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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. Copyright No. 
 
 Shelf J&JL30 I 
 
 — M-U 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
WHIP AND SPUR 
 
WHIP AND 
 SPUR 
 
 BY 
 
 COL. GEORGE E. WARING, JR. 
 ® 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY AND McCLURE 
 COMPANY . . . MDCCXCVII 
 
 TWO C R£C£WfiB 
 
 sq-wo ! 
 
 
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 COPYRIGHT, 1897 
 BY DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 — ♦— 
 
 Page 
 
 Vix 7 
 
 Ruby 34 
 
 Wettstein 67 
 
 Campaigning with Max . . . . 93 
 
 How I got my Overcoat 138 
 
 Two Scouts 162 
 
 In the Gloaming 186 
 
 Fox-Hunting in England .... 201 
 
^^^L^ 
 
 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 VIX. 
 
 HEN the work on the Central Park had 
 fairly commenced, in the spring of 1858, 
 I found — or I fancied — that proper 
 attention to my scattered duties made it neces- 
 sary that I should have a saddle-horse. 
 
 How easily, by the way, the arguments that 
 convince us of these pleasant necessities find 
 their way to the understanding ! 
 
 Yet, how to subsist a horse after buying one, 
 and how to buy] The memory of a well-bred 
 and keen-eyed gray, dating back to the earliest 
 days of my boyhood, and forming the chief fea- 
 ture of my recollection of play-time for years : 
 
WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 an idle propensity, not a whit dulled yet, to 
 linger over Leech's long-necked hunters, and 
 Herring's field scenes; an almost superstitious 
 faith in the different analyses of the bones of 
 the racer and of the cart-horse ; a firm belief 
 in Frank Forester's teachings of the value of 
 " blood," — all these conspired to narrow my 
 range of selection, and, unfortunately, to con- 
 fine it to a very expensive class of horses. 
 
 Unfortunately, again, the commissioners of the 
 Park had extremely inconvenient ideas of econ- 
 omy, and evidently did not consider, in fixing 
 their schedule of salaries, how much more satis- 
 factory our positions would have been with more 
 generous emolument. 
 
 How a man with only a Park salary, and with 
 a family to support, could set up a saddle-horse, 
 — and not ride to the dogs, — was a question that 
 exercised not a little of my engineering talent 
 for weeks ; and many an odd corner of plans and 
 estimates was figured over with calculations of 
 the cost of forage and shoeing. 
 
 Stable-room was plenty and free in the con- 
 
VIX. 
 
 demned buildings of the former occupants, and 
 a little " over-time " of one of the men would 
 suffice for the grooming. 
 
 I finally concluded that, by giving up cigars, 
 and devoting my energies to the pipe in their 
 stead, I could save enough to pay for my horse's 
 keep ; and so, the ways and means having been, 
 in this somewhat vague manner, provided, the 
 next step was to buy a horse. To tell of the 
 days passed at auction sales in the hope (never 
 there realized) of finding goodness and cheapness 
 combined, — of the stationery wasted in answer- 
 ing advertisements based on every conceivable 
 form of false pretence ; to describe the number- 
 less broken-kneed, broken-winded, and broken- 
 down brutes that came under inspection, — would 
 be tedious and disheartening. 
 
 Good horses there were, of course, though very 
 few good saddle-horses (America is not productive 
 in this direction), — and the possible animals were 
 held at impossible prices. 
 
 Those who rode over the new Park lands usu- 
 ally rode anything but good saddle-horses. Fast 
 1* 
 
10 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 trotters, stout ponies, tolerable carriage-horses, 
 capital cart-horses, there were in plenty. But 
 the clean-cut, thin-crested, bright-eyed, fine-eared, 
 steel-limbed saddle-horse, the saddle-horse par ex- 
 cellence, — may I say the only saddle-horse 1 — 
 rarely came under observation ; and when, by ex- 
 ception, such a one did appear, he was usually so 
 ridden that his light was sadly dimmed. It was 
 hard to recognize an elastic step under such an 
 mielastic seat. 
 
 Finally, in the days of my despair, a kind sad- 
 dler, — kept to his daily awl by a too keen eye 
 for sport, and still, I believe, a victim to his pro- 
 pensity for laying his money on the horse that 
 ought to win but don't, — hearing of my ambi- 
 tion (to him the most laudable of all ambitions), 
 came to put me on the long-sought path. 
 
 He knew a mare, or he had known one, that 
 would exactly suit me. She was in a bad way 
 now, and a good deal run down, but he always 
 thought she " had it in her," and that some gen- 
 tleman ought to keep her for the saddle, — 
 " which, in my mind, sir, she be the finest bit of 
 
VI X. 11 
 
 'orse-flesh that was hever imported, sir." That 
 was enough. " Imported" decided my case, and 
 I listened eagerly to the enthusiastic story, — a 
 story to which this man's life was bound with 
 threads of hard-earned silver, and not less by a 
 real honest love for a fine animal. He had never 
 been much given to saving, but he was a good 
 workman, and the little he had saved had been 
 blown away in the dust that clouded his favorite 
 at the tail of the race. 
 
 Still, he attached himself to her person, and 
 followed her in her disgrace. " She were n't quite 
 quick enough for the turf, sir, but she be a good 
 'un for a gentleman's 'ack." 
 
 He had w r atched her for years, and scraped 
 acquaintance with her different owners as fast as 
 she had changed them, and finally, when she was 
 far gone with pneumonia, he had accepted her as 
 a gift, and, by careful nursing, had cured her. 
 Then, for a time, he rode her himself, and his eye 
 brightened as he told of her leaps and her stride. 
 Of course he rode her to the races, and — one 
 luckless day — when he had lost everything, and 
 
12 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 his passion had got the better of his prudence, 
 he staked the mare herself on a perfectly sure 
 thing in two-mile-heats. Like most of the sure 
 things of life, this venture went to the bad, and 
 the mare was lost, — lost to a Bull's Head dealer 
 in single driving horses. " I see her in his stable 
 ahfter that, sir; and, forbieten she were twelve 
 year old, sir, and 'ad 'ad a 'ard life of it, she were 
 the youngest and likeliest of the lot, — you 'd 
 swore she were a three-year-old, sir." 
 
 If that dealer had had a soul above trotting- 
 wagons, my story would never have been written ; 
 but all was fish that came to his net, and this 
 thoroughbred racer, this beautiful creature who 
 had never worn harness in her life, must be 
 shown to a purchaser who was seeking something 
 to drive. She was always quick to decide, and 
 her actions followed close on the heels of her 
 thought. She did not complicate matters by 
 waiting for the gentleman to get into the wagon, 
 but then and there — on the instant — kicked it 
 to kindlings. This ended the story. She had 
 been shown at a high figure, and was subse- 
 
vi x. 13 
 
 quently sold for a song, — he could tell me no 
 more. She had passed to the lower sphere of 
 equine life and usefulness, — he had heard of a 
 fish-wagon, but he knew nothing about it. What 
 he did know was, that the dealer was a dreadful 
 jockey, and that it would never do to ask him. 
 Now, here was something to live for, — a sort of 
 princess in disgrace, whom it would be an honor 
 to rescue, and my horse-hunting acquired a new 
 interest. 
 
 By easy stages, I cultivated the friendship of 
 the youth who, in those days, did the morning's 
 sweeping-out at the Bull's Head Hotel. He had 
 grown up in the alluring shades of the horse- 
 market, and his daily communion from childhood 
 had been with that "noble animal." To him 
 horses were the individuals of the world, — men 
 their necessary attendants, and of only attendant 
 importance. Of course he knew of this black she- 
 devil; and he thought that "a hoss that could 
 trot like she could on the halter " must be crazy 
 not to go in harness. 
 
 However, he thought she had got her deserts 
 
14 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 now, for he had seen her, only a few weeks before, 
 "a draggin' clams for a feller in the Tenth Ave- 
 ner." Here was a clew at last, — clams and the 
 Tenth Avenue. For several days the scent grew 
 cold. The people of the Licensed Vender part of 
 this street seemed to have little interest in their 
 neighbors' horses ; but I found one man, an Irish 
 grocer, who had been bred a stable-boy to the 
 Marquis of Waterford, and who did know of a 
 " poor old screw of a black mare " that had a good 
 head, and might be the one I was looking for; 
 but, if she was, he thought I might as well give it 
 up, for she was all broken down, and would never 
 be good for anything again. 
 
 Taking the address, I went to a stable-yard, in 
 what was then the very edge of the town, and 
 here I found a knowing 3 T oung man, who devoted 
 his time to peddling clams and potatoes between 
 New York and Sing Sing. Clams up, and pota- 
 toes down, — twice every week, — distance thirty 
 miles ; road hilly ; and that was the wagon he 
 did it with, — a heavy wagon with a heavy arched 
 top, and room for a heavy load, and only shafts 
 
VIX. 15 
 
 for a single horse. In reply to my question, he 
 said he changed horses pretty often, because the 
 work broke them down ; but he had a mare now 
 that had been at it for three months, and he 
 thought she would last some time longer. " She 's 
 pretty thin, but you ought to see her trot with 
 that wagon." "With an air of idle curiosity, I 
 asked to see her, — I had gone shabbily dressed, 
 not to excite suspicion ; for men of the class I 
 had to treat with are usually sharp horse-traders, 
 — and this fellow, clam-pedler though he was, 
 showed an enthusiastic alacrity in taking me to 
 her stall. She had won even his dull heart, and 
 he spoke of her gently, as he made the most of 
 her good points, and glossed over her wretched 
 condition. 
 
 Poor Vixen (that had been her name in her 
 better days, and it was to be her name again), 
 she had found it hard kicking against the pricks ! 
 Clam-carts are stronger than trotting-wagons, and 
 even her efforts had been vain. She had suc- 
 cumbed to dire necessity, and earned her ignoble 
 oats with dogged fidelity. She had a little warm 
 
16 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 corner in her driver's affections, — as she always 
 had in the affections of all who came to know her 
 well, — but her lot was a very hard one. Worn 
 to a skeleton, with sore galls wherever the har- 
 ness had pressed her, her pasterns bruised by 
 clumsy shoes, her silky coat burned brown by 
 the sun, and her neck curved upward, it would 
 have needed more than my knowledge of anat- 
 omy to see anything good in her but for her 
 wonderful head. This was the perfection of a 
 horse's head, — small, bony, and of perfect shape, 
 with keen, deer-like eyes, and thin, active ears ; 
 it told the whole story of her virtues, and 
 showed no trace of her sufferings. Her royal 
 blood shone out from her face, and kept it 
 beautiful. 
 
 My mind was made up, and Vixen must be 
 mine at any cost. Still, it was important to 
 me to buy as cheaply as I could, — and desir- 
 able, above all, not to be jockeyed in a horse- 
 trade ; so it required some diplomacy (an account 
 of which would not be edifying here) to bring 
 the transaction to its successful close. The 
 
vi x. 17 
 
 pendulum which swung between offer and de- 
 mand finally rested at seventy-five dollars. 
 
 She was brought to me at the Park on a 
 bright moonlight evening in June, and we were 
 called out to see her. I think she knew that 
 her harness days were over, and she danced off 
 to her new quarters as gay as a colt in train- 
 ing. That night my wakefulness would have 
 done credit to a boy of sixteen ; and I was up 
 with the dawn, and bound for a ride ; but when 
 I examined poor Vix again in her stable, it 
 seemed almost cruel to think of using her at 
 all for a month. She was so thin, so worn, so 
 bruised, that I determined to give her a long 
 rest and good care, — only I must try her once, 
 just to get a leg over her for five minutes, and 
 then she should come back and be cared for 
 until really well. It was a weak thing to do, 
 and I confess it with all needful humiliation, 
 but I mounted her at once ; and, although I 
 had been a rider all my days, this was the first 
 time I had ever really ridden. For the first 
 time in my life I felt as though I had four 
 
18 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 whalebone legs of my own, worked by steel 
 muscles in accordance with my will, but with- 
 out even a conscious effort of will. 
 
 That that anatomy of a horse should so easily, 
 so playfully, handle my heavy weight was a 
 mystery, and is a mystery still. She carried 
 me in the same high, long-reaching, elastic trot 
 that we sometimes see a young horse strike when 
 first turned into a field. A low fence was near 
 by, and I turned her toward it. She cleared it 
 with a bound that sent all my blood thrilling 
 through my veins, and trotted on again as though 
 nothing had occurred. The five minutes' turn 
 was taken with so much ease, with such evident 
 delight, that I made it a virtue to indulge her 
 with a longer course and a longer stride. We 
 went to the far corners of the Park, and tried all 
 our paces; all were marvellous for the power so 
 easily exerted and the evident power in reserve. 
 
 Yes, Frank Forester was right, blood horses are 
 made of finer stuff than others. My intention of 
 giving the poor old mare a month's rest was never 
 carried out, because each return to her old recrea- 
 
vi x. 19 
 
 tion — it was never work — made it more evi- 
 dent that the simple change in her life was all she 
 needed ; and, although in constant use from the 
 first, she soon put on the flesh and form of a 
 sound horse. Her minor bruises were obliterated, 
 and her more grievous ones grew into permanent 
 scars, — blemishes, but only skin deep ; for every 
 fibre of every muscle, and every tendon and bone 
 in her whole body, was as strong and supple as 
 spring steel. 
 
 The Park afforded good leaping in those days. 
 Some of the fences were still standing around the 
 abandoned gardens, and new ditches and old 
 brooks were plenty. Vixen gave me lessons in 
 fencing which a few years later, in time of graver 
 need, stood me in good stead. She weighed less 
 than four times the weight that she carried ; yet 
 she cleared a four-foot fence with apparent ease, 
 and once, in a moment of excitement, she carried 
 me over a brook, with a clear leap of twenty-six 
 feet, measured from the taking-off to the landing. 
 
 Her feats of endurance were equal to her feats 
 of strength. I once rode her from Yorkville to 
 
20 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 Rye (twenty-one miles) in an hoar and forty-five 
 minutes, including a rest of twenty minutes at 
 Pelham Bridge, and I frequently rode twenty-five 
 miles out in the morning and back in the after- 
 noon. When put to her work, her steady road 
 gallop (mostly on the grassy sides) was fifteen 
 miles an hour. 
 
 Of course these were extreme cases ; but she 
 never showed fatigue from them, and she did 
 good service nearly every day, winter and sum- 
 mer, from her twelfth to her fifteenth year, keep- 
 ing always in good condition, though thin as a 
 racer, and looking like a colt at the end of the 
 time. Horsemen never guessed her age at more 
 than half of what it actually was. 
 
 Beyond the average of even the most intelligent 
 horses, she showed some almost human traits. 
 Above all was she fond of children, and would 
 quiet down from her wildest moods to allow a 
 child to be earned on the pommel. When en- 
 gaged in this serious duty, it was difficult to 
 excite her, or to urge her out of a slow and 
 measured pace, although usually ready for any 
 
VI x. 21 
 
 extravagance. Not the least marked of her pecu- 
 liarities was her inordinate vanity. On a country 
 road, or among the workmen of the Park, she was 
 as staid and business-like as a parson's cob ; but 
 let a carriage or a party of visitors come in sight, 
 and she would give herself the prancing airs of a 
 circus horse, seeming to watch as eagerly for some 
 sign of approval, and to be made as happy by it, 
 as though she only lived to be admired. Many 
 a time have I heard the exclamation, "What a 
 beautiful horse ! " and Vix seemed to hear it too, 
 and to appreciate it quite as keenly as I did. A 
 trip down the Fifth Avenue in the afternoon was 
 an immense excitement to her, and she was more 
 fatigued by it than by a twenty-mile gallop. 
 However slowly she travelled, it was always with 
 the high springing action of a fast trot, or with 
 that long-stepping, sidelong action that the 
 French call a deux pistes; few people allowed 
 her to pass without admiring notice. 
 
 Her most satisfactory trait was her fondness 
 for her master; she was as good company as a 
 dog, — better, perhaps, because she seemed more 
 
22 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 really a part of one's self; and she was quick 
 to respond to my changing moods. I have some- 
 times, when unable to sleep, got up in the night 
 and saddled for a ride, usually ending in a long 
 walk home, with the bridle over my arm, and the 
 old mare's kind face close beside my own, in some- 
 thing akin to human sympathy; she had a way 
 of sighing, when things were especially sad, that 
 made her very comforting to have about. So we 
 went on for three years, always together, and 
 always very much to each other. We had our 
 little unhappy episodes, when she was pettish and 
 I was harsh, — sometimes her feminine freaks 
 were the cause, sometimes my masculine blunder- 
 ing, — but we always made it up, and were soon 
 good friends again, and, on the whole, we were 
 both better for the friendship. I am sure that I 
 was, and some of my more grateful recollections 
 are connected with this dumb companion. 
 
 The spring of 1861 opened a new life for 
 both of us, — a sad and a short one for poor 
 Vix. 
 
