to his size, and such care of him will keep him in good condition where without it he would break down.

When a horse gets sick, the veterinary surgeon should at once be consulted. Soldiers are not permitted to prescribe for their horses without permission from their company commanders.

The horse has been found to be demoralizing to the habits of the soldier. The cavalry service removes the cavalry-man more from the immediate control of his officers; he is enabled soon to become more familiar with the surrounding country, on his duties as messenger, orderly, foraging, reconnoitering, picket and outpost duty, his temptations to straggle and commit depredations are much greater, the chances of detection are less, and the violation of orders is attended with much less personal fatigue and inconvenience; and hence the irregularities peculiar to the cavalry service.

Cavalry-men, however, should bear in mind that these facilities are no excuse for misdemeanors or irregularities; and every soldier should have the interests of his own corps too much at heart to aid or abet in misconduct that gives to his arm of service such a disagreeable notoriety. He should labor to give his own corps as high a reputation for good conduct as the foot-soldier. He should not allow himself to be excelled in propriety by the infantry-man.

The arms and accoutrements of cavalry, being more numerous and subject to more wear and tear, require more labor and attention than those of infantry, but should not for that reason be any more neglected. This care is equally important, and the beneficial results of cleanliness and order are quite as satisfactory, as in any other arm.

Every article that is issued to the man has its use and importance. The articles should be frequently overhauled, and kept in repair. The sabre should be kept sharp, the arms clean and in order, the ammunition close and compact, to prevent rubbing, and secure against moisture. The straps should be kept repaired, well cleaned and oiled. The nose-bag and lariat-rope are not sufficiently appreciated. The health of the horse is dependent upon his being taught to eat his feed from the nose-bag, as feeding from the ground causes the horse to take up with his food great quantities of gravel and sand, thereby injuring his digestion. The lariat-rope is important for the purposes of forage— either for the transportation of forage, or picketing the horse out at night to enable him to graze, the opportunity for which should never be neglected.

An important article is a forage-bag, made like a saddle-bag with a slit in it. It should be at least a yard long and a foot wide, in which to carry one or two feeds, so that accident or delay will not deprive the horse of his regular feed. It can be readily made by any soldier out of an ordinary grain-sack.

Source August V. Kautz, Customs of Service for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1865), 55-60.

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Horses of the Civil War Leaders

From: civilwarhome.com

The battle chargers of the general officers of the Confederate and Federal armies during the American Civil War, wrote their names upon the scrolls of history by their high grade of sagacity and faithfulness. They carried their masters upon the tedious march and over the bullet-swept battlefields, and seemed to realize their importance in the conflict. The horse of the commanding officer was as well known to the rank and file as the general himself, and the soldiers were as affectionately attached to the animal as was the master.

General Grant's Horses
When the Civil War broke out, my father,(1) General Grant, was appointed colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry and on joining the regiment purchased a horse in Galena, Illinois. This horse, though a strong animal, proved to be unfitted for the service and, when my father was taking his regiment from Springfield, Illinois, to Missouri, he encamped on the Illinois River for several days. During the time they were there a farmer brought in a horse called "Jack." This animal was a cream-colored horse, with black eyes, mane and tail of silver white, his hair gradually becoming darker toward his feet. He was a noble animal, high spirited, very intelligent and an excellent horse in every way. He was a stallion and of considerable value. My father used him until after the battle of Chattanooga (November, 1863), as an extra horse and for parades and ceremonial occasions. At the time of the Sanitary Fair in Chicago (1863 or '64), General Grant gave him to the fair, where he was raffled off, bringing $4,000 to the Sanitary Commission.

(1) This account was furnished at the author's request by General Frederick Dent Grant, U.S.A.--TFR

Soon after my father was made a brigadier-general, (August 8, 1861 ), he purchased a pony for me and also another horse for field service for himself. At the battle of Belmont (November 7, 1861), his horse was killed under him and he took my pony. The pony was quite small and my father, feeling that the commanding general on the field should have a larger mount, turned the pony over to one of his aides-decamp. (Captain Hyllier) and mounted the captain's horse. The pony ,was lost in the battle.

The next horse that my father purchased for field service was a roan called "Fox," a very powerful and spirited animal and of great endurance. This horse he rode during the siege and battles around Fort Donelson and also at Shiloh.