 I never knew just how much influence she 
 
VIX. 23 
 
 had in getting my commission, but, judging by 
 the manner of the other field officers of the regi- 
 ment, she was evidently regarded as the better 
 half of the new acquisition. The pomp and cir- 
 cumstance of glorious war suited her temper 
 exactly, and it was ludicrous to see her satisfac- 
 tion in first wearing her gorgeous red-bordered 
 shabrack ; for a time she carried her head on 
 one side to see it. She conceived a new affec- 
 tion for me from the moment when she saw me 
 bedecked with the dazzling bloom that preceded 
 the serious fruitage of the early New York vol- 
 unteer organizations. 
 
 At last the thrilling day came. Broadway 
 was alive from end to end with flags and white 
 cambric and sad faces. Another thousand were 
 going to the war. With Swiss bugle march and 
 chanted Marseillaise, we made our solemn way 
 through the grave and anxious throng. To us 
 it was naturally a day of sore trial ; but with 
 brilliant, happy Vixen it was far different ; she 
 was leaving no friends behind, was going to meet 
 no unknown peril. She was showing her royal, 
 
24 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 stylish beauty to an admiring crowd, and she 
 acted as though she took to her own especial 
 behoof every cheer that rang from Union Square 
 to Cortlandt Street. It was the glorious day of 
 her life, and, as we dismounted at the Jersey 
 ferry, she was trembling still with the delight- 
 ful excitement. 
 
 At Washington we were encamped east of the 
 Capitol, and for a month were busy in getting 
 settled in the new harness. Mr. Lincoln used 
 to drive out sometimes to our evening drill, and 
 he always had a pleasant word — as he always 
 had for every one, and as every one had for 
 her — for my charming thoroughbred, w r ho had 
 made herself perfectly at home with the troops, 
 and enjoyed every display of the marvellous 
 raiment of the regiment. 
 
 On the 4th of July we crossed the Potomac 
 and went below Alexandria, where we lay in 
 idle preparation for the coming disaster. On 
 the 16th we marched, in Blenker's brigade of 
 Miles's division, and we passed the night in a 
 hay-field, with a confusion of horses' feed and 
 
VIX. 25 
 
 riders' bed, that brought Vix and me very close- 
 ly together. On the 18th we reached the valley 
 this side of Centreville, while the skirmish of 
 Blackburn's Ford was going on, — a skirmish 
 now, but a battle then. For three nights and 
 two days we lay in the bushes, waiting for ra- 
 tions and orders. On Sunday morning McDow- 
 ell's army moved out ; — we all know the rest. 
 Miles's thirteen thousand fresh troops lay with- 
 in sight and sound of the lost battle-field, — he 
 drunk and unable, even if not unwilling, to take 
 them to the rescue, — and all we did was, late 
 in the evening, to turn back a few troopers of 
 the Black Horse Cavahy, the moral effect of 
 whose unseen terrors was driving our herds, 
 panting, back to the Potomac. Late in the 
 night we turned our backs on our idle field, 
 and brought up the rear of the sad retreat. 
 Our regiment was the last to move out, and 
 Vix and I were with the rear-guard. Wet, cold, 
 tired, hungry, unpursued, we crept slowly through 
 the scattered debris of the broken-up camp equi- 
 page, and dismally crossed the Long Bridge in a 
 2 
 
26 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 pitiless rain, as Monday's evening was closing 
 in. 0, the dreadful days that followed, when a 
 dozen resojute men might have taken Washing- 
 ton, and have driven the army across the Chesa- 
 peake, when everything was filled with gloom 
 and rain and grave uncertainty ! 
 
 Again the old mare came to my aid. My regi- 
 ment was not a pleasant one to be with, for its 
 excellent material did not redeem its very bad 
 commander, and I longed for service with the 
 cavalry. Fremont was going to St. Louis, and 
 his chief of staff was looking for cavalry officers. 
 He had long known Vixen, and was kind enough 
 to tell me that he wanted her for the new organ- 
 ization, and (as I was her necessary appendage), 
 he procured my transfer, and we set out for the 
 West. It was not especially flattering to me 
 to be taken on these grounds ; but it was flatter- 
 ing to Vixen, and that was quite as pleasant. 
 
 Arrived at St. Louis, we set about the organ- 
 ization of the enthusiastic thousands who rushed 
 to serve under Fremont. Whatever there was 
 of ostentatious display, Vixen and I took part 
 
VIX. 
 
 27 
 
 in, but this was not much. Once we turned 
 out in great state to receive Prince Plon-Plon, 
 but that was in the night, and he didn't come 
 after all. Once again there was a review of all 
 the troops, and that was magnificent. This was 
 all. There was no coach and four, nor anything 
 else but downright hard work from early morning 
 till late bedtime, from Sunday morning till Satur- 
 day night. For six weeks, while my regiment of 
 German horsemen was fitting up and drilling at 
 the Abbey Race-track, I rode a cart-horse, and kept 
 the mare in training for the hard work ahead. 
 
 At last we were off, going up the Missouri, 
 sticking in its mud, poling over its shoals, and 
 being bored generally. At Jefferson City Vixen 
 made her last appearance in ladies' society, as by 
 the twilight fires of the General's camp she went 
 through her graceful paces before Mrs. Fremont 
 and her daughter. I pass over the eventful pur- 
 suit of Price's army, because the subject of my 
 story played only a passive part in it. At Spring- 
 field I tried her nerve by jumping her over the 
 dead horses on brave Zagonyi's bloody field ; and, 
 
28 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 although distastefully, she did my bidding with- 
 out flinching, when she found it must be done. 
 The camp-life at Springfield was full of excite- 
 ment and earnestness ; Price, with his army, was 
 near at hand (or we believed that he was, which 
 was essentially the same). Our work in the cav- 
 alry w r as very active, and Vix had hard service 
 on insufficient food, — she seemed to be sustained 
 by sheer nervous strength. 
 
 At last the order to advance was given, and we 
 were to move out at daybreak; then came a 
 countermanding order; and then, late in the 
 evening, Fremont's farewell. He had been re- 
 lieved. There was genuine and universal grief. 
 Good or bad, competent or incompetent, — this 
 is not the place to argue that, — he was the life 
 and the soul of his army, and it was cruelly 
 wronged in his removal. Spiritless and full of 
 disappointment, we again turned back from our 
 aim ; — then w r ould have been Price's opportunity. 
 
 It was the loveliest Indian-summer weather, 
 and the wonderful opal atmosphere of the Ozark 
 Mountains was redolent with the freshness of a 
 
VIX. 29 
 
 second spring. As had always been my habit in 
 dreamy or unhappy moods, I rode my poor tired 
 mare for companionship's sake, — I ought not to 
 have done it, — I would give much not to have 
 done it, for I never rode her again. The march 
 was long, and the noonday sun was oppressive. 
 She who had never faltered before grew nervous 
 and shaky now, and once, after fording the 
 Pomme-de-Terre in deep water, she behaved 
 wildly ; but when I talked to her, called her 
 a good girl, and combed her silken mane with 
 my fingers, she came back to her old way, and 
 went on nicely. Still she perspired unnaturally, 
 and I felt uneasy about her w T hen I dismounted 
 and gave her rein to Rudolf, my orderly. 
 
 Late in the night, when the moon was in 
 mid-heaven, he came to my tent, and told me 
 that something was the matter with Vixen. My 
 adjutant and I hastened out, and there we be- 
 held her in the agony of a brain fever. She 
 was the most painfully magnificent animal I 
 ever saw. Crouched on the ground, with her 
 forelegs stretched out and wide apart, she was 
 
30 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 swaying to and fro, with hard and stertorous 
 breath, — every vein swollen and throbbing in 
 the moonlight. De Grandele, our quiet veter- 
 inary surgeon, had been called while it was yet 
 time to apply the lancet. As the hot stream 
 spurted from her neck she grew easier ; her 
 eye recovered its gentleness, and she laid her 
 head against my breast with the old sigh, and 
 seemed to know and to return all my love for 
 her. I sat with her until the first gray of 
 dawn, wdien she had grown quite calm, and 
 then I left her with De Grandele and Rudolf 
 while I went to my duties. We must march 
 at five o'clock, and poor Vixen could not be 
 moved. The thought of leaving her was very 
 bitter, but I feared it must be done, and I 
 asked De Grandele how he could best end her 
 sufferings, — or was there still some hope 1 He 
 shook his head mournfully, like a kind-hearted 
 doctor as he was, and said that he feared not ; 
 but still, as I was so fond of her, if I would 
 leave him six men, he would do his best to 
 bring her on, and, if he could not, he would 
 
VIX. 31 
 
 not leave her alive. I have had few harder 
 duties than to march that morning. Four days 
 after, De Grandele sent a message to me at our 
 station near Rolla, that he was coming on nice- 
 ly, and hoped to be in at nightfall. " Vixen 
 seems to be better and stronger." At nightfall 
 they came, the poor old creature stepping slowly 
 and timidly over the rough road, all the old 
 fire and force gone out of her, and with only a 
 feeble whinny as she saw me walking to meet 
 her. We built for her the best quarters we 
 could under the mountain-side, and spread her 
 a soft bed of leaves. There was now hope that 
 she would recover sufficiently to be sent to St. 
 Louis to be nursed. 
 
 That night, an infernal brute of a troop horse 
 that had already killed Ludlow's charger, led by 
 some fiendish spirit, broke into Vixen's enclosure, 
 and with one kick laid open her hock joint. 
 
 In vain they told me that she was incurable. 
 I could not let her die now, when she was just 
 restored to me ; and I forced from De Grandele 
 the confession that she might be slung up and 
 
32 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 so bound that the wound would heal, although 
 the joint must be stiff. She could never carry 
 me again, but she could be my pet ; and I 
 would send her home, and make her happy for 
 many a long year yet. We moved camp two 
 miles, to the edge of the town, and she followed, 
 painfully and slowly, the injured limb dragging 
 behind her ; I could not give her up. She was 
 picketed near my tent, and for some days grew 
 no worse. 
 
 Finally, one lovely Sunday morning, I found 
 her sitting on her haunches like a dog, patient 
 and gentle, and wondering at her pain. She re- 
 mained in this position all day, refusing food. I 
 stroked her velvet crest, and coaxed her with 
 sugar. She rubbed her nose against my arm, 
 and was evidently thankful for my caresses, but 
 she showed no disposition to rise. The adjutant 
 led me into my tent as he would have led me 
 from the bedside of a dying friend. I turned to 
 look back at poor Vixen, and she gave me a 
 little neigh of farewell. 
 
 They told me then, and they told it very ten- 
 
VIX. 33 
 
 derly, that there was no possibility that she 
 could get well in camp, and that they wanted 
 me to give her over to them. The adjutant 
 sat by me, and talked of the old days when I 
 had had her at home, and when he had known 
 her well. We brought back all of her pleasant 
 ways, and agreed that her trouble ought to be 
 ended. 
 
 As we talked, a single shot was fired, and all 
 was over. The setting sun was shining through 
 the bare November branches, and lay warm in 
 my open tent-front. The band, which had been 
 brought out for the only funeral ceremony, 
 breathed softly Kreutzer's touching " Die Ka- 
 pelle," and the sun went down on one of the 
 very sad days of my life. 
 
 The next morning I carved deeply in the 
 bark of a great oak-tree, at the side of the 
 Pacific Railroad, beneath which they had buried 
 my lovely mare, a simple VIX ; and some day 
 I shall go to scrape the moss from the inscrip- 
 tion. 
 
 2* a 
 
RUBY. 
 
 WAS a colonel commanding a regiment 
 of German cavalrymen in South Mis- 
 souri, and must have a horse ; it was 
 desirable to be conspicuously well mounted, and 
 so it must be a showy horse ; being a heavy 
 weight and a rough rider, it must be a good 
 horse. With less rank, I might have been com- 
 pelled to take a very ordinary mount and be 
 content : my vanity would not have availed me, 
 and my rough riding must have ceased. 
 
 But I was chief ruler of the little world that 
 lay encamped on the beautiful banks of the Rou- 
 ble d'Eaux ; and probably life was easier to all 
 under me when I was satisfied and happy. I am 
 not conscious of having been mean and crabbed, 
 or of favoring those who favored me to the disad- 
 
RUBY. qk 
 
 Ov 
 
 vantage of those who did Dot. I cannot recall 
 an instance of taking a bribe, even in the form 
 of a pleasant smile. It was probably easier, in 
 the long run, to be fair than to be unfair, and 
 therefore the laziest private ever ordered on extra 
 duty could not lay his hand on his heart and say 
 he thinks it was done because he was not diligent 
 in foraging for turkeys and hens for my private 
 mess. I had very early in life been impressed 
 with the consciousness that the way of the trans- 
 gressor is not easy ; and as I wanted rny way to 
 be easy, I fell into the way of not transgressing. 
 This may not have been a very worthy motive 
 to actuate the conduct of a military commander ; 
 but perhaps it was as good as the average in 
 our Department of the Southwest, where, if the 
 truth must be told, virtue did not have it all its 
 own way, — we were different from troops farther 
 east ; and although it made me sometimes wince 
 to have my conduct ascribed to a noble upright- 
 ness of purpose, and showed that it would really 
 have been more honest not to have been quite 
 so good, yet one should perhaps be satisfied with 
 
36 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 having carried out one's intention of treating every 
 man in the command, officer or soldier, as nearly 
 as he should be treated as the interests of the pub- 
 lic service, the good of the individual himself, and 
 one's own personal convenience would allow. 
 
 Therefore, I say, I am not conscious of having 
 favored those who favored me, to the disadvan- 
 tage of those who did not; neither do I think 
 that (at this stage of our acquaintance) the Grafs 
 and Barons and simple Mister Vons, of whom the 
 command was so largely composed, entertained 
 the hope of personal benefit when they laid their 
 kindnesses at my accustomed feet, and tried to 
 smooth my way of life. 
 
 The headquarters' mess was generally well sup- 
 plied, — and no questions asked. My relations 
 with most of the command were kindly, and it 
 apparently came to be understood — for German 
 cavalrymen are not without intelligence — that 
 the happiness of the individual members of the 
 regiment depended rather on the happiness of 
 its colonel than on any direct bids for his favor. 
 Be this as it may, I am not conscious of having 
 
RUBY. 37 
 
 received such direct appeals, and I am entirely 
 conscious of the fullest measure of happiness 
 that my circumstances would allow ; not an ec- 
 stasy of delight, — far from that, — but a com- 
 fortable sense of such well-fed, well-paid, well- 
 encamped, and pleasantly occupied virtue as had 
 left nothing undone that my subordinates could 
 be made to do, and did nothing that my condi- 
 tions rendered difficult. My own good-humor 
 was equalled by that of the regiment at large, 
 and the beetling sides of the Ozark valleys no- 
 where sheltered a happier campful of jolly good 
 fellows than the Vierte Missouri Cavalry. 
 
 We lay on the marvellous Roubie d'Eaux, at its 
 source ; no such babbling brook as trickles from 
 the hillside springs of New England, but a roar- 
 ing torrent, breaking at once from a fathomless 
 vent in the mountain. The processes of forma- 
 tion with these South Missouri rivers are all hid- 
 den from sight, but, far away in the topmost 
 caves of the Ozark hills, the little streamlets 
 trickle, and unite for a larger and ever larger 
 flow, gorging at last the huge caverns of the lime- 
 
38 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 stone rock and bursting upon the world a full- 
 grown river. Within our camp this wonderful 
 spring broke forth, and close at hand was a large 
 grist-mill that it drove. We were a self-sustain- 
 ing community, — in this, that we foraged our 
 own corn and ground our own meal. With simi- 
 lar industry we provided ourselves with fish, flesh, 
 and fowl. 
 
 The trees were bare with the November frosts, 
 but the Indian summer had come, and, day after 
 day, it bathed every twig and spray with its am- 
 ber breath, warming all nature to a second life, 
 and floating the remoter hills far away into a hazy 
 dreamland. 
 
 But personally, notwithstanding all this, I was 
 not content : I was practically a dismounted cav- 
 alryman. Indeed, it would even have been a pity 
 to see a colonel of infantry riding such brutes as 
 fell to my lot, for good weight-carriers were rare 
 in that section. I had paid a very high price for 
 a young thoroughbred stallion (afterwards, hap- 
 pily, sold for a large advance), only to find him a 
 year too young for his work, and the regiment 
 
RUBY. 39 
 
 had been scoured in vain for an available mount. 
 I would have gone any reasonable length, even in 
 injustice, to secure such an animal as was needed. 
 It was not easy to make up one's mind to order 
 a soldier to give up a horse he was fond of, and 
 some soldier had an especial fondness for all but 
 the worthless brutes. My reluctance to do this 
 was perhaps not lessened by the fact that it was 
 forbidden for officers to ride United States horses. 
 It finally became evident that the chances were 
 very small of ever finding a suitable animal, and 
 I even went out, on one shooting excursion, 
 mounted on a mule. 
 
 Up to this time the regiment had been all that 
 could be asked, but now it seemed to contain 
 a thousand ill-tempered, sore-headed men. The 
 whole camp was awry. Some of the officers inti- 
 mated that this was all the fault of the adjutant ; 
 that the orders from headquarters had lately been 
 unusually harsh. This officer, when remonstrated 
 with, insisted that he had only transmitted the 
 exact orders given him, and I knew that my own 
 action had always been reasonable, — on principle 
 
40 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 so. Sometimes one almost wished himself back 
 in civil life, away from such constant annoy- 
 ances. 
 
 We had in the regiment one Captain Graf von 
 Gluckmansklegge, who was in many respects the 
 most accomplished and skilful officer of us all. 
 His life had been passed in the profession, and he 
 had only left his position of major in a Bavarian 
 Uhlan regiment to draw his sabre in defence of 
 "die Freiheit," in America, as senior captain of 
 the Fourth Missouri Cavalry. He was an officer 
 of Asboth's selection, and had many of that vet- 
 eran's qualities. Tall, thin, of elegant figure, as 
 perfect a horseman as good natural advantages 
 and good training could make, and near-sighted, 
 as a German cavalry officer must be, he was as 
 natty a fellow as ever wore an eye-glass and a 
 blond mustache. He was, at the same time, a 
 man of keen worldly shrewdness and of quick 
 judgment, — qualities which, in his case, may 
 have been sharpened by long practice at those 
 games of chance with which it has not been unu- 
 sual for European officers to preface their coming 
 
RUBY. 41 
 
 to draw their sabres in defence of "die Freiheit " 
 in America. 
 
 With Gluckmansklegge I had always been on 
 friendly terms. Among the many lessons of his 
 life he had learned none more thoroughly than 
 the best way to treat his commanding officer ; 
 and there was in his manner an air of friendly 
 deference and of cordial submission to rank, 
 accompanied by a degree of personal dignity, 
 that elevated the colonel rather than lowered 
 the captain, — a manner that probably makes 
 its way with a newly fledged officer more surely 
 than any other form of appeal to his vanity. 
 One sometimes saw a brand-new second-lieuten- 
 ant made happier than a king by this same 
 touch of skill from an old soldier in his com- 
 pany, whom he knew to be far his superior in 
 all matters of service. To be quite frank, if I 
 have an element of snobbishness in my own or- 
 ganization, it has been more nurtured into life 
 by the military deference of better soldiers than 
 myself under my command than by all other 
 influences combined ; thus modified do the best 
 
42 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 of us become in the presence of unmerited 
 praise. 
 
 One evening Gluckmansklegge came to my tent 
 door : " Escoose, Col-o-nel, may I come 1 " And 
 then, flinging out his eye-glass with a toss of 
 the head, he went on, with his imperfect Eng- 
 lish, to tell me he had just learned from his 
 lieutenant that I could find no horse to suit 
 me ; that he had a good one strong enough for 
 my weight, and, he thought, even good enough 
 for my needs. He had bought him in St. Louis 
 from the quartermaster, and would I oblige 
 him by trying him ] He was quite at my ser- 
 vice, at the government price, for he, being 
 lighter, could easily replace him. Did I remem- 
 ber his horse, — his " Fuchs " 1 " He is good, 
 nice, strong horse, an he yoomp ! — yei ! ! " 
 
 I did remember his horse, and I had seen 
 him " yoomp." It had long been a subject of 
 regret to think that such an animal should be 
 in the regiment, yet not on my own picket-line. 
 It was well known that great prices had been 
 offered for him, only to make Gluckmansklegge 
 
RUBY. 43 
 
 fling his eye-glass loose, and grin in derision. 
 " Fuchs is — how you call 1 — ' heelty,' an ge- 
 sund ; wenn you like, your Ike will go to my 
 company to bring him." I did like, and I had 
 no scruples against buying him for one hundred 
 and twenty-five dollars. Ike, a handsome con- 
 traband, went early the next morning with a 
 halter for the Fuchs, and I was up bright and 
 betimes to try him. 
 
 I had only seen the horse before under the 
 saddle, perfectly equipped, perfectly bitted, and 
 perfectly ridden, an almost ideal charger. There 
 was a great firebrand scar on the flat of 
 each shoulder, where he had been fired for a 
 cough, — so said Gluckmansklegge ; — others in- 
 timated that this effaced a U. S. brand ; but, 
 except this, not a sign of a blemish. In form, 
 action, style, color (chestnut), and training he 
 was unexceptionably good, and might well ex- 
 cite the envy of all good horsemen who saw him 
 under the saddle. Knowing him so well, I went 
 rather eagerly to the picket-line to refresh my- 
 self with the added sensation that the actual 
 ownership of such a horse must give. 
 
44 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 There stood the new purchase, — a picture of 
 the most abject misery ; his hind legs drawn 
 under him ; the immense muscles of his hips 
 lying flabby, like a cart-horse's ; his head hang- 
 ing to the level of his knees, and his under-lip 
 drooping ; his eyes half shut, and his long ears 
 falling out sidewise like a sleepy mule's. I had 
 bought him for a safe price, and he would prob- 
 ably do to carry Ike and the saddle-bags ; but 
 I felt as far as ever from a mount for myself, 
 and went back to my tent wiser and no hap- 
 pier than before. 
 
 Presently Ike appeared with the coffee, and 
 asked how I liked the new horse. 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 "Don't ye 1 ? well now, I reckon he's a consid'- 
 able of a hoss." 
 
 I sent him to look at him again, and he came 
 back with a very thoughtful air, — evidently he 
 had been impressed. At last he said, " Well now, 
 Colonel, I don't reckon you bought that hoss to 
 look at him on the picket-line, did ye 1 " 
 
 " No, Ike, or he should be sold out very 
 
RUBY. 45 
 
 cheap ; but he is not the kind of horse I sup- 
 posed he was ; he ought to work in a mule- 
 team." 
 
 "Well now, Colonel, mebbe he is; but you 
 can't never tell nothin' about a hoss till you 
 get him between ye ; and I reckon he 's a con- 
 sid'able of a hoss, I reckon he is." 
 
 Ike was wise, in his way, and his way was a 
 very horsy one, — so my hopes revived a little; 
 and when Gluckmansklegge came up on a capi- 
 tal little beast he had been handling (secretly 
 to replace the Fuchs), I had the new venture 
 saddled and brought round. He came blunder- 
 ing along, head and ears and tail down, and 
 stood like a leathern horse for me to mount, 
 Gluckmansklegge dropping his eye-glass and grin- 
 ning. It was as well to find out first as last 
 whether he had anything in him or not, and I 
 gathered up the curb-rein, which brought his 
 head into superb position and settled him well 
 back upon his haunches ; but, as the movement 
 had been made with dignity, I gave him both 
 heels, firmly, — when we went sailing!— how 
 
46 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 high I don't know, probably not fifteen feet, but 
 it seemed that, and covering a good stretch to 
 the front. It was the most enormous lift I bad 
 ever had, and (after an appreciable time in the 
 air), when he landed square on all four feet, it 
 was to strike a spanking, even trot, the bit play- 
 ing loose in his mouth, his head swaying easily 
 with his step, and his tail flying. I had never 
 been more amazed in my life than by the won- 
 derful grace and agility of this splendid brute. 
 As he trotted along with his high, strong, and 
 perfectly cadenced step, he showed in the swing 
 of his head all the satisfaction of an athlete turn- 
 ing, conscious, lightly away from the footlights, 
 after his especial tour de force. 
 
 As Gluckmansklegge rode up, he said, "Well, 
 Col-o-nel, how you like'? Nice pretty strong 
 horse, what 1 " 
 
 And then, his English failing him, he fell, 
 through an attempt at French, into German, in 
 which his tongue was far more ready than my 
 ear. Still it was easy to gather enough to un- 
 dsrstand some of the processes by which the 
 
RUBY. 47 
 
 animal's natural qualifications for his work had 
 been developed into such unusual accomplish- 
 ments ; and then he glided into the compliment- 
 ary assertion that no one but the colonel of his 
 regiment could ever have hoped to buy him at 
 any price, — and of course he did not consider it 
 a sale. His original outlay, which he could not 
 afford to lose, had been reimbursed ; but the 
 true value of the horse, his education, he was 
 only too glad to give me. And then, the pleas- 
 ure of seeing his colonel suitably mounted, and 
 the satisfaction of seeing the horse properly rid- 
 den, really threw the obligation on his side. 
 Then, with his inimitable naivete, he not only 
 expressed, but demonstrated, in every look and 
 gesture, more delight in watching our move- 
 ments than he had felt in his own riding. 
 " Praise a horseman for his horsemanship, and 
 he will ride to the Devil." Gluckmansklegge (I 
 did not suspect him of a desire for promotion) 
 pointed to a strong rail-fence near by, and sug- 
 gested that the combination of man and horse 
 for that sort of thing was unusual. Whether it 
 
48 WHIP AND SPUJi. 
 
 was a banter or a compliment, it would have 
 been impossible for any man who properly es- 
 teemed himself and his riding to stop to con- 
 sider. Turned toward the fence, the Fuchs, 
 checking his speed, seemed to creep toward it, 
 as a cat would, making it very uncertain what 
 he proposed; but as he came nearer to it, that 
 willingness to leap that an accustomed rider will 
 always recognize communicated itself to me, and, 
 with perfect judgment, but with a force and 
 spirit I had never hoped to meet in a horse of 
 this world, he carried me over the enormous 
 height, and landed like a deer, among the stumps 
 and brush on the other side, and trotted gayly 
 away, athlete-like again, happier and prouder 
 than ever horse was before. 
 
 Sitting that evening at my tent door, opposite 
 the spring, bragging, as the custom is, over the 
 new purchase, it occurred to me that that stream of 
 water and that bit of horse-flesh had some quali- 
 ties alike ; so I christened the latter " Koubie 
 d'Eaux," which was soon translated and short- 
 ened to "Ruby," — a name henceforth familiar 
 throughout the regiment. 
 
RUBY. 49 
 
 To become my property was the only thing 
 needed to make him perfect, for Ike was born 
 in a racing stud in Kentucky, and had practised 
 all the arts of the craft, up to the time when, be- 
 ing both jockey and " the stakes " in a race he 
 rode, he was lost to a Missouri gentleman of for- 
 tune, and became a body-servant. He was once 
 confidential : — 
 
 " Well, now, Colonel, you see, this is how it 
 was: I hadn't nothin' ag'in my master, — he 
 was a right nice man ; but then, you see, he 
 drinked, and I didn't know what might become 
 of me some time. Then, you see, I knowed this 
 man was stiddy, an' he 'd jess done bought a 
 yallar gal I kinder had a notion for, an' so, — 
 don't ye see why 1 ? — well, the hoss could have 
 won the race fast enough, but then, you see, my 
 master, — well, he was a drinkin' kind of a man, 
 an' I thought I might as well fix it. I knowed 
 I was up for stakes, an' that's how I come to 
 Missouri ; I ain't no Missouri man bom, but that 's 
 how it was." 
 
 He had become a good body-servant without 
 3 d 
 
50 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 forgetting his stable training, and his horses bore 
 testimony to his skill and fidelity. After going 
 through the routine of a well-regulated stable, 
 he gave each horse a half-hour's stroking with 
 the flat of his hands, brisk and invigorating ; and 
 the result was a more blooming condition and 
 more vigorous health than is often seen in horses 
 on a campaign. The best substitute that could 
 be secured for a stable was a very heavy canvas 
 blanket, covering the horse from his ears to his 
 tail and down to his knees, water-proof and wind- 
 proof. It was a standing entertainment with the 
 less dignified members of the mess to invite at- 
 tention to Ruby as he stood moping under this 
 hideous housing. Certainly I never saw him thus 
 without thinking that his time had at last come, 
 and that he surely would never again be able to 
 carry me creditably. Yet, as Ike's devotion con- 
 tinued, he grew better and better, commanding 
 daily more of the respect and admiration of all 
 who knew him, and attaching himself to me more 
 and more as we learned each other's ways. 
 
 One never loves but one horse entirely, and 
 
RUBY. 51 
 
 so Ruby never quite filled Vixen's place; but 
 as a serviceable friend, he was all that could be 
 desired. The unsupplied want of my life, that 
 had made me restless and discontented, was now 
 satisfied, and my duties became easy, and my 
 pastimes (the principal times of South Missouri 
 warfare) entirely agreeable. 
 
 It was no slight addition to these sources of 
 contentment to feel that the command had at last 
 awakened to a sense of its dereliction, and was 
 fast reforming its ways. I had hardly owned 
 Ruby for a fortnight before the old cheerfulness 
 and alacrity returned to the regiment, and by the 
 time we broke up our camp on the Roubie d'Eaux 
 and went over to Lebanon for the shooting sea- 
 son, the entire organization was in a most satis- 
 factory condition. 
 
 Our life in Lebanon was an episode of the war 
 that we shall not soon forget. To the best of my 
 knowledge and belief, after Price had retreated 
 from Pea Ridge, the only organized forces of armed 
 Rebels to be found north of the White River were 
 local bands of jay-hawkers, whose rebellion was 
 
52 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 mainly directed against the laws of property, and 
 the actuating motive of whose military movements 
 was " nags." The stealing of horses, with the 
 consequent application of Lynch law, w r as all that 
 the native male population had to keep them 
 out of mischief, for weeks and weeks together. 
 There was just enough of this sort of armed 
 lawlessness to furnish us with a semblance of 
 duty ; not enough seriously to interrupt our more 
 regular avocations. 
 
 Lebanon is on the high table-land of the 
 Ozarks, in the heart of a country flowing with 
 prairie-hens and wild turkeys, and bountifully 
 productive of the more humdrum necessaries 
 of life. Thanks to the fleeing of Kebel fam- 
 ilies, we found comfortable quarters without too 
 severely oppressing those who had remained. 
 What with moving the court-house away from 
 the public square, leaving the space free for a 
 parade, and substituting a garrison flag-staff for 
 the town pump, we kept our men from rust- 
 ing ; and when, after a time, we had established 
 a comfortable post-hospital and a commodious 
 
RUBY. 53 
 
 military prison, Lebanon was as complete and 
 well-ordered a station as could be found in South 
 Missouri. I had the questionable honor and the 
 unquestionable comfort of holding its command 
 from the end of January to the end of April, — 
 three dreamy months, that seem now to have 
 been passed in a shooting-lodge, under favorable 
 auspices. 
 
 As a legacy of the "Hundred Days," when 
 the " Fourth Missouri " was the "Fremont Hus- 
 sars," we had an able-bodied and extremely well- 
 selected regimental band, that soothed our over- 
 tasked senses when we came in from our work 
 in the fields, gathering where our enemies had 
 sown, and (under the suspended game-laws of 
 the State) shooting grouse and quail in the early 
 spring. 
 
 Naturally, most of my official duties were such 
 as could be performed by an extremely well-reg- 
 ulated adjutant; and I usually passed his busy 
 half-hour (in private) with Ruby. There had 
 been an impetuosity about the horse at the out- 
 set which it was desirable to quell, and I rode 
 
54 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 him regularly in a nicely fenced kitchen-garden, 
 where, after he learned that fences are not always 
 intended for leaping-bars, he fell slowly into the 
 routine of the training-school, and easily acquired 
 a perfect self-command and aplomb that enabled 
 him, under all circumstances, to await his rider's 
 instructions. 
 
 I wish that less account had been made, in the 
 writings of those whose horse-stories have pre- 
 ceded mine, of the specified feats of their ani- 
 mals. The role 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 embel- 
 lishment 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 
 
RUBY. 55 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred pounds, — and necessarily rode with judg- 
 ment. 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 quarter- 
 master'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 
 
56 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 that my pot (for which alone I have been said to 
 hunt) was better filled by reason of his intelli- 
 gence 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 com- 
 pletely one's prudent love of danger. 
 
 I think I missed this leap more than an} T thing 
 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 
 
RUBY. 
 
 their day, before the age of railroads, the " vil- 
 lage " 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 di- 
 rection of Little Rock, of which it is only neces- 
 sary 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 
 
58 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 over the ferry to meet him. Tired as I was, I 
 + ook 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 unusu- 
 ally active in the matter of drill and reor- 
 ganization ] and this, with our engagements in 
 the town, kept us too busy for much recrea- 
 tion ; 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 per- 
 sons. Talk of aquatic sports ! there is no loyal 
 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 memora- 
 ble 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 
 
RUBY. 59 
 
 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 
 
60 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 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 establish- 
 ment, 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 capi- 
 tal 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 lieuten- 
 ants, 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 con- 
 victions against the public turf. A corporal of 
 an " Injeanny regement " took occasion to crow 
 
RUBY. 61 
 
 lustily — so I heard — because " one of them 
 French coveys " was afraid to run him a quar- 
 ter 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 car- 
 ried me over the first ditch into the angle be- 
 tween 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 judg- 
 ment that was possible to horse-flesh ; and I think 
 
62 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 Gluckmansklegge, who was with me and had sug- 
 gested 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 " Pi- 
 lot K-nopp " ; and after the Hun, our new ad- 
 jutant, 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," 
 
RUBY. 63 
 
 — 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 Thom- 
 asville without sorrow. To say that I had ac- 
 quired 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 role, and he was alwaj-s 
 eager, whenever occasion offered, to show the world 
 what a remarkably fine horse I had, — being him- 
 self conscious, not only of his unusual virtues, 
 but, no less, of the praise they elicited. 
 