At the battle of Shiloh the Confederates left on the field a rawboned horse, very ugly and apparently good for nothing. As a joke, the officer who found this animal on the field, sent it with his compliments, to Colonel Lagow, one of my father's aides-de-camp, who always kept a very excellent mount and was a man of means. The other officers of the staff "jollied" the colonel about this gift. When my father saw him, he told the colonel that the animal was a thoroughbred and a valuable mount and that if he, Lagow, did not wish to keep the horse he would be glad to have him. Because of his appearance he was named "Kangaroo," and after a short period of rest and feeding and care he turned out to be a magnificent animal and was used by. my father during the Vicksburg campaign.

In this campaign, General Grant had 'two other horses, both of them very handsome, one of which he gave away and the other he used until. late in the war. During the campaign and siege of Vicksburg, a cavalry raid or scouting party arrived at Joe Davis' plantation (the brother of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy) and there captured a black pony which was brought to the rear of the city and presented to me. The animal was worn out when it reached headquarters but was a very easy riding horse and I used him once or twice. With care he began to pick up and soon carried himself in fine shape.

At that time my father was suffering with a carbuncle and his horse being restless caused him a great deal of pain. It was necessary for General Grant to visit the lines frequently and one day he took this pony for that purpose. The gait of the pony was so delightful that he directed that he be turned over to the quartermaster as a captured horse and a board of officers be convened to appraise the animal. This was done and my father purchased the animal and kept him until he died, which was long after the Civil War. This pony was known as "Jeff Davis."

After the battle of Chattanooga, General Grant went to St. Louis, where I was at the time, critically ill from dysentery contracted during the siege of Vicksburg. During the time of his visit to the city he received a letter from a gentleman who signed his name "S.S. Grant," the initials being the same as those of a brother of my father's, who had died in the summer of 1861. S.S. Grant wrote to the effect that he was very desirous of seeing General Grant but that he was ill and confined to his room at the Lindell Hotel and begged him to call, as he had something important to say which my father might be gratified to hear.

The name excited my father's curiosity and he called at the hotel to meet the gentleman who told him that he had, he thought, the finest horse in the world, and knowing General Grant's great liking for horses he had concluded, inasmuch as he would never be able to ride again, that he would like to give his horse to him; that he desired that the horse should have a good home and tender care and that the only condition that he would make in parting with him would be that the person receiving him would see that he was never ill-treated and should never fall into the hands of a person that would ill-treat him. This promise was given and General Grant accepted the horse and called him" Cincinnati." This was his battle charger until the end of the war and was kept by him until the horse died at Admiral Ammen's farm in Maryland, in 1878. (2)

About this time (January, 1864) some people in Illinois found a horse in the southern part of that State, which they thought was remarkably beautiful. They purchased him and sent him as a present to my father. This horse was known as "Egypt" as he was raised, or at least came from southern Illinois, a district known in the State as Egypt, as the northern part was known as Canaan.

(2) "Cincinnati" was the son of "Lexington," the fastest four-mile thoroughbred in the United States, time 7:19 3/4 minutes. "Cincinnati" nearly 'equaled the speed of his half-brother, "Kentucky," and Grant was offered $10,000 in gold or its equivalent for him, but refused. He was seventeen hands high, and in the estimation of Grant was the finest horse that he had ever seen. Grant rarely permitted anyone to mount the horse --two exceptions were Admiral Daniel Ammen and Lincoln. Ammen saved Grant's life from drowning while a school-boy. Grant says: "Lincoln spent the latter 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 was a fine horseman and rode my horse 'Cincinnati' every day."--TFR

General Lee's "Traveller"
The most famous of the horses in the stables of General Lee, the Confederate commander, was "Traveller," an iron gray horse. He was raised in Greenbrier County, near Blue Sulphur Springs, and, as a colt, won first prize at a fair in Lewisburg, Virginia. When hostilities commenced between the North and the South, the horse, then known as "Jeff Davis," was owned by Major Thomas L. Broun, who had paid $175 (in gold) for him. Lee first saw the gray in the mountains of West Virginia. He instantly became attached to him, and always called him "my colt."

In the spring of 1862, this horse finally became the property of the general, who paid $200 in currency for him. He changed the name of his charger to "Traveller" and from the date of purchase it became almost a daily sight to see the commander astride the gray, riding about the camp.

There were a number of battle horses in Lee's stables during the war. There were "Grace Darling," "Brown Roan," "Lucy Long," "Ajax," and "Richmond," but of them all "Traveller" became the especial companion of the general. The fine proportions of tiffs horse immediately attracted attention. He was gray in color, with black points, a long mane and long flowing tail. He stood sixteen hands high, and was five years old in the spring of 1862. His figure was muscular, with a deep chest and short back, strong haunches, fiat legs, small head, quick eyes, broad forehead, and small feet. His rapid, springy step and bold carriage made him conspicuous in the camps of the Confederates. On a long and tedious march with the Army of Northern Virginia he easily carried Lee's weight at five or six miles an hour, without faltering, and at the end of the day's hard travel seemed to be as fresh as at the beginning.

The other horses broke under the strain and hardships; "Lucy Long," purchased by General "Jeb" Stuart from Stephen Dandridge and presented to Lee, served for two years in alternation with "Traveller," but in the fall of 1864 became unserviceable and was sent into the country to recuperate.(3) "Richmond," "Ajax," and "Brown Roan" each in turn proved unequal to the rigors of war.

(3) "Lucy Long," second to "Traveller" in Lee's affections, was recalled from the country just before the evacuation of Richmond; but during the confusion she was placed with the public horses and sent to Danville, and Lee lost all trace of his war-horse. A thorough search was made, and finally, in 1866, she was discovered and brought to Lexington to pass her days in leisure with General Lee and "Traveller." After a number of years the mare became feeble and seemed to lose interest in life, and when "Lucy Long" reached about thirty-three years of age a son of General Lee mercifully chloroformed the veteran war-horse of the Army of Northern Virginia.

But "Traveller" sturdily accepted and withstood the hardships of the campaigns in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. When in April, 1865, the last battle of the Army of Northern Virginia had been fought, the veteran war-horse was still on duty. When Lee rode to the McLean house at Appomattox Court House, he was astride of "Traveller," and it was this faithful four-footed companion who carried the Southern leader back to his waiting army, and then to Richmond.

When Lee became a private citizen and retired to Washington and Lee University, as its president, the veteran warhorse was still with him, and as the years passed and both master and servant neared life's ending they became more closely attached.(4) As the funeral cortege accompanied Lee to his last resting place, "Traveller" marched behind the hearse, his step slow and his head bowed, as if he understood the import of the occasion.

(4) During the life of "Traveller" after the-war, he was the pet of the countryside about Lexington, Va. Many marks of affection were showered upon him. Admiring friends in England sent two. sets of equipment for the veteran war-horse. Ladies in Baltimore, Md., bestowed another highly decorated set, and another came from friends at the Confederate capital, Richmond. But the set that seemed to most please "Traveller" was the one sent from St. Louis, in Missouri.

General McClellan's Horses
While General McClellan was in command of the Army of the Potomac, in 1862, he had a number of war-horses. The favorite of them all was "Daniel Webster," soon called by the members of the general's staff "that devil Dan," because of his speed with which the staff officers had great difficulty in keeping pace. During the battle of the Antietam the great horse carried the commander safely through the day.

"Daniel Webster" was a dark bay about seventeen hands high, pure bred, with good action, never showing signs of fatigue, no matter how hard the test. He was extremely handsome, with more than ordinary horse-sense. He was a fast walker, an important requisite in a commander's charger, but a disagreeable quality for the staff officers whose horses were kept at a slow trot. After McClellan retired to private life, "Dan" became the family horse at Orange, N.J., where he died at the age of twenty-three. McClellan said: "No soldier ever had a better horse than I had in 'Daniel Webster.'"

McClellan also had a charger named "Burns," a fiery black, named after an army friend who gave the horse to McClellan. His one failing was that at dinner time he would bolt for his oats regardless of how much depended on McClellan's presence on the battlefield at the critical moment, as in the battle of the Antietam. Running at dinner time became so much an obsession with "Burns" that McClellan was always careful not to be mounted on him at that hour of the day.(5)

(5) The Editor has vivid recollection of "Little Mac" in April, 1862 (then at the height of his popularity), during a ride from Fort Monroe to Big Bethel, being the first day's march of the Army of the Potomac toward Yorktown, Va. The writer commanded the escort (a squadron, Second U.S. Cavalry), and during the ten or twelve miles of the route covered at a gallop, between double lines of infantry, halted for the moment to permit the commanding general to pass, the air was literally "rent" with the cheers of the troops, filled with high hopes of an early entrance to the Confederate capital. As the brilliant staff, headed by the young chieftain of magnetic presence, with bared head, mounted on "Black Burns," swept along amid clatter of hoof, jingle of equipment, and loud hurrahs, the thought came to the writer that thus the "Little Corporal" was wont to inspire his devoted legions to loud acclaim of Vive l'Empereur. (T. F.R.)