 One sunny Southern day, toward the end of 
 
64 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 January, Davidson had ridden over, with his fol- 
 lowing, 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 1 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. 
 
 " no, I don't mean that horse," said David- 
 son ; "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 
 
RUBY. 65 
 
 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 con- 
 spicuous gateways that stood to mark the march 
 of our armies from the Chesapeake to the Indian 
 Nation. But Ruby built fences in his imagina- 
 tion 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. 
 
 E 
 
66 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 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. 
 
 T is a pleasant thing to be a colonel of 
 cavalry in active field-service. There 
 are circumstances of authority and re- 
 sponsibility 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 con- 
 fessed 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 dream-land, over which 
 the haze of the life before them and of the life 
 after them draws a misty veil. Equality and Fra- 
 ternity ! a pretty sentiment, yes, and full of sen- 
 
68 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 sible 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 1 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 author- 
 ity ; with the respectful salute of all passers, and 
 the natural obedience of all members of the com- 
 mand ; 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 civil- 
 ized 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 
 
WETTSTE1N. 69 
 
 (sometimes to overflowing), and give him many- 
 heavy trials, — they are his own men ; their use- 
 fulness 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 emo- 
 tions 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. Eng- 
 lish 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. Mu- 
 sic filled every pore of his Alpine soul, and his 
 
70 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 wonderful Swiss "Retreat " must ring to this day 
 in the memory of every man of the regiment 
 whose thoughts turn again to the romantic cam- 
 paign of South Missouri. What with other bu- 
 glers 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 melo- 
 dious 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 Fremont's time, and was mildly 
 
WETTSTEIN. 71 
 
 informed by that officer that I must be careful 
 how I accepted many such animals from the con- 
 tractor, though a few for the smaller men might 
 answer. Asboth, Fremont's chief of staff, with 
 a scornful rolling up of his cataract of a mus- 
 tache, and a shrug of his broad, thin shoulders, 
 said, " Whyfor you buy such horses 1 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 re- 
 mained 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 
 
72 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 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 danger- 
 ous 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 Ger- 
 man cavalrymen are supposed to govern them- 
 selves, 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 
 
WETTSTEIN. 73 
 
 his immense rolls of blankets and clothing before 
 and behind, looked like a dromedary's. Planted 
 between the hnmps, 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 
 g l ( 3 ) — 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 gay- 
 ety ; wearying service became more irksome than 
 while his bubbling mirth had tempered its dul- 
 ness ; 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 
 4 
 
74 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 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 Cen- 
 taur, 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 addi- 
 tion 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 com- 
 pany buglers, and then — fear of the guard-house 
 
WETTSTEIN. 75 
 
 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 w r ere short, he sent me, 
 from the gOard-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 dis- 
 turb 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 Ober- 
 ist," 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 
 
76 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 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 briga- 
 dier-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 
 general versteht mich nicht. Je blase ' marrrsch ' 
 fur ' halt.' " 
 
 So it was that, for a couple of years, this 
 
WETTSTEIN. 77 
 
 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 air 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 move- 
 ment. 
 
 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 re- 
 gion to attack, and too unwieldy to pursue gue- 
 rillas 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 patrol- 
 ling party, and Klitschka was usually the first 
 to bring back news of the trifling encounters. 
 
 At last, in February, 1863, when we had lain 
 for a month in delicious idleness in the heart of 
 a rich country, literally flowing with poultry and 
 corn-fodder, I, being then in command of a divis- 
 ion of cavalry, received an order from Davidson 
 
78 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 to select six hundred of the best-mounted of my 
 men, and to attack Marmaduke, who was recruit- 
 ing, ninety miles away, at Batesville on the White 
 River in Arkansas. His main body, three thou- 
 sand five hundred strong, lay in the " Oil-Trough 
 Bottom," on the other side of the river. A bri- 
 gade of Western infantry was to march as far as 
 Salem (thirty miles), and to support us if neces- 
 sary ; though we afterward found that at the 
 only moment when we might have had grave 
 occasion to depend on them, they were, with an 
 inconsistency that was not the least attribute of 
 our commanding officer, withdrawn without notice 
 to us. 
 
 We were to go in light marching order, car- 
 rying only the necessary clothing, and rations 
 of salt and coffee. Wettstein's ideas of lightness 
 differing from mine, I had to use some authority 
 to rid poor Klitschka of saucepans, extra boots, 
 and such trash ; and after all, the rascal had, 
 under the plea of a cold, requiring extra blankets, 
 smuggled a neatly sewn sausage of corn, weigh- 
 ing some fifteen pounds, into one of his rolls. 
 
WETTSTE1N. 79 
 
 Eager men, too, whose horses were out of trim, 
 had to be discarded, and the whole detail to be 
 thoroughly overhauled. But the jovial anticipa- 
 tion of seeing Batesville once more — a New 
 England village planted on a charming hillside 
 in Arkansas, where we had sojourned with Cur- 
 tis the summer before, and where we all had the 
 pleasant acquaintance that even an enemy makes 
 in a town from which the native men have long 
 been gone, and only the women remain — made 
 the work of preparation go smoothly, and long 
 before dawn Wettstein's bugle summoned the de- 
 tails from the several camps. There was a ring- 
 ing joyousness in his call, that spoke of the cosey, 
 roaring fire of a certain Batesville kitchen to 
 which his bright face and his well-filled haver- 
 sack had long ago made him welcome, and pro- 
 spective feasting gave an added trill to his blast. 
 The little detachments trotted gayly into line, 
 officers were assigned for special duty, temporary 
 divisions were told off, and a working organiza- 
 tion was soon completed. Before the sun was 
 up, such a Ra, t't'ta, t't'ta, ft'ta ! as South 
 
80 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 Missouri had never heard before, broke the line 
 by twos from the right, and we were off for a 
 promising trip. Marmaduke we knew of old, and 
 personal cowardice would have deterred no one 
 from joining our party, for he could be reached 
 from our stronger army only by a complete sur- 
 prise ; and in a country where every woman and 
 child (white, I mean) was his friend and our ene- 
 my, a surprise, over ninety miles of bad roads, 
 seemed out of the question. Indeed, before we 
 had made a half of the distance, one of his flying 
 scouts told a negro woman by the roadside, as 
 he checked his run to water his horse, " There 's 
 a hell's-mint o' Yanks a comin' over the moun- 
 tain, and I must git to Marmyjuke " ; and to 
 Marmaduke he " got," half a day ahead of us, 
 only to be laughed at for a coward who had been 
 frightened by a foraging-party. 
 
 The second night brought us to Evening Shade, 
 a little village where one Captain Smith was rais- 
 ing a company. They had all gone, hours ahead 
 of us, but had left their supplies and their fires 
 behind them, and these, with the aid of a grist- 
 
WETTSTEIN. 81 
 
 mill (for which an Illinois regiment furnished a 
 miller), gave us a bountiful supper. At day- 
 break we set out for our last day's march, still 
 supposing that Marmaduke's men would put the 
 river between themselves and us before night, 
 but confident of comfortable quarters at Bates- 
 ville. A few miles out, we began to pick up 
 Rebel stragglers, and Wettstein soon came rat- 
 tling through the woods, from a house to which 
 he had been allowed to go for milk, with the 
 story of a sick officer Lodged there. Following 
 his lead with a surgeon and a small escort, I 
 found the captain of the Evening Shade company 
 lying in a raging fever, with which he had found 
 it impossible to ride, and nearly dead with terror 
 lest we should hang him at once. His really 
 beautiful young wife, who had gone to enliven 
 his recruiting labors, was in tears over his im- 
 pending fate. While we were talking with him 
 concerning his parole, she bribed "Wettstein with 
 a royal pair of Mexican spurs to save his life, 
 evidently thinking from his display of finery that 
 he was a major-general at the very least. The 
 4* F 
 
82 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 kind fellow buckled the spurs on my heels, and 
 they evidently gave me new consequence in his 
 eyes as we rode on our way. 
 
 Presently we struck a party of about twenty- 
 five, under a Captain Mosby, who had been mak- 
 ing a circuit after conscripts and had had no 
 news of us. After a running fight, during which 
 there occurred some casualties on the other side, 
 we captured the survivors of the party and sent 
 them to the rear. 
 
 From midday on, we heard rumors of a sally 
 in strong force from Batesville, and were com- 
 pelled to move cautiously, — straggling parties of 
 Rebel scouts serving to give credibility to the 
 story. At sunset we were within six miles of 
 the town; and, halting in the deep snow of a 
 large farm-yard, I sent a picked party of thirty, 
 under Rosa, to secure the ferry, if possible, — 
 Wettstein and Klitschka accompanying to bring 
 back word of the result. After two anxious 
 hours, he came into camp with a note from 
 Rosa : " Marmaduke is over the river and has 
 the ferry-boat with him ; three of his men killed. 
 
WETTSTEIN. 83 
 
 Wettstein did bravely." The poor fellow had a 
 bad cut on his arm and was in pain, but not a 
 moment would he give himself until brave little 
 Klitschka, smothered in bright straw, was filling 
 herself from the smuggled bag of corn. Then 
 he came to the surgeon and had his wounded 
 arm duly dressed. Although evidently suffering 
 and weak from loss of blood, he gave us a cheer- 
 ing account of Rosa's fight, and dwelt fondly on 
 the supper he had bespoken for us at good Mrs. 
 
 's house, where we had quartered in the 
 
 summer. At nine o'clock, after Klitschka had 
 fed and the patrols had come in, we set out on 
 our march. It was still snowing hard, and even 
 the dead men that marked Rosa's recent ride 
 were fast being shrouded in purest white. One 
 of them Wettstein pointed out as the man with 
 whom he had crossed sabres, and he asked per- 
 mission to stay with the party detailed to bury 
 him, for he had been a " braff homme." With 
 his tender sympathy for friend or foe, he was 
 a truer mourner than a dead soldier often gets 
 from the ranks of his enemy. Even this sad 
 
84 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 ride came to an end, as all things must, and at 
 the edge of the town soldierly Rosa stood, to 
 report that the pickets were posted and our 
 quarters ready. Giving him a fresh detail to re- 
 lieve his pickets, and asking his company at our 
 midnight supper, we pushed on to our chosen 
 house. Here we found all in order, save that 
 the young lady of the family had so hastily put 
 on the jacket bearing the U. S. buttons of her 
 last summer's conquests, that she failed quite to 
 conceal the C. S. buttons on a prettier one un- 
 der it. She and her mother scolded us for driv- 
 ing the Rebel beaux from town, when there was 
 to have been a grand farewell ball only the next 
 night ; but they seemed in no wise impressed 
 with regret for the friends who had been killed 
 and wounded in the chase. It turned out that 
 Marmaduke had grown tired of reports that we 
 were marching on him in force, and would not 
 believe it now until his own men rode into town 
 at nightfall with the marks of Rosa's sabres on 
 their heads. The place had been filled with 
 the officers of his command, and he with them, 
 
WETTSTEIN. g5 
 
 come for their parting flirtations before the ball. 
 They were to march to Little Rock, and their 
 men were nearly all collected in the "Bottom," 
 over the river. On this sudden proof of the 
 attack, they made a stampede for the flat-boat 
 of the rope-ferry, and nearly sunk it by over- 
 crowding, the hindmost men cutting the rope 
 and swimming their horses across the wintry tor- 
 rent. 
 
 We had full possession of the town, and were 
 little disturbed by the dropping shots from the 
 Eebel side. We visited on our unfaithful friends 
 such punishment as enforced hospitality could 
 compass, and, on the whole, we had n't a bad 
 "time." The morning after our arrival we lev- 
 ied such contributions of supplies as were ne- 
 cessary for our return march, and, in order that 
 the return might not look like a retreat, we 
 loaded two wagons with hogsheads of sugar 
 (which would be welcome in Davidson's commis- 
 sariat), and made every arrangement for the es- 
 tablishment of the camping of the whole army in 
 the country back of the town ; for our force was 
 
86 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 so small that, with our tired horses, it would 
 have been imprudent to turn our backs to Mar- 
 mad uke's little army, if he supposed us to be 
 alone. 
 
 Keeping the town well picketed and making- 
 much show of laying out an encampment, we 
 started the teams and the main body of the 
 command at nightfall, holding back a hundred 
 men for a cover until a later hour. 
 
 During the evening the Rebels on the south 
 side of the river became suspiciously quiet, and 
 there was, apparently, some new movement on 
 foot. The only possible chance for an attack was 
 by Magnus's ferry, ten miles below, where the 
 boat was so small and the river so wide that 
 not more than twenty horses could be crossed in 
 an hour, and our sharpshooters were sufficient 
 to prevent the removal of the Batesville boat 
 to that point. Still it was important to know 
 what was going on, and especially important to 
 prevent even a scouting-party of the enemy from 
 harassing the rear of our tired column by the 
 shorter road from Magnus's to Evening Shade ; 
 
WETTSTEIN. 87 
 
 and I started at nine o'clock (when the moon 
 rose), with twenty men, to go round that way, 
 directing the remainder of the rear-guard to fol- 
 low the main body at midnight. 
 
 The ride to Magnus's was without other ad- 
 venture than bad roads and almost impassable 
 bayous always entail, and in a few hours we 
 reached the plantation, where I had a former 
 ally in an old negro who had done us good ser- 
 vice during Curtis' s campaign. He said that the 
 Kebels had left the Bottom, and were going to 
 Little Rock, but, as a precaution he took a 
 canoe and crossed over to the house of another 
 negro on the south bank, and returned with a 
 confirmation of his opinion. As it was very im- 
 portant to know whether the only enemy of 
 Davidson's army had really withdrawn from his 
 front, and, as this might be definitely learned 
 through the assistance of an old scout who lived 
 in the edge of the Bottom, it seemed best to 
 cross the river to give him instructions for his 
 work. 
 
 I took Ruby, my best horse. He was a sure 
 
88 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 reliance under all circumstances, and he and I 
 knew each other perfectly. We were at home in 
 every foot-path in the country, having had many 
 a summer's swim in this very river ; and now, 
 accompanied only by Wettstein and Klitschka, 
 I went on to the ferry-boat. It was what is 
 known as a " swing " ferry. A stout rope is 
 stretched between trees on the opposite shores, 
 and the boat is attached to a couple of pulleys 
 arranged to traverse the length of this rope. 
 The attaching cords — one at each end of the 
 up-stream side of the boat — are long enough to 
 allow it to swing some rods down the stream ; 
 by shortening one of the ropes and lengthening 
 the other, the boat is placed at an angle with 
 the swift current, which propels it toward one 
 shore or the other, the pulleys keeping pace in 
 their course on the main rope. 
 
 The main rope was rough from long use, and 
 often the pulleys would halt in their course, 
 until the pull of the advancing boat dragged them 
 free. Then the rickety craft, shivering from end 
 to end, would make a rapid shoot, until another 
 
WETTSTEIN. 89 
 
 defective place in the rope brought her to again. 
 At each vibration, the horses nearly lost their 
 feet, and the surging stream almost sent its 
 muddy water over the gunwale. It was a long 
 and anxious trip, — the rotten guy-rope hardly 
 serving to hold us to our course. At last we 
 reached the shore and rode on to CraikilFs house 
 in the Bottom. He had been "conscripted," and 
 forced to go with the army, so his wife told 
 us, and she had seen him march with the rest 
 on the Fair view Eoad for Little Rock. The last 
 bird had flown, and we could safely march back 
 at our leisure. 
 
 Wettstein rilled his pipe, emptied his haver- 
 sack for the benefit of Craikill's hungry children, 
 and, cheery as ever, followed me to the ferry. 
 On the way over he had been as still as a mouse, 
 for he was too old a soldier to give an enemy any 
 sign of our approach. But, as we set out on the 
 return trip, in the cold moonlight, he sang the 
 " Ranz des Vaches," fondled his little mare, and, 
 unmindful of his wounded arm, gave way to the 
 flow of spirits that the past few days' duty had 
 
90 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 checked. I never knew him more gay and de- 
 lightful ; and, as we stood leaning on our sad- 
 dles and chatting together, I congratulated myself 
 upon the possession of such a perpetual sunbeam. 
 We were barely half-way across, when, sud- 
 denly, coming out of the darkness, riding half 
 hidden in the boiling, whirling tide, a huge float- 
 ing tree struck the boat with a thud that parted 
 the rotten guy-rope, and carried us floating down 
 the stream. For a moment there seemed no dan- 
 ger, but a branch of the tree had caught the 
 corner of the boat, and the pulleys had become 
 entangled in the rope. When this had been 
 drawn to its full length, and the tree felt the 
 strain, the boat dipped to the current, filled, and 
 sank under our feet. I called to Wettstein to 
 take Klitschka by the tail, but it was too late ; 
 he had grasped the saddle with the desperation 
 of a drowning man, and made her fairly help- 
 less. The boat soon passed from under us, and, 
 relieved of our weight, came to the surface at 
 our side ; but, bringing the rope against poor 
 Wettstein's wounded arm, it tore loose his hold, 
 
WET T STEIN. 91 
 
 and soon went down again in the eddy, and 
 Klitschka was free. 
 
 "Adieu, Herr Oberist; tenez Klitschka pour 
 vous ! Adieu ! " And that happy, honest face 
 sank almost within reach of me. The weight of 
 his arms prevented his rising again, and only an 
 angry eddy, glistening in the moonlight, marked 
 his turbid grave. 
 
 Ruby, snorting, and struggling hard with the 
 current, pulled me safely to the shore, and little 
 Klitschka followed as well as her loaded saddle 
 would permit. For the moment, with my own 
 life and the lives of two tried companions to 
 care for, I thought of nothing else ; but as I sat 
 drying at Magnus's roaring hearth the direst deso- 
 lation overwhelmed me. Very far from home, — 
 far even from the home-like surroundings of my 
 own camp, — I had clung to this devoted fellow 
 as a part of myself. He was a proven friend ; 
 with him I never lacked the sympathy that, in 
 the army at least, is born of constant compan- 
 ionship, and he filled a place in my life that 
 dearer friends at home might not find. He 
 
92 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 was the one comrade whose heart, I was sure, 
 was filled only with unquestioning love for me. 
 Henceforth I must look for support to compan- 
 ions who saw me as I was, who knew my faults 
 and my weaknesses, and whose kind regard was 
 tempered with criticism. The one love that was 
 blind, that took me for better or for worse, had 
 been, in an instant, torn from my life, and I 
 was more sad than I can tell. 
 
 But Duty knows no sentiment. A saddened 
 party, we mounted, to join the main command; 
 and, as we rode on through the rest of that deso- 
 late night, no word passed to tell the gloom that 
 each man felt. 
 
 The petty distinctions of earthly rank were 
 swallowed up in a feeling of true brotherhood, 
 and Wettstein — promoted now — rode at our 
 head as a worthy leader, showing the way to a 
 faithful performance of all duty, and a kindly 
 and cheerful bearing of all life's burdens ; and, 
 through the long and trying campaigns that fol- 
 lowed, more than one of us was the better sol- 
 dier for the lesson his soldierly life had taught. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 
 
 NION CITY was not a city at all; it 
 was hardly a village, and "Disunion" 
 would have been its fairer designation. 
 It lay in the woods at the crossing of two rail- 
 roads, one pointing toward Mobile and one toward 
 Memphis, but neither leading anywhere. There 
 was a tradition that trains had once been run 
 upon each, but many bridges had had to be re- 
 built to make the short line to Columbus passa- 
 ble, and the rest was ruin; for Forrest had been 
 there with his cavalry. 
 
 The land was just so much raised above the 
 broad swamp of Northwestern Tennessee that 
 whiskey with men to drink it, and a Methodist 
 Church South with people to attend it, were pos- 
 sible. With these meagre facilities for life, and 
 
94 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 the vague inducement of a railroad-crossing. 
 Union City had struggled into an amphibious 
 subsistence ; but it had never thriven, and its 
 corner-lots had but feebly responded to the hopes 
 of its projectors. 
 
 For many a mile around, the forests and 
 swamps were wellnigh impenetrable, and the oc- 
 casional clearings were but desolate oases in the 
 waste of marsh and fallen timber. The roads 
 were wood-trails leading nowhere in particular, 
 and all marked a region of the most scanty and 
 unfulfilled promise. 
 
 General Asboth, seeing (by the map) that it 
 commanded two lines of railroad, sent us to oc- 
 cupy this strategic point, and we gradually accu- 
 mulated to the number of twenty-five hundred 
 cavalry and four thousand infantry, drawing our 
 regular supplies from Columbus ; and occupying 
 our time with a happy round of drills, inspec- 
 tions, horse-races, cock-fights, and poker. It was 
 not an elevating existence, but it was charm- 
 ingly idle, and we passed the serene and lovely 
 autumn of 1863 in a military dreamland, where 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 95 
 
 nothing ever came to disturb our quiet, or to 
 mar our repose with the realities of war. We 
 built ourselves houses, we shot game for our 
 tables, we made egg-nog for our evenings, and 
 we were happy. The charm of camp-life — with 
 just enough of occupation and responsibility, and 
 with enough improvement in the troops for a re- 
 ward — made even this wilderness enjoyable. I 
 had the advantage of seniority and command, and 
 the physical comforts that naturally gravitate to- 
 ward a commanding officer did not fail me. 
 
 My house, built with the mouse-colored logs 
 of a Rebel block-house, covered with the roof of 
 the post-office, and floored and ceiled with the 
 smoke-mellowed lining of the Methodist church, 
 was broad and low and snug. Its windows, also 
 taken from the sanctuary in question, were set 
 on their sides, and gave to each of the two rooms 
 wide, low-browed outlooks into the woods and 
 over the drill-ground, that would have made 
 worse quarters agreeable. The bricks of an aban- 
 doned domestic fireside built a spacious fireplace 
 across an angle of each of the rooms, and the clay 
 
96 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 of the locality plastered all our chinks "to keep 
 the wind away." I have seen more pretentious 
 houses and more costly, but never one in which 
 three chosen spirits — I had, in a happy moment, 
 selected Voisin and the Hun for my staff — got 
 more that is worth the getting out of the sim- 
 ple and virtuous life of a cavalry headquarters. 
 We were at peace with all the world (Forrest 
 was in Mississippi), our pay was regular, our 
 rations were ample, — and Asboth had been 
 ordered to Pensacola. 
 
 Old A. J., his successor, — every inch a sol- 
 dier, and a good fellow to the very core, — used 
 sometimes to roll up his camp mattress and run 
 down from Columbus for an inspection. Those 
 are marked days in our memories. He w T as a 
 lynx in the field, and wry buttoning roused him 
 to articulate wrath; but he unbuckled his sabre 
 at the door, and brought only geniality within, — 
 a mellow geniality that warmed to the influences 
 of our modest hospitality, and lasted far into 
 the night; and then, w 7 hen the simple and in- 
 offensive game was over, and its scores were set- 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 97 
 
 tied, the dear old boy — usually with a smile of 
 conquest wandering through his gray beard — 
 would unroll his bundle before the fire and sleep 
 like a baby until reveille\ Happy, happy days, 
 — and still happier nights ! 
 
 Naturally, in such a life as we led at Union 
 City, our horses formed a very important ele- 
 ment in our occupation and in our amusements. 
 Soon after our arrival at Columbus, — an event 
 
 which had taken place a few months before, 
 
 a spanking mare that I had bought to replace 
 Ruby had gone hopelessly lame, and it became 
 again important to all who were concerned in 
 my peace of mind, that a satisfactory substitute 
 should be found for her. I had still in my stable 
 a little thoroughbred (Guy), who, though excel- 
 lent in all respects, was a trifle under my weight, 
 and not at all up to the rough riding that was 
 a necessary part of our army life. He could go 
 anywhere, could jump any practicable barrier, 
 was fleet and sound, and in all respects admira- 
 ble, but he was made for a lighter weight than 
 mine, and, except for show and parade riding, 
 
 G 
 
98 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 must mainly be used to carry Ike and the sad- 
 dle-bags, or to mount a friend when a friend 
 favored me. 
 
 In a second search, in which most of the offi- 
 cers of the regiment took a lively interest, there 
 was found, in Frank Moore's Battalion of the 
 Second Illinois Cavalry, a tall, gaunt, lean, hag- 
 gard, thoroughbred-looking beast, which had been 
 captured from Merryweather's men in Western 
 Tennessee. He was not a handsome horse, nor 
 was he to the ordinary eye in any respect 
 promising; but a trial showed that he had that 
 peculiar whalebone character, and wiry, nervous 
 action, which come only with blood, and without 
 which no horse is really fit for the saddle. The 
 chances were very much against him. He did 
 not possess the first element of beauty, save in 
 a clean-cut head, a prominent eye, a quick ear, 
 a thin neck, sloping shoulders, high withers, and 
 the brilliant activity that no abuse had been 
 able to conquer. He was held in abeyance un- 
 til a careful examination of the two thousand 
 horses at the post showed that, even as he 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 99 
 
 stood, he had no equal there for my purposes. 
 Since he had come into the army he had been 
 in the possession of a private soldier, who had 
 done much scouting duty, and he had been ini- 
 tiated (successfully) into the scrub-racing which 
 Illinois soldiers much affected. The serious 
 amount of one hundred and forty dollars was 
 hazarded in the venture, and he was transferred 
 to our stable. That increment of value which 
 always follows the purchase of a new horse 
 came rapidly in his case, and it needed only a 
 few gallops on the breezy bluffs beyond Fort 
 Halleck, to install him as prime favorite among 
 the headquarters' mess. 
 
 He was deemed worthy of the noble name of 
 Max, and under Ike's careful grooming he re- 
 turned daily toward the blooming condition that 
 only Second Illinois abuse had been able to sub- 
 due. In an early race with the Hun we were 
 ingloriously beaten j but the Hun rode a mar- 
 vellous little blood mare, blooming with hun- 
 dreds of bushels of oats, and with two years of 
 careful handling. Max, though beaten, was not 
 
100 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 discouraged, and seemed to say that with time 
 and good treatment he would be ready for a 
 more successful trial. 
 
 During his period of tutelage, and while he 
 was kept from all excessive exertion, he was in- 
 ducted into the mysteries of the art, to him 
 quite new, of jumping timber. Columbus had 
 been occupied by Rebel and Union soldiers since 
 the outbreak of the war, and its fences, far and 
 wide, had all disappeared ; but nowhere in the 
 world was there a greater variety nor a more 
 ample stock of fallen trees, whose huge boles 
 made capital leaping-bars ; and over these, al- 
 most daily, for some months, beginning with the 
 smaller ones and going gradually to the largest 
 we could find, Max learned to carry a heavy 
 weight with a power and precision that even 
 Ruby could not have excelled. 
 
 During all this time, ample feed, good shelter, 
 regular exercise, and a couple of hours of Ike's 
 hand-rubbing daily, worked an uninterrupted im- 
 provement in limb and wind and sinews and coat, 
 until, by the time we were ordered to Union 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 101 
 
 City, Max hud become the pride of the camp. 
 He was over sixteen hands high, of a solid dark 
 bay color, glistening like polished mahogany, and 
 active and spirited as a horse in training for the 
 Derby. 
 
 At Union City the headquarters' horses were 
 stabled under a capital shed, close at hand, and 
 all that master's eye and servant's labor could 
 accomplish for their care and improvement was 
 lavished upon them ; so that, during our long 
 months' stay, we were among the best-mounted 
 men in the Western army. Our pleasure-riding 
 and our w T ork lay through swampy wood-roads, 
 over obstructions of every sort, and across the 
 occasional grass farms, with their neglected rail- 
 fences. The weather was almost uninterruptedly 
 fine, our few visiting neighbors were miles away 
 from us, the shooting was good, and the enjoy- 
 ment we got from our vagabond life in camp was 
 well supplemented by the royal rides we almost 
 daily took. 
 
 Naturally, in a camp full of idle men given 
 largely to sport, the elevating entertainment of 
 
102 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 horse-racing played a prominent part. Both Max 
 and Guy were conspicuous by their successes until, 
 long before the close of our leisurely career, but 
 only after they had hung my walls with spurs 
 and whips and other trophies of their successful 
 competition with all comers, both were ruled out 
 by the impossible odds they were obliged to give. 
 The actual military service required was only 
 enough to convince me that Max was a beast of 
 endless bottom and endurance, and that, accidents 
 apart, he would need no help in any work he 
 might be called on to perform. For the rest of 
 the war, with much duty of untold severity, I 
 habitually rode no other horse for light work or 
 for hard, for long rides or for short ones, on the 
 march or on parade ; and with all my sentiment 
 for his charming predecessors, I had to confess 
 that his equal as a campaigner had never come 
 under my leg. He would walk like a cart-horse 
 at the head of a marching column, would step 
 like a lord in passing in review, would prance 
 down the main street of a town as though vain 
 of all applause, would leap any fence or ditch 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 103 
 
 or fallen timber to which he might be put, would 
 fly as though shot from a gim in passing along 
 the line ; and when, whether early or late, he 
 was taken to his stable, would eat like a hungry 
 colt and sleep like a tired plough-horse. In all 
 weathers and under all circumstances he was 
 steady, honest, intelligent, and ready for every 
 duty. I had ridden before, at home and in the 
 army, horses ideally good ; I have ridden since, 
 over the hunting country of Warwickshire and 
 Northamptonshire, horses that were coimted of 
 the best, but never, before or since, have I 
 mounted such a magnificent piece of perfectly 
 trained and perfectly capable horse-flesh. 
 
 On one occasion, at Union City, word was 
 brought in that a flag of truce from Faulkner 
 had arrived at our picket line, and I rode out 
 for a parley over a trifling matter of an ex- 
 change of prisoners. The officer in charge of 
 the flag, with the company escorting him, had 
 originally come from our neighborhood and had 
 belonged to Merryweather's " band." As Max 
 trotted up to their bivouac, he was greeted with 
 
104 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 cries of recognition, and a lieutenant of the com 
 pany was kind enough to warn me that I had 
 shown them a stronger inducement than they 
 had hitherto had to make an attack on our po- 
 sition; for, since Frank Moore had captured the 
 horse I rode, they had determined to regain him 
 at any risk. Happily, this laudable wish was 
 never fulfilled, and Max remained, in spite of 
 the devices they may have laid for his recapture. 
 
 During the five months of our stay at this 
 post, we made some hard scouts in a hard coun- 
 try, and we held a good part of West Ten- 
 nessee under strict surveillance, but the most 
 memorable feature of all our scouting was gen- 
 erally the welcome dismounting under the wide 
 eaves of our own house ; not, I hope, that we had 
 grown effeminate, but a week's tramp through 
 the woods of West Tennessee offers little that 
 memory can cherish, and prepares one for a sen- 
 sation on the near approach of comfort. 
 
 But five months of such life is enough, and I 
 was not sorry when the order came that I must 
 go for a soldier again. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 105 
 
 Sherman was about to advance eastward from 
 Vicksburg, destroy the lines of railroad by which 
 Forrest received supplies from the fertile prairie 
 region of Northern Mississippi, and strike the Re- 
 bellion in the pit of its stomach. A. J. was to 
 take all my infantry down the river, and the 
 cavalry was to move to Colliersville, on the line 
 of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and 
 join a considerable cavalry force gathering there 
 under Sooy Smith and Grierson ; thence we were 
 to move southeasterly through Mississippi, to en- 
 gage Forrest's forces and to meet Sherman's army 
 at the crossing of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at 
 Meridian. 
 
 We lay in camp more than a week, ready to 
 move, but awaiting orders. The country (a very 
 wet one) was frozen hard and covered with snow. 
 Our order to march and the thaw came together, 
 on the 2 2d of January. We were to cross the 
 Obion River (and bottom) at Sharp's Ferry, twenty- 
 three miles southwest of our camp. The com- 
 mand consisted of the Fourth Missouri (with a 
 battery), Second New Jersey, Seventh Indiana, 
 5* 
 
106 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 Nineteenth Pennsylvania, and Frank Moore's Bat- 
 talion of the Second Illinois ; in all about twenty- 
 five hundred well-mounted men present for duty. 
 The roads were deep with mud and slush, and 
 every creek was " out of its bauks * with the 
 thaw. We reached the ferry only at nightfall of 
 the 23d, over roads that had hourly grown deeper 
 and more difficult. Two regiments had crossed, 
 through floating ice (eight horses at a trip), by 
 a rope-ferry, and at nine o'clock in the evening, 
 under a full moon and a summer temperature, 
 I crossed with staff and escort. The river was 
 already so swollen that we landed in two feet of 
 water, and still it was rising. 
 
 Our camp was fixed five miles away on the 
 upland. The first mile was only wet and nasty, 
 and the trail not hard to follow. Then we came 
 to the " back slough," thirty feet wide, four feet 
 deep, and still covered with four inches of ice. 
 Those who had gone before had broken a track 
 through this, and swept the fragments of ice for- 
 ward until near the shore they were packed in 
 for a width of ten feet or more, and to the full 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 107 
 
 depth of the water. I can make no stronger 
 statement than that we all got through safely, 
 only wet to the skin. How it was done I do 
 not pretend to know. Some went in one way 
 and some in another. All I can assert is that 
 my stalwart old Max, when he found himself 
 standing, belly deep, in broken ice, settled quiet- 
 ly on his haunches and took my two hundred 
 pounds with one spring on to dry land four feet 
 higher than his starting-point, and twelve feet 
 away, — but then, Max always was a marvel. 
 Guy, who carried Ike, scrambled over the top of 
 the broken ice as only he or a cat could do. The 
 others fared variously. All were drenched, and 
 some were hurt, but all got to the shore at last. 
 Then came the hour-long tug to get my ambu- 
 lance through with its store of tent-hold gods, 
 and we started for our remaining four miles. 
 The trail, even of cavalry, is not easily followed 
 by moonlight when covered with half a foot of 
 water, and we lost our way ; reaching camp, after 
 fourteen miles of hard travel, at four o'clock in 
 the morning. 
 