General Sherman's Horses
General Sherman's best war-horse was killed early in the Civil War, at the battle of Shiloh, where he led the right wing of the Federal army against General A. S. Johnston's Confederate legions. Two of his other chargers were killed while being held by an orderly. Of the many horses that carried Sherman through the remaining years of the struggle, two had a particular place in the general's affections--" Lexington" and" Sam." The former was a Kentucky thoroughbred, and his fine action attracted the admiration of all who saw him. When the Federal forces finally entered and occupied Atlanta, in 1864, Sherman was astride of "Lexington "; and after peace was declared, in ]865, the general rode the same horse in the final review of his army in Washington.

"Sam" was a large, half-thoroughbred bay, sixteen and a half hands high. He possessed great speed, strength, and endurance. The horse made one of the longest and most difficult marches ever recorded in history, from Vicksburg to Washington, through the cities of Atlanta, Savannah, Columbia, and Richmond. He had a rapid gait, and could march five miles an hour at a walk. While under fire "Sam" was as calm and steady as his brave master. He was wounded several times, while mounted, and the fault was usually due to Sherman's disregard of the horse's anxiety to seek cover. In 1865, Sherman retired "Sam" to a well-earned rest, on an Illinois farm, where he received every mark of affection. The gallant warhorse died of extreme old age, in 1884.

General Thomas J. (" Stonewall ") Jackson, the great Southern leader, had his favorite battle charger, which at the beginning of the war was thought to be about eleven years old. On May 9, 1861, while Jackson was in command of the garrison at Harper's Ferry, a train load of supplies and horses, on the way to the Federal camps, was captured. Among the horses was one that attracted Jackson's attention. He purchased the animal from his quartermaster's department for his own personal use. The horse, named "Old Sorrel," carried Jackson over many of the bullet-swept battlefields and was with Jackson when that officer fell before the volley of his own men at the battle of Chancellorsville. During the swift campaign through the Shenandoah, in 1862, when Jackson marched his "foot cavalry" towards the citadel at Washington, the horse was his constant companion.

In 1884, a state fair was held at Hagerstown, in Maryland, and one of the most interesting sights was that of the veteran war horse, "Old Sorrel," tethered in a corral and quietly munching choice bits of vegetables and hay. Before the fair was ended nearly all the mane and hair of his tail had disappeared, having been plucked by scores of relic hunters. For many years after the cessation of hostilities, Jackson's gallant old war-horse was held in tender esteem at the South.

When the veteran battle charger died, admirers of Jackson sent the carcass to a taxidermist and the gallant steed now rests in the Soldier's Home in Richmond, Virginia.(6)

(6) From the Confederate Veteran

General Sheridan's "Rienzi"
General Sheridan's charger was foaled at or near Grand Rapids, Michigan, of the Black Hawk stock, and was brought into the Federal army by an officer of the Second Michigan Cavalry. He was presented to Sheridan, then colonel of the regiment, by the officers, in the spring of 1862, while the regiment was stationed at Rienzi, Mississippi; the horse was nearly three years old. He was over seventeen hands in height, powerfully built, with a deep chest, strong shoulders, a broad forehead, a clear eye and of great intelligence. In his prime he was one of the strongest horses Sheridan ever knew, very active, and one of the fastest walkers in the Federal army. "Rienzi" always held his head high, and by the quickness of his movements created the impression that he was exceedingly impetuous, but Sheridan was always able to control him by a firm hand and a few words. He was as cool and quiet under fire as any veteran trooper in the Cavalry Corps.