108 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 The river was still rising rapidly, and word 
 was brought that Karg6, with more than half 
 the brigade, would have to make a detour of 
 fifty miles and cross the Three Forks of the 
 Obion far to the eastward, joining us some days 
 later, near Jackson. So we idled on, marching 
 a few miles each day, camping early, cooking the 
 fat of the land for our evening meal, cultivating 
 the questionable friendship of the Rebel popula- 
 tion by forced contributions of subsistence, and 
 leading, on the whole, a peaceful, unlaborious, 
 and charming picnic life. Finally, taking Karge 
 again under our wing, we pushed on, resolutely 
 and rapidly, over flooded swamps, across deep, 
 rapid rivers, and through hostile towns, to our 
 rendezvous; whence, under the command of two 
 generals, and as part of an army of eight thou- 
 sand well -mounted cavalry and light artillery, 
 and all in light marching order, we started for 
 our more serious work. 
 
 The chief in command was a young and hand- 
 some, but slightly nervous individual, who es- 
 chewed the vanities of uniform, and had about 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 109 
 
 himself and his horse no evidence of his mili- 
 tary character that could not be unbuckled and 
 dropped with his sword-belt in case of impend- 
 ing capture. He was vacillating in his orders, 
 and a little anxious in his demeanor, but he had 
 shown himself cool and clear-headed under fire, 
 and seemed resolutely bent on the destruction of 
 the last vestige of Forrest's troublesome army. 
 It would be tedious to tell all the adventures of 
 our forward expedition ; how we marched in three 
 columns over different roads, each for himself, 
 and with only a vague notion where and how 
 we should meet, and how we should support 
 each other. As it afterward proved, the details 
 of the order of march had been given to the com- 
 manders of the other brigades, while I had been 
 forgotten ; so that the whole advance was vexed 
 with crojs-purposes and with the evidences of a 
 hidden misunderstanding. The contretemps that 
 thus came about were annoying, and, in one 
 instance, came near being serious : as we were 
 going into camp at Prairie Station, my advance 
 reported having come in sight of the camp-fires 
 
110 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 of the enemy; a skirmish-line was sent forward, 
 and only on the eve of engaging did they dis- 
 cover that we were approaching Hepburn's Bri- 
 gade, of our column, which had reached the same 
 point by another road. 
 
 The first days of our march in Mississippi 
 were through Tippah County, as rough, hope- 
 less, God-forsaken a country as was ever seen 
 outside of Southern Missouri. Its hills were 
 steep, its mud was deep, its houses and farms 
 were poor, its facilities for the subsistence of a 
 protecting army like ours were of the most mea- 
 gre description, and its streams delayed us long 
 with their torrents of bottomless muddy water, 
 fast swelling from the thaw that had unlocked 
 the snow of all the deep-buried hills and mo- 
 rasses of their upper waters. "We built ferry- 
 boats and swamped them, built bridges and broke 
 them, and slowly and painfully, horse by horse, 
 transferred the command across the nasty river- 
 beds. Tippah Creek detained us and kept us 
 hard at work all day and all night, and we 
 reached the Tallahatchee at New Albany barely 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. \\\ 
 
 in time to ford our last man across before it rose 
 to an impassable depth. And then for two days 
 we pressed forward, in company with the whole 
 column, through the rough, rocky, and wooded 
 country, reaching Okolona only at nightfall. 
 
 Here we struck the marvellous prairie region 
 of Northeastern Mississippi, literally a land flow- 
 ing with milk and honey. An interminable, fer- 
 tile, rolling prairie lay before us in every direc- 
 tion. The stern rule of the Confederacy had 
 compelled the planters to offset every small field 
 of cotton with a wide area of corn, until the 
 region had become known as the granary of the 
 Southern army. Not only must every land- 
 owner devote his broadest fields to the cultiva- 
 tion of the much-needed cereal, but one tenth of 
 all his crop must be stacked for public use in 
 cribs at the side of the railroad. 
 
 It was an important incident of our mission 
 to destroy everything which directly or indirectly 
 could afford subsistence to the Rebel forces j and 
 during the two days following our arrival at 
 Okolona, while we marched as far south as West 
 
112 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 Point, the sky was red with the flames of burn- 
 ing corn and cotton. On a single plantation, 
 our flanking party burned thirty-seven hundred 
 bushels of tithe corn, which was cribbed near 
 the railroad ; no sooner was its light seen at the 
 plantation houses than hundreds of negroes, who 
 swarmed from their quarters to join our column, 
 fired the rail-built cribs in which the remaining 
 nine-tenths of the crop was stored. Driven wild 
 with the infection, they set the torch to man- 
 sion house, stables, cotton-gin, and quarters, un- 
 til the whole village-like settlement was blazing 
 in an unchecked conflagration. To see such 
 wealth, and the accumulated products of such 
 vast labor, swept from the face of the earth, 
 gave to the aspect of war a saddening reality, 
 which was in strong contrast to the peaceful 
 and harmless life our brigade had thus far led. 
 In all this prairie region there is no waste land, 
 and the evidences of wealth and fertility lay 
 before us in all directions. As we marched, the 
 negroes came en masse from every plantation to 
 join our column, leaving only fire and absolute 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 113 
 
 destruction behind them. It was estimated that 
 during these two days' march two thousand 
 slaves and one thousand mules were added to 
 our train. 
 
 The incidents of all this desolation were often 
 sickening and heart-rending; delicate women and 
 children, whom the morning had found in peace 
 and plenty, and glowing with pride in the valor 
 of Southern arms and the certainty of an early 
 independence for their beloved half-country, found 
 themselves, before nightfall, homeless, penniless, 
 and alone, in the midst of a desolate land. 
 
 Captain Frank Moore, the Cossack of our 
 brigade, went at night to an outlying plantation, 
 of which the showy mansion-house stood on a 
 gentle acclivity in the edge of a fine grove. 
 Here lived alone with an only daughter, a beau- 
 tiful girl, a man who had been conspicuous in 
 his aid to the Rebellion, and whose arrest had 
 been ordered. The squadron drew up in front 
 of the house and summoned its owner to come 
 forth. He came, armed, sullen, stolid, and de- 
 termined, but obviously unnerved by the force 
 
114 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 confronting him. Behind him followed his 
 daughter, dressed in white, and with her long 
 light hair falling over her shoulders. The sight 
 of the hated "Yanks" crazed her with rage, 
 and before her father could reply to the ques- 
 tion with which he had been accosted, she 
 called to him wildly, "Don't speak to the vil- 
 lains ! Shoot ! shoot them down, shoot them 
 down ! " wringing her hands, and screaming with 
 rage. The excitement was too much for his 
 judgment, and he fired wildly on the troops. 
 He was riddled through and through with bul- 
 lets; and as Moore turned away, he left that 
 fine house blazing in the black night, and light- 
 ing up the figure of the crazy girl as she wan- 
 dered, desolate and beautiful, to and fro before 
 her burning home, unheeded by the negroes 
 who ran with their hastily made bundles to join 
 the band of their deliverers. Moore's descrip- 
 tion of this scene in the simple language that 
 it was his unpretending way to use, gave the 
 most vivid picture we had seen of the unmiti- 
 gated horror and badness of war. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 115 
 
 As an instrument of destruction in the ene- 
 my's country, our raid had thus far been more 
 successful than we could have anticipated; but 
 we had come for even more serious business 
 than this, and there were already indications 
 that its main purpose would be a failure. Our 
 commander had evidently no stomach for a close 
 approach to the enemy, and his injunctions at 
 Colliersville that we were to try always to " Fight 
 at close quarters!" "Go at them as soon as 
 possible with the sabre ! " and other valorous 
 ejaculations, were in singular contrast to the 
 impressions he evinced as the prospect of an 
 actual engagement drew near. 
 
 Forrest was in our front with about our own 
 number of cavalry, but without artillery, of 
 which we had twenty good pieces. The open 
 country offered good fighting ground, and gave 
 to our better drilled and more completely or- 
 ganized forces a decided advantage, even with- 
 out our great odds in artillery. There lay before 
 us a fair opportunity for dispersing the most 
 successful body of cavalry in the Rebel service; 
 
116 WHIP AND SPUR 
 
 and, could we effect a junction with Sherman, 
 we should enable him to divide the Confederacy 
 from Vicksburg to Atlanta. One of the most 
 brilliant and damaging campaigns of the war 
 seemed ready to open. Its key lay in our suc- 
 cessful engagement, on a fair field, with an infe- 
 rior force. Yet all of us who were in a position 
 to know the spirit with which we were com- 
 manded were conscious of a gradual oozing out 
 at the finger-ends of the determination to make 
 a successful fight ; and it was a sad night for us 
 all when, at West Point, with our skirmish-line 
 steadily engaging the Rebel outposts, an order 
 came that we were to fall back before daybreak 
 toward Okolona. 
 
 The brigade commanders and their staffs had 
 had severe duty in the scattered work of destruc- 
 tion, and even Max, tough though he was, had 
 been almost overworked with constant galloping 
 to and fro, and with the frequent countermarch- 
 ing our varying orders had required. Still he was 
 better than his comrades, and many a man was 
 anxious for his mount, should our retreat be 
 pressed. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 117 
 
 Early in the morning we were on our way 
 toward the rear, — about eight thousand caval- 
 ry, ten sections of artillery, two thousand pack- 
 mules, and an unnumbered cloud of fugitive slaves 
 mounted on their masters' mules, often two or 
 three on each, and clustering under our shadow 
 as their only means of escape to the happy land 
 of freedom. In an organized advance, all of this 
 vast hanging on could be kept at the rear and 
 in good order; but on a retreat the instinct of 
 self-preservation always attacks first the non-com- 
 batant element, and during all the days that fol- 
 lowed, we found our way constantly blocked with 
 these throngs of panic-stricken people. 
 
 No sooner had we turned tail than Forrest saw 
 his time had come, and he pressed us sorely all 
 day and until nightfall, and tried hard to gain 
 our flanks. A hundred times we might have 
 turned and given him successful battle, but, at 
 every suggestion of this, we received from our 
 general, who was well in advance of the retiring 
 column, the order to push forward and give our 
 rear a free road for retreat. Midnight found us 
 
118 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 again in the vicinity of Okolona, and the next 
 daybreak showed the enemy's long column filing 
 out of the woods and stretching well on toward 
 our right flank. 
 
 Even the plains of Texas could offer no field 
 better suited for a cavalry engagement, and it 
 was with satisfaction that we received, at five 
 o'clock in the morning, an order to prepare at 
 once for a fight ; but our men were barely 
 mounted and in line when an order came to 
 turn our backs upon this open field, and to re- 
 treat with all expedition toward Memphis. 
 
 When we left Okolona we left hope behind, for 
 our road struck at once into a wooded, hilly coun- 
 try, full of by-ways and cross-roads known to the 
 enemy and unknown to us, and we well knew that 
 this movement would double Forrest's power and 
 divide our own. Then, for a long day, tired and 
 hungry from the hard work and constant move- 
 ment we had just gone through, and with our 
 horses half-fed and overworked, we pushed on, 
 our rear often attacked and sometimes broken, 
 our mule-train and negroes thrown into frequent 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 119 
 
 confusion, one of our brigades demoralized and 
 put to flight, and the enemy still pressing our 
 rear and reaching for our flanks. At last, to- 
 wards night, it became evident that a stand 
 must be made or all would be entirely lost, and 
 at Ivy Farm, near Pontotoc, we found a broad, 
 open hilltop, with large fields, high fences, and 
 stout log-houses, which offered an opportunity. 
 By this time the command was too widely sep- 
 arated, and some of it too much disorganized, 
 for the concentration of even a whole brigade, 
 but a part of Hepburn's and a part of my own 
 were disentangled from the corral of fugitives 
 and brought into line. Both of our generals 
 were upon the field, and to our surprise both 
 seemed brave and resolute; and this not with 
 the resolution of despair, for the actual imme- 
 diate necessity of fighting often steadies nerves 
 which are easily shaken by the anticipation of 
 danger. Brave they were, but not always of the 
 same mind, and conflicting orders continued to 
 add to our embarrassment and insecurity. 
 It is not worth while to detail all the incidents 
 
120 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 of the opening of the short engagement j it was 
 ended by the only legitimate cavalry charge made 
 by the "Vierte Missouri" during the whole of its 
 four years' history. 
 
 We had withdrawn from the line where we had 
 been fighting on foot, had mounted, formed, and 
 drawn sabre ; the road about one hundred yards 
 in front of us was swarming with Rebels, who 
 crept along the fence-lines and in the edge of 
 the bordering woods, and kept up a steady rain 
 of fire well over our heads, where we heard that 
 pfwit — pfwit — pfwit of flying bullets which, 
 happily, has no relative in the whole chorus of 
 sounds, and which is heard above all the din of 
 battle, and is felt through every remotest nerve. 
 
 At the command " Forward," excitement ran 
 down the line, and there was a disposition for an 
 immediate rush. But "Steady — right dress — 
 trot ! " in a measured tone, taken up in turn by 
 the company officers, brought back all the effect 
 of our three years' discipline of the drill-ground. 
 Later, " Steady — gallop — right dress ! " accel- 
 erated the speed without disturbing the align- 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 121 
 
 ment, and then, at last, " Charge ! " and with a 
 universal yelling and brandishing of sabres we 
 weut forward like the wind. I then felt how 
 mad a venture we had undertaken, for before 
 us was the enemy, it is true, but the enemy be- 
 hind a high and stout, staked and ridered rail- 
 fence. As we drew very near this, still under 
 heavy fire, which now at the short range was 
 telling, the command became conscious that the 
 six-foot fence would withstand our shock, and it 
 wavered. I turned to my bugler to sound the 
 recall, when I saw him out of the corner of my 
 eye, his white horse rearing literally to his full 
 height and falling backward with a crash that 
 must have killed the poor boy at once. The 
 recall was not needed : the regiment had turned 
 and was running. The officers, being the best 
 mounted and generally the lightest weights, soon 
 reached the front, and "Steady — right dress — 
 trot ! Steady — right dress — trot ! " was re- 
 peated along the line, until the drill-ground 
 precision was regained, and then " By fours — 
 right about — wheel ! " and we stood facing the 
 
122 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 enemy again, ready for another advance. Max 
 had been struck by a grazing bullet and had 
 been plunging heavily, but the wound was not 
 serious aud he was soon quieted. We now saw 
 that our charge, futile though it seemed, had 
 done its work. The advance of the enemy was 
 checked ; the sight of troops that could retire 
 and re-form for a new attack seemed to have a 
 stunning effect upon them. Practically the en- 
 gagement was ended. 
 
 Subsequently, one of Forrest's staff officers told 
 the Hun that the size of the division which had 
 charged was variously estimated at from five to 
 ten thousand, but that he had been accustomed 
 to such things and knew that we were not more 
 than two thousand. In fact, we were less than 
 six hundred. Forrest's report of the battle of 
 Pontotoc states that the engagement was ended 
 "by a cavalry charge of the enemy, which was 
 repulsed." 
 
 There was still some sharp scrimmaging, and 
 we had to make two or three more squadron 
 and company charges to drive away small at- 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 123 
 
 tacks upon our retreating guns; but the battle, 
 as a battle, was over, and Forrest's whole advance 
 had been stopped and ended by six hundred 
 Fourth Missouri Dutchmen, galloping, yelling, 
 and swinging their sabres at several thousand 
 men well secured behind a rail-fence. I had 
 before, in drill-ground charges, seen old soldiers 
 and experienced officers jump down and run away 
 from a fence on which they were sitting to watch 
 the advance of charging cavalry which they knew 
 must wheel before coming within five rods of 
 them; but I had never supposed that hot- 
 blooded soldiers, in the full excitement of a suc- 
 cessful attack, could be unnerved and turned by 
 the roar and thundering oncoming of a regiment 
 that could by no possibility reach them. Our 
 first setting out had driven back a thin skir- 
 mish-line which had to cross the fence under 
 high speed ; this, doubtless, aided in the debdcle ; 
 the charge had stunned them, but it was the rally 
 that stopped the pursuit. 
 
 The rest of our march was without interesting 
 inQK^nt all the way to Memphis, but it was 
 
124 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 almost incessant, day and night ; without inci- 
 dent, that is, that it is worth while to tell here, 
 but our days and nights upon the road were filled 
 with annoyance and disgust, and with a store of 
 unhappy and ludicrous memories that will last 
 the lifetime of all who knew them. 
 
 One day, at New Albany, Max and I were feed- 
 ing and sleeping in the door of an old mill while 
 the command was slowly crossing the antiquated 
 bridge over the Tallahatchie, when I was awak- 
 ened by Grierson's riding up in great alarm, call- 
 ing upon me "for God's sake" to use the ford 
 as well as the bridge, for Hepburn was being cut 
 to pieces in the rear, and I must give him the 
 full road for his retreat. I had always been a 
 respectful subordinate, but none of us were then 
 in the best temper ; I did not believe a word of 
 it, and I frankly told him so. Even old Max 
 pricked up his ears and snorted as if in derision. 
 Almost as we were talking, there came an aid 
 from Hepburn saying that he had found a good 
 supply of forage and would be glad to go into 
 camp for the night. But there was no camp to 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 125 
 
 be thought of for that tired crew ; the bogey of 
 incessant pursuit loomed up portentously close 
 upon our rear-guard, and sent its shadow deep 
 into the bowels of our commander, who was miles 
 away in the advance, and who would allow us 
 only the fewest possible hours in the very dead 
 of night for hasty cooking and scant repose. We 
 were a worn and weary lot as we finally went into 
 camp at the rear of the town ; worn and weary, 
 sadly demoralized, and almost dismounted. I 
 had lost fifteen hundred good horses, and my 
 men, who had been eager and ready for a suc- 
 cessful campaign, were broken in spirit and sadly 
 weakened in discipline. 
 
 All who had been compelled to bear the brunt 
 of the hard work now needed for themselves and 
 their horses absolute rest for days; but being 
 called into the city the morning after our arrival, 
 my eyes were greeted with the spectacle of Gen- 
 eral Sooy Smith, no longer ill, and with no trace 
 of shame or annoyance on his face. He had shed 
 his modest and prudent attire, and shone out with 
 all the brass radiance of a full-fledged major-gen- 
 
126 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 eral. From this time until the Fourth Missouri 
 cavalry was mustered out of service, our head- 
 quarters were in the immediate neighborhood of 
 Memphis, and our life was much more active than 
 it had been at Union City. 
 
 Not very much is to be said for Max during 
 this time, except in connection with the Sturgis 
 expedition, beyond the fact that we lay long in 
 the immediate vicinity of the race-course, which 
 we repaired and used faithfully, and, so far as he 
 was concerned, with eminent success. The more 
 frequent necessity for duty, the great labor of 
 remounting, reorganizing, and redrilling the com- 
 mand, united with the greater publicity of our po- 
 sition to lay some restraint on our mode of life, 
 and to make our conduct more circumspect. Still 
 we were not miserable, and the neighborhood of 
 a large town has, to a well-regulated headquarters' 
 mess, its compensations as well as its drawbacks. 
 
 Sturgis's expedition to Guntown and back — 
 especially back — has passed into history, and 
 its unwritten memories will always remain with 
 those who took part in it. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 127 
 
 Guntown is far away in Northeastern Missis- 
 sippi. It is not laid down on the map of the 
 country, but it lies just across the Tishamingo 
 Creek, and it consists mainly of two plantation 
 houses and a school-house. Our stay there was 
 not long, and we were too much occupied to 
 study the locality minutely, but it is my im- 
 pression that the most important incident in its 
 history was connected with our visit. 
 
 We were a force of about nine thousand in- 
 fantry, cavalry, and artillery, — some black and 
 some white, some good and some bad, — sent out 
 by Sherman as a tub to the Forrest whale; a 
 diversion to keep this commander from joining 
 Hood in Northern Georgia; though I doubt if 
 even General Sherman in his moments of wildest 
 enthusiasm anticipated just the issue that fol- 
 lowed. Our march out was not rapid, and it 
 was well ordered. We were allowed to take our 
 train, and old John Ellard's four stupendous 
 mules drew our headquarters' wagon, well laden 
 with the comforts we had accumulated during 
 a long service, including a brand-new, well-fur- 
 
128 WHIP AND SP UP. 
 
 nished, and abundantly stored camp-chest that 
 had just arrived from St. Louis. So far as the 
 comforts of a home for five youngsters can be 
 stored in one mule-wagon, we were well supplied 
 for a campaign of any length ; and judging from 
 the mess-tables to which we were invited, others 
 of the command were no less well provided. In 
 due time we reached the town of Ripley, a rather 
 pretty New-England-looking village, but, like all 
 Southern towns at that time, entirely devoid of 
 men and overflowing with women of the most 
 venomous and spiteful sort, who did all in their 
 power to add to the interest of the Sunday even- 
 ing we passed in their company. 
 
 We had some light skirmishing on our arrival, 
 but whoever it was that attacked us withdrew 
 and left us in undisturbed possession of the com- 
 fortable rooms and fireplaces of the town. Our 
 next day's march brought us to a large open 
 plantation on a commanding hill, whence our 
 evening scouting-parties soon found the enemy 
 posted in some force and apparently disposed 
 for an engagement. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 129 
 
 It seemed always Forrest's plan to select his 
 own fighting-ground, and the plan of our com- 
 manders to gratify him. Sturgis committed the 
 usual folly of trying to hold every inch he had 
 gained, and of forming his line of battle on the 
 head of the column and under fire. 
 
 We breakfasted at three in the morning, and 
 marched at half past four. My command had 
 the advance. The enemy allowed himself to be 
 easily driven until half past eight, when he made 
 some show of resistance. At this time the last 
 of our regiments could hardly have left the 
 camping-ground, and probably a judicious re- 
 treat would have drawn Forrest's whole force 
 back to the open country we had left. But 
 "retreat" was not yet written on our banners 
 (of that day), and orders came from our general 
 to support the advance-guard, form line of battle, 
 and hold our position. So far as the cavahy 
 brigade was concerned this was easily done, and 
 we got into good line near the edge of a wood 
 without difficulty. Here, for four mortal hours, 
 or until half past twelve, we carried on a tol- 
 6* i 
 
130 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 erably equal warfare, both sides blazing away 
 at each other with little effect across the six 
 hundred yards of cleared valley that lay be- 
 tween two skirts of wood. So far as the endur- 
 ance of our troops was concerned, this engagement 
 could have been kept up until nightfall, though 
 our ranks were slowly thinning. Several desper- 
 ate charges were made on our position, and were 
 repulsed with considerable loss to both sides. 
 Pending the arrival of the infantry it would 
 have been folly for us to attempt a further 
 advance, but had we been properly supported, 
 or, better, had we at once fallen back upon our 
 support, we might have given, as the post helium 
 reports of Forrest's officers show, a better end- 
 ing to the day's work. It was only at half past 
 twelve, when our ammunition was reduced to five 
 rounds per man, and when our battery had fired 
 its last shot, that the infantry began to arrive, 
 and then they came a regiment at a time, or only 
 so fast as the Forrest mill could grind them up 
 in detail. 
 
 They had taken our place, and we had with- 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 131 
 
 drawn to their rear, where we were joined by 
 one after another of the defeated or exhausted 
 infantry regiments. Little by little the enemy 
 pressed upon us, gaining rod after rod of our 
 position, until finally our last arriving troops, a 
 splendid colored regiment, reached the field of 
 battle at double-quick, breathless and beaten by 
 their own speed, barely in time to check the 
 assault until we could cross the creek and move 
 toward the rear. The retreat was but fairly be- 
 gun when we came upon our train of two hundred 
 wagons piled pell-mell in a small field and blocked 
 in beyond the possibility of removal. With sad 
 eyes we saw John Ellard cut his traces and leave 
 all that was dear to us — tents, camp-chest, poker- 
 table, and all that we cherished — to inevitable 
 capture. The train was our tub to the whale ; 
 and while Forrest's men were sacking our treas- 
 ures, and refilling the caissons of all our batteries, 
 which they had captured, we had time to form 
 for the retreat, more or less orderly according 
 as we had come early or late off the field. The 
 demoralizing roar of our own guns, and the howl- 
 
132 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 ing over our heads of our own shells, together 
 with the sharp rattle of musketry in our rear, 
 hastened and saddened the ignominious flight of 
 the head of our column, though, for some reason, 
 the enemy's advance upon us was slow. 
 
 All that long night we marched on, without 
 food and without rest. At early dawn we reached 
 Ripley, where we paused for breath. Max had 
 been ridden almost uninterruptedly for twenty- 
 four hours, and for four hours had done the con- 
 stant hard work that the supervision of a long 
 line in active engagement had made necessary; 
 and he w r as glad to be unsaddled and turned for 
 fifteen minutes into a scantily grown paddock, 
 where he rolled and nibbled and refreshed him- 
 self as much as ordinary horses do with a whole 
 night's rest. The ambulances with our groaning 
 wounded men came pouring into the village- and 
 to our surprise, those women, who had so recently 
 given only evidence of a horrified hatred, pressed 
 round to offer every aid that lay in their power, 
 and to comfort our suffering men as only kind- 
 hearted women can. 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 133 
 
 With the increasing daylight the pursuit was 
 reopened with vigor, and on we went, and ever 
 on, marching all that day, our rear-guard being 
 constantly engaged, and hundreds of our men 
 being captured, thousands more scattering into 
 the woods. My lieutenant-colonel, Von Helm- 
 rich, who had been for twenty-eight years a 
 cavalry officer in Germany, and who, after thir- 
 teen months in Libby Prison, had overtaken us 
 as we were leaving Memphis, was recaptured 
 and carried back to Richmond, — to die of a 
 good dinner on his second release, ten months 
 later. At nightfall, the pursuit growing weak, 
 we halted to collect together our stragglers, 
 but not to rest, and after a short half-hour 
 pushed on again; and all that interminable 
 night, and until half past ten the next morn- 
 ing, when we reached Colliersville and the rail- 
 road, reinforcements, and supplies, we marched, 
 marched, marched, without rest, without sleep, 
 and without food. The cavalry-men were mainly 
 dismounted and driving their tired jades before 
 them, only Max and a few others carrying their 
 
134 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 riders to the very end, and coming in with a 
 whinny of content to the familiar stables and 
 back-yards of the little town. 
 
 Most other officers whose service had been as 
 constant as mine had had extra horses to ride 
 for relief; but I had never yet found march too 
 long for Max's wiry sinews, and trusted to him 
 alone. He had now been ridden almost abso- 
 lutely without intermission, and much of the 
 time at a gallop or a rapid trot, for fifty-four 
 hours. I had had for my own support the 
 excitement and then the anxious despair of re- 
 sponsible service, and Ike had filled his haver- 
 sack with hard-bread from John Ellard's aban- 
 doned wagon; an occasional nibble at this, and 
 unlimited pipes of tobacco, had fortified me in 
 my endurance of the work ; but Max had had 
 in the whole time not the half of what he would 
 have made light of for a single meal. I have 
 known and have written about brilliant feats 
 of other horses, but as I look over the whole 
 range of all the best animals I have seen, I 
 bow with respect to the wonderful courage, en- 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 135 
 
 durance, and fidelity of this superbly useful 
 brute. 
 
 There is an elasticity in youth and health, 
 trained and hardened by years of active field- 
 service, which asserts itself under the most de- 
 pressing circumstances. Even this shameful and 
 horrible defeat and flight had their ludicrous 
 incidents, which we were permitted to appreci- 
 ate. Thus, for instance, during a lull in the 
 engagement at Guntown, I had seated myself in 
 a rush-bottomed chair under the lee of a broad 
 tree-trunk ; a prudent pig, suspecting danger, 
 had taken shelter between the legs of the chair, 
 leaving, however, his rear unprotected. Random 
 bullets have an odd way of finding weak places, 
 and it was due to one of these that I was un- 
 seated, with an accompaniment of squeal, by the 
 rapid and articulate flight of my companion. 
 
 During our last night's march, my brigade 
 having the advance, and I being at its rear, 
 Grierson ordered me to prevent the pushing 
 ahead of the stragglers of the other brigades, 
 who were to be recognized, he reminded me, by 
 
136 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 their wearing hats (mine wore caps). The order 
 was peremptory, and was to be enforced even at 
 the cost of cutting the offenders down. Grier- 
 son's adjutant was at my side ; we were all 
 sleeping more or less of the time, but constantly 
 some hatted straggler was detected pushing 
 toward the front, and ordered back, — the ad- 
 jutant being especially sharp-eyed in detecting 
 the mutilated sugar-loaves through the gloom. 
 Finally, close to my right and pushing slowly 
 to the front, in a long-strided walk, came a gray 
 horse with a hatted rider, — an india-rubber pon- 
 cho covering his uniform. I ordered him back ; 
 the adjutant, eager for the enforcement of the 
 order, remonstrated at the man's disobedience ; 
 I ordered again, but without result; the adju- 
 tant ejaculated, " Damn him, cut him down ! " 
 I drew my sabre and laid its flat in one long, 
 
 stinging welt across that black poncho : " ! 
 
 who are you hitting 1 ?" Then we both remem- 
 bered that Grierson too wore a hat; and I ten- 
 der him here my public acknowledgment of a 
 good-nature so great that an evening reunion in 
 
CAMPAIGNING WITH MAX. 137 
 
 Memphis over a dozen of wine won his gener- 
 ous silence. 
 
 One might go on with interminable gossip 
 over incidents of camp and field for which at 
 this late day only scant interest is felt; but 
 nothing that I could say more would probably 
 aid my purpose, which has been simply by a 
 trifling sketch to recall the jollity, the comfort, 
 the suffering, and the misery of campaign life, 
 and to show how in the field more than any- 
 where else one learns to cherish and to depend 
 upon a faithful and honest and willing comrade 
 like my royal old Max. 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 
 
 (circumstantially true.) 
 
 HE war was not quite over, but my 
 regiment was old enough to have grown 
 too small for a colonel, and I sat, the 
 dismallest of all men, a " mustered-out " officer, 
 sated with such good things as a suddenly ar- 
 rested income had allowed me, over an after- 
 dinner table in a little room at the Athenaeum 
 Club. My coffee was gone to its dregs ; the 
 closing day was shutting down gloomily in such 
 a weary rain as only a New York back -yard 
 ever knows ; and I was wondering what was to 
 become of a man w T hom four years of cavalry 
 service had estranged from every good and use- 
 ful thing in life. The only career that then 
 seemed worth running was run out for me ; and, 
 worst of all, my pay had been finally stopped. 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 139 
 
 The world was before me for a choice, but I 
 had no choice. The only thing I could do was 
 to command mounted troops, and commanders 
 of mounted troops were not in demand. Ages 
 ago I had known how to do other things, but 
 the knowledge had gone from me, and was not 
 to be recalled so long as I had enough money 
 left with which to be unhappy in idle forebod- 
 ing. I had not laid down my life in the war, 
 but during its wonderful four years I had laid 
 down, so completely, the ways of life of a sober 
 and industrious citizen, and had soaked my whole 
 nature so full of the subtile ether of idleness 
 and vagabondism, that it seemed as easy and as 
 natural to become the Aladdin I might have 
 dreamed myself to be as the delver I had really 
 been. With a heavy heart, then, and a full 
 stomach, I sat in a half-disconsolate, half-remi- 
 niscent, not wholly unhappy mood, relapsing with 
 post - prandial ease into that befogged intellec- 
 tual condition in which even the drizzle against 
 the window-panes can confuse itself with the 
 patter on a tent roof; and the charm of the 
 
140 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 old wanderings came over me again, filling my 
 table with the old comrades, even elevating my 
 cigar to a brier-wood, and recalling such fellow- 
 ship as only tent-life ever knows. 
 
 Such dreaming is always interrupted, else it 
 would never end ; mine was disturbed by a small 
 card on a small salver, held meekly across the 
 table by the meekest of waiters. 
 
 The card bore the name "Adolf zu Dohna- 
 Schlodien," and a count's coronet, — a count's 
 coronet and " zu " (a touch above " von ") ! I 
 remembered to have seen a letter from my ad- 
 jutant to the Prussian Consul in Philadelphia, 
 asking him to obtain information about a hand- 
 some young musical " Graf zu " something, who 
 was creating a sensation in St. Louis society, 
 and the " zu " seemed to indicate this as the 
 party in question ; he had spoken of him as 
 having defective front teeth, which seemed to be 
 pointing to the " color and distinguishing marks," 
 known in Herd Book pedigrees, and human pass- 
 ports, — a means of identification I resolved to 
 make use of; for my experience with the Ger- 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 141 
 
 man nobility in America had been rather wide 
 than remunerative. 
 