 At the battle of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864, the name of the horse was changed from "Rienzi" to "Winchester," a name derived from the town made famous by Sheridan's ride to save his army in the Shenandoah Valley. Poets, sculptors, and painters have made the charger the subject of their works. Thomas Buchanan Read was inspired to write his immortal poem, "Sheridan's Ride," which thrilled the North.

From an account of this affair in "Scribner's Magazine," by General G.W. Forsyth, who accompanied Sheridan as aide-de-camp, the following is quoted:

"The distance from Winchester to Cedar Creek, on the north hank of which the Army of the Shenandoah lay encamped, is a little less than nineteen miles. As we debouched into the fields . . . the general would wave his hat to the men and point to the front, never lessening his speed as he pressed forward. It was enough. One glance at the eager face and familiar black horse and they knew him and, starting to their feet, they swung their caps around their heads and broke into cheers as he passed beyond them; and then gathering up their belongings started after him for the front, shouting to their comrades farther out in the fields, "Sheridan! Sheridan!" waving their hats and pointing after him as he dashed onward .... So rapid had been our gait that nearly all of the escort save the commanding officer and a few of his best mounted men had been distanced, for they were more heavily weighted and ordinary troop horses could not live at such a pace."

In one of the closing scenes of the war -Five Forks- Sheridan was personally directing a movement against the Confederates who were protected by temporary entrenchments about two feet high. The Federal forces, both cavalry and infantry, were suffering from a sharp fire, which caused them to hesitate. "Where is my battle-flag.?" cried Sheridan. Seizing it by the staff, he dashed ahead, followed by his command. The gallant steed leaped the low works and landed the federal general fairly amid the astonished Southerners. Close behind him came Merritt's cavalrymen in a resistless charge which swept the Confederates backward in confusion. The horse passed a comfortable old age in his master's stable and died in Chicago, in 1878; the lifelike remains are now in the Museum at Governor's Island, N.Y., as a gift from his owner.

General Stuart's "Highfly"
The battle horse, "Highfly," carried General "Jeb" Stuart through many campaigns and had become his favored companion. The intelligence and faithfulness of the steed had many times borne the dashing cavalier through desperate perils. In the summer of 1862, at Verdiersville on the plank road between Fredericksburg and Orange, in Virginia, Stuart was stretched out upon a bench on the porch of the tavern, awaiting the arrival of General Fitzhugh Lee with whom he desired to confer on the next movement of the cavalry. "Highfly" was unbridled and grazing in the yard near the road. The clatter of horses aroused the Confederate general, and he walked to the roadway, leaving behind on the bench his hat, in which was a black plume, the pride of Stuart's heart. Suddenly, horsemen dashed around the bend in the road and Stuart was within gunshot of Federal cavalry. He was nonplussed; he had expected to see Fitzhugh Lee. Mounting his faithful and speedy bay he soon left the chagrined cavalry far behind, but the foe carried away the hat with its black plume.

General Meade's "Baldy"
In the first great battle of the Civil War, at Bull Run, there was a bright bay horse, with white face and feet. His rider was seriously wounded. The horse was turned back to the quartermaster to recover from his wounds received that day. Later, in September, General Meade bought the horse and named him "Baldy." Though Meade became deeply attached to the horse, his staff officers soon began to complain of the peculiar pace of "Baldy," which was hard to follow. He had a racking gait that was faster than a walk and slow for a trot and compelled the staff, alternately, to trot and then to drop into a walk, causing great discomfort.

"Baldy's "war record was remarkable. He was wounded twice at the first battle of Bull Run; he was at the battle of Dranesville; he took part in two of the seven days' fighting around Richmond in the summer of 1862; at Groveton, August 29th, at the second battle of Bull Run; at South Mountain and at Antietam. In the last battle the gallant horse was left on the field as dead, but in the next Federal advance "Baldy" was discovered quietly grazing on the battle-ground, with a deep wound in his neck. He was tenderly cared for and soon was again fit for duty. He bore the general at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. For two days "Baldy" was present at Gettysburg, where he received his most grievous wound from a bullet entering his body between the ribs, and lodging there. Meade would not part with the gallant horse, and kept him with the army until the following spring.

In the preparations of the Army of the Potomac for their last campaign, "Baldy" was sent to pasture at Downingtown, in Pennsylvania. After the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox, Meade hurried to Philadelphia where he again met his faithful charger, fully recovered. For many years the horse and the general were inseparable companions, and when Meade died in 1872, the bullet-scarred war-horse followed the hearse. Ten years later "Baldy" died, and his head and two fore hoofs were mounted and are now cherished relics of the George G. Meade Post, Grand Army of the Republic, in Philadelphia.

General Thomas' "Billy"
The "Rock of Chickamauga," General George H. Thomas, possessed two intelligent war-horses, both powerful and large, and able to carry the general, who weighed nearly two hundred pounds. Both horses were bays; one named "Billy" (after Thomas' friend, General Sherman) was the darker of the two, about sixteen hands high, and stout in build. He was, like his owner, sedate in all his movements and was not easily disturbed from his habitual calm by bursting shells or the turmoil of battle. Even in retreat, the horse did not hurry his footsteps unduly, and provoked the staff by his deliberate pace. "Billy" bore General Thomas through the campaigns in middle Tennessee and northern Georgia. He was on the fields of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, and marched with the Federal host in the advance upon Atlanta. From Atlanta, he next moved to Nashville where his master engineered the crushing defeat to the Confederate arms in the winter of 1864, the last battle in which Thomas and "Billy" participated.

General Hooker's "Lookout"
General Hooker first became acquainted with his famous charger, "Lookout," while the animal Was stabled in New York, and when Louis Napoleon, the French emperor, and an English gentleman of wealth were bidding for its purchase. Napoleon repeatedly offered the owner a thousand dollars for the horse. Hooker finally obtained him and rode him in the campaigns in which he later participated.

"Lookout" was raised in Kentucky, and he was a three-quarters bred, out of a half bred mare by Mambrino. He was of a rich chestnut color, stood nearly seventeen hands high, and had long slender legs. Despite his great height, the horse was known to trot a mile in two minutes and forty-five seconds. When the battle of Chattanooga occurred, the horse was seven years old. It was here that the animal received its name of "Lookout." The grandeur of "Lookout's" stride and his height dwarfed many gallant war-horses and he has been termed the finest charger in the army.

General Kearny's Horses
General Philip Kearny was a veteran of the Mexican War, with the rank of captain. It had been decided to equip Kearny's troop (First United States Dragoons) with horses all of the same color, and he went to Illinois to purchase them. He was assisted in the work by Abraham Lincoln and finally found himself in possession of one hundred gray horses. While engaged in battle before the City of Mexico, mounted upon one of the newly purchased grays, "Monmouth," Kearny was wounded in an arm, which was finally amputated. During the Civil War, Kearny had many excellent animals at his command, but his most celebrated steed was "Moscow," a high-spirited white horse. On the battlefield, "Moscow" was conspicuous because of his white coat, but Kearny was heedless of the protests of his staff against his needless exposure.

Another war-horse belonging to General Kearny was "Decatur,"a light bay, which was shot through the neck in the battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines. "Bayard," a brown horse, was ridden by Kearny at this battle, and his fame will ever stand in history through the poem by Stedman, "Kearny at Seven Pines." At the battle of Chantilly, Kearny and "Bayard" were advancing alone near the close of the struggle, when they met with a regiment of Confederate infantry. "Bayard" instantly wheeled and dashed from danger, with Kearny laying flat upon the horse's neck. A shower of bullets fell about the general and his charger. They seemed about to escape when a fatal bullet struck the general.

The leader of the Southern legions in the West, General Albert Sidney Johnston, rode a magnificent thoroughbred bay, named "Fire-eater," on the battlefield. The steed stood patiently like a veteran when the bullets and shells hurtled about him and his master, but when the command came to charge, he was all fire and vim, like that Sunday in April, 1862, the first day of the bloody battle of Shiloh.

Among the hundreds of generals' mounts which became famous by their conspicuous bravery and sagacity on the battlefields, were General Fitzhugh Lee's little mare, "Nellie Gray," which was killed at the battle of Opequon Creek; Major General Patrick R. Cleburne's "Dixie," killed at the battle of Perryville; General Adam R. Johnson's "Joe Smith," which was noted for its speed and endurance; and General Benjamin F. Butler's war-horse, "Almond Eye," a name derived from the peculiar formation of the eyes of the horse.

Source: "Photographic History of the Civil War: Article by Theo. F. Rodenbough, Brigadier-General, United States Army (Retired)

Image: General Robert E. Lee on Traveler

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