 The " Herr zu " had waited in the hall, and 
 was standing under the full light of the lamp. 
 He was very tall, very slight, and very young, 
 apparently not more than twenty, modestly 
 dressed, and quiet in his manner. He was not 
 strikingly handsome, though very well looking. 
 His hands were the most perfect I ever saw, 
 and the ungloved one showed careful attention. 
 There was no defect noticeable in his front 
 teeth. He bowed slightly and handed me a let- 
 ter. It was from Voisin, my former adjutant, 
 but it was not exactly a letter of introduction. 
 At least, it was less cordial than Yoisin's letters 
 of introduction were wont to be. Yet it was 
 kind. Without commending the Count as a 
 bosom friend, he still said he was much inter- 
 ested in him, had reason to believe in him, was 
 sorry for him, had given him material aid, and 
 was very desirous that he should pull through 
 some pecuniary troubles, which he could do only 
 by enlisting in the Regular Army, and receiving 
 
142 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 his bounty. From this he would give me money 
 to release his baggage, which was valuable, from 
 some inconveniences that were then attending it 
 in St. Louis. Would I get him enlisted 1 ? He 
 said he would enlist, and would prefer to be 
 known under the name Adolph Danforth. The 
 gentleman himself took early occasion to express 
 this preference. 
 
 I debated a little what to do. He was not 
 introduced as a friend, only as a person in need 
 of help ; yet Voisin believed in him, and he had 
 asked a service that he would not have asked for 
 an unworthy man. I engaged him in conversa- 
 tion and got him to smile. It was a very frank 
 smile, but it displayed a singular defect far up 
 on the front teeth. This decided me. He was 
 the same Graf zu whose position had been asked 
 of the Prussian Consul, and I knew he had learned 
 that the Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien, an officer in 
 the Gardecorps Kiirassier, was of the highest 
 nobility and of a family of great wealth. There 
 was evidently no technical reason why the poor 
 fellow should not be received cordially and well 
 
nOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 143 
 
 treated. So we went back to the smoking-room, 
 and with fresh coffee and cigars opened an ac- 
 quaintance which resulted not altogether un- 
 eventfully. 
 
 He was not obtrusive. His story was not forced 
 upon me ; but as I already had its thread, I was 
 able to draw it from him in a natural way, and 
 he told it very frankly, though halting a little at 
 its more important turnings, as if wondering how 
 its development would strike me. There was just 
 enough of hesitancy over a harrowing tale to throw 
 on myself the responsibility of learning it. 
 
 He had been brought up by the tenderest of 
 mothers at the castle of Schlodien (I think in 
 Silesia), had early joined the Cuirassiers of the 
 Body Guard, had fought a fatal duel in which he 
 had been the aggressor, and had been condemned 
 to the Fortress of Spandau. Only his mother's 
 great influence (exercised without the knowledge 
 of his stern and much older father, who was then 
 on his distant estates) had secured for him an 
 opportunity to escape. He had come directly to 
 America, and had remained near Boston until he 
 
144 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 received intimation (again the result of his moth- 
 er's influence with Baron Gerolt, the Prussian 
 Minister at Washington) that his return under 
 the Extradition Treaty was being urged at the 
 solicitation of the family of his fallen antagonist. 
 He had then taken refuge in a remote town in 
 South Missouri, where he amused himself with 
 shooting. His mother had written to him but 
 once, and had not been able to send him money. 
 He had at last returned to St. Louis, where he 
 had contracted some small debts which Voisin 
 and another kind friend had assumed. To reim- 
 burse them and to gain more perfect seclusion, 
 he had resolved to enlist in the Regular Army. 
 It was a sad conclusion of his career, but as an 
 honorable man (and a pursued one) he had no 
 choice but to accept it. 
 
 It was the old story, — noblesse oblige. There 
 was but one way out of a sad affair, and — like a 
 very Graf zu — this stripling, who had been born 
 and bred to a better fate, faced the penalty of 
 his misfortune without flinching. I tried infinite 
 suggestions, but nothing else offered the imme- 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 145 
 
 diate money which alone could relieve him of 
 debt and restore him his wardrobe and the por- 
 traits of his mother and sister, which with a few 
 w r ell-worn letters, were all he had to cheer him in 
 his exile. We sat till far into the night and until 
 my kindest sympathies were fully aroused by the 
 utter and almost childlike simplicity and frank- 
 ness with which the poor boy told of his sorrows. 
 I had been taught by a very ample experience to 
 look with much caution on German counts and 
 barons, — an experience that, if it was worth 
 what it had cost, I could not prize too highly ; 
 but here was an entirely new type, a combination 
 of the gentlest breeding with an unsophistication 
 that argued more of a mother's care than of gar- 
 rison influences, and an utter absence of the devil- 
 may-care manner that army life in Germany had 
 hitherto seemed to give. With the improvidence 
 of one who had never known the lack of money, 
 he had lodged himself at the Everett House ; and 
 as I left him at its door, I resolved to lose no 
 time in getting him enlisted and stopping an 
 expense that would only add to his troubles. 
 7 j 
 
146 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 The next day I saw the official who had charge 
 of the making up of the city's quota, and easily 
 arranged for the examination of my candidate. 
 Dohna begged me to secure his admission to a 
 command whose officers would be able to appre- 
 ciate his difficult position, and a weary time I had 
 of it. At last it was all arranged ; he had passed, 
 with much shock to his sensibilities, the surgeon's 
 examination, and had been enrolled in a company 
 of Regular Infantry, whose captain (then serving 
 on the general staff of the department) had ac- 
 quired a sympathy for him not less than my own. 
 His bounty (over seven hundred dollars) he put 
 into my hands, and he went with me to Adams's 
 Express office, where we sent more than half the 
 sum to St. Louis, — the full amount of his indebt- 
 edness. One specified trunk was to be sent to 
 the Everett House, and the rest of his luggage — 
 which Voisin had described as valuable — to me. 
 I received by an early mail the receipt of the St. 
 Louis express-office for it, and found it most con- 
 venient to let it lie for the present, addressed to 
 me personally, at the office in New York. It 
 
BOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 147 
 
 would be useless to Dohna in the army, and I 
 was to take care of it for him. 
 
 The captain of the company in which he was 
 enlisted secured him a furlough for ten days, 
 and, to show his gratitude, he invited us both 
 to dine with him at the Everett. We sat down 
 at seven, and we sat long. The best that either 
 cellar or kitchen afforded was spread before us 
 in wasteful profusion, and our host, temperate 
 in his sipping, but eating with the appetite of 
 youth, seemed only to regret the limit of our 
 capacity. As we walked across the square, filled 
 and with the kindest emotions, we planned 
 means for so occupying the remaining days of 
 the furlough as to allow but little opportunity 
 for money-spending. His company was at Fort 
 Trumbull, and after he joined he would be safe. 
 
 The next day being Saturday, I took him to 
 my father's house in the country, where his un- 
 fortunate story was already known, and where 
 as much real interest was felt in him as the 
 good people of Connecticut ever accord to a du- 
 ellist. He had a friend living farther out on 
 
148 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 the New Haven road, and he took an early 
 train to see her (this was a new feature), re- 
 turning to me in the evening. I met him at 
 the depot. He wore the superb uniform over- 
 coat of the Gardecorps Kurassier, long, flowing, 
 and rich, with a broad, scarlet-lined fur collar. 
 It was caught across the throat with a scarlet 
 snood, and hung loosely from the shoulders. It 
 made his six feet two really becoming. At 
 home he was easy but very quiet, saying little 
 but saying it very well, and he won as much 
 confidence as the stain on his moral character 
 would allow. Like most of his class, he knew 
 and cared absolutely nothing for what interests 
 the New England mind, and he would early 
 have palled on our taste but for his music. 
 His performance was skilful; he played difficult 
 music, and he played it very well, but without 
 vanity or apparent consciousness. When not 
 occupied in this way, and when not addressed, 
 he neither spoke nor read, apparently he did 
 not even think, but relapsed into a sad and 
 somewhat vacant reticence. But for our knowl- 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. U9 
 
 edge of his misfortunes, he would have been un- 
 interesting. On Sunday he gave me a new con- 
 fidence. His friend up the road was an Everett 
 House acquaintance, made when he first came 
 from Boston. She was an angel ! She knew his 
 sad story, and she had given him her Puritan 
 heart. In the trying days to come I was to be 
 the link that should bind them in their corre- 
 spondence. She must not know of his degraded 
 position, and all letters were to pass under cover 
 to me. Even noblesse did not hide the tears 
 that this prospect of long separation wrung from 
 him, and he poured out his grief with most 
 touching unrestraint. This was the one sorrow 
 of his life that even his trained equanimity 
 could not conquer. It made me still more re- 
 spect his simple, honest nature and his un- 
 feigned grief. I was doubly sorry that this last 
 trial of separated love should be added to his 
 cup of bitterness. In our long Sunday talk he 
 told me of his home, and showed me the sinjni- 
 larly beautiful photographs of his mother and 
 sister, and — quite incidentally — one of himself 
 
150 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 in the full uniform of his regiment, bearing on 
 its back the imprint of a Berlin photographer. 
 He evinced a natural curiosity about the mode 
 of our garrison life, and I prepared him as 
 gently as I could for a decided change from his 
 former customs. It was, of course, depressing 
 to him, but he bore the prospect like a man, 
 and gave it no importance as compared with his 
 more essential downfall. He had seen enough 
 of our troops to be especially uneasy at the 
 prospect of an ill-fitting uniform. In the mat- 
 ter of linen he was well provided, but he w T as 
 really unhappy over the thought of adapting his 
 long and easy figure to a clothing-contractor's 
 idea of proportion. So it was arranged that he 
 should go to my tailor and be suitably clad, 
 according to regulation of course, but also ac- 
 cording to measure. He proposed, too, to leave 
 his overcoat for some repairs and to be cared 
 for while he should have no use for it. I gave 
 the tailor assurances of prompt payment. 
 
 One fine morning Dohna came to my room in 
 his new rig and bade me a brave good-by. He 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 151 
 
 was off for Fort Trumbull. I felt an almost 
 parental sorrow over his going, and had much 
 misgiving as to his ability to face his ill-bred 
 soldier comrades. There came soon after a let- 
 ter to say that he was well treated personally, 
 only the rations were so horrible ; pork and salt 
 beef and beans and molasses. He could not eat 
 such things, and he was growing faint for want 
 of food. I had seen such dainty appetites cured 
 too often to have any fear on this score, and 
 only replied in general terms of encouragement, 
 and asked for frequent letters. These came. 
 There were no incidents of his life that were 
 not described almost with wonder, for a noble 
 officer of the Gardecorps of the king of Prussia 
 knows really nothing of the ways of life of the 
 men he is supposed to command. Often there 
 were thick letters for the fiancee, and answers 
 to these (also thick) had often to be forwarded. 
 I felt the enthusiastic glow natural to one who 
 carries alone the tender secrets of younger 
 lovers, and was not altogether unhappy under 
 the subjective romance of my mediation. 
 
152 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 Sometimes there were touching tales of 
 trouble. Once he had been detailed to the 
 "police" squad, and had to clean spittoons and 
 do other menial work. This was a touch of 
 reality that fairly opened his eyes to his abase- 
 ment, and he wrote much more sadly than ever 
 before, making me sad, too, to think how pow- 
 erless I was to help him in any way. A few 
 days later he sent a wail of real agony. While 
 he had been out on drill, some scoundrel had 
 broken into his satchel and had stolen all his 
 papers, — his letters from his mother, her pho- 
 tograph, and those of his sister and his sweet- 
 heart, and all the bundle of affectionate epistles 
 over which he had pored again and again in his 
 desolation. The loss was absolutely heart-break- 
 ing and irreparable, and he had passed hours 
 sitting on the rocks at the shore, pouring bitter 
 tears into the Thames. This was a blow to me 
 too. I knew that Dohna was of a simple mind, 
 and utterly without resources within himself; 
 but he was also of a simple heart, and one 
 could only grieve over this last blow as over 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 153 
 
 the sorrows of a helpless little child. However, 
 I wrote all I could to encourage him, and was 
 gratified, though a little surprised, to see how 
 soon he became cheerful again, and how ear- 
 nestly he seemed to have set about the work 
 of becoming a really good soldier. After a time 
 the captain of his company — still in New York 
 and maintaining a lively interest in the poor fel- 
 low's case — procured an order for him to go to 
 Annapolis to be examined for promotion. He 
 was already a sergeant, and a pretty good one. 
 He stopped in New York a few days on his way 
 through for some refitting, — again at my tailor's. 
 On his way back he stopped again to tell of his 
 failure. I was delicate about questioning him 
 too closely, but I learned enough to suppose that 
 different ideas as to practical education are en- 
 tertained by a board of army examiners and by 
 a fond young mother in the remote castle of 
 Schlodien j but I encouraged him to believe that 
 a little more study would enable him to pass 
 the second examination that had been promised 
 him, and he rejoined his company. 
 
154 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 In the general mustering-out Voisin had been 
 set free and had joined me in New York, and had, 
 naturally, participated in all my interest in the 
 quondam Count. He gradually, as an adjutant 
 should, assumed the correspondence, which was 
 voluminous, and by the time we were informed 
 that Dohna was detailed for recruiting duty in 
 the city, neither he nor I was glad to know it. 
 Something more than a feeling of regretful sym- 
 pathy is necessary to the enjoyment of frequent 
 companionship, and we both felt that the fact of 
 having credit with a tailor was a dangerous ele- 
 ment in the possible future combinations. How- 
 ever, Dohna's arrival at our room followed close 
 upon the announcement of the order. He was 
 still simple in his way and of modest deportment, 
 but he seemed to have accepted his new life 
 almost too entirely, and he had come to look not 
 very much out of place among his comrades. 
 Their quarters were in a basement in Chambers 
 Street, back of the City Hall, where we occasion- 
 ally dropped in to see him. After a while he 
 was always out when we called, and once when I 
 
BOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 155 
 
 stopped to give him a foreign letter, sent to my 
 care, I was told that he had not been there for 
 a week, but one of the men volunteered to find 
 him. He came that night to the club for his 
 letter, in civilian's dress, and appeared much as 
 he did when I first saw him, except that he had 
 two beautiful false teeth, in the place of the de- 
 fective ones. I gave him his letter, a long one 
 from Berlin, from his father. He showed Voisin 
 the postscript, in which it was stated that a 
 box containing a breech-loading shot-gun, a dozen 
 shirts, and a draft for five hundred thalers would 
 be forwarded by the Hamburg line to my care. 
 On the strength of this he hoped it would not 
 inconvenience us to advance him a couple of hun- 
 dred dollars. It was thus far inconvenient that 
 we were obliged to decline, which gave him no 
 offence, and he invited us to dine with him the 
 following day at the Everett House. 
 
 At this point, in view of the extreme j^outh 
 and inexperience of our friend, we took occasion 
 to read him a short homily on the value of 
 economy, and to urge him immediately to leave 
 
156 WHIP AND SPUR 
 
 the Everett, return to his barracks in Chambers 
 Street, and as he valued his future peace of mind 
 to avoid running in debt ; mildly hinting that, 
 if found in the public streets without his uni- 
 form, he would be very likely to get himself into 
 trouble. He begged that we would not expose 
 him, and promised to return that very night. 
 Then for some time we lost sight of him ; his 
 captain said that, so far as he knew, he was at- 
 tentive to his duty with the recruiting squad, 
 and he certainly kept out of our way. The box 
 from Germany did not arrive. No more letters 
 came, and we had no occasion to seek him out. 
 It was evident that he was no longer unhappy, 
 and so our interest in him, though still warm, 
 remained inactive. 
 
 One night I was awakened, quite late, by Voi- 
 sin, sitting on the side of my bed, big-eyed and 
 excited, and with a wonderful story to tell. He 
 had been, at the request of the counsel of the 
 Prussian Consul, to the detectives' rooms at police 
 headquarters. Here he had been questioned as 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 157 
 
 to his knowledge of one Adolph Danforth, alias 
 Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien, alias Fritz Stabenow, 
 and had subsequently had an interview with that 
 interesting youth in the lock-up. 
 
 The glory had all departed. He had been there 
 forty-eight hours, was unwashed, uncombed, stol- 
 id, comfortable, and quite at home. There was 
 no remnant left of the simple and modest de- 
 meanor of the well-bred aristocrat. It was hard 
 to see a trace of likeness to the Kiirassier officer 
 with whose photograph we were familiar. The 
 obligations of noblesse seemed to be entirely re- 
 moved, and there was nothing left but plain, 
 ignoble Fritz Stabenow. An examination of his 
 pockets developed a singular folly. He had kept 
 every scrap of paper on which a word had ever 
 been written to him. Tailors' bills, love-letters, 
 duns, photographs of half a dozen different girls, 
 all were huddled together. He had a package of 
 the Count Dohna cards and the plate from which 
 they had been printed, — made in Boston ; a let- 
 ter of credit from a banking-house in Berlin to 
 its New York correspondent had the copperplate 
 
158 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 card of the firm on the paper, but the paper was 
 ruled as a German banker's paper never is, and 
 the plate from which the card had been printed 
 (also made in Boston) was in the envelope with 
 it. A letter from plain father Stabenow enclosed 
 photographs of still plainer mother and sister 
 Stabenow, which were a sad contrast to the glory 
 of the Countess Dohna's picture. The father's 
 letter was full of kindly reproof and affectionate 
 regret. "Ach ! Fritz, ich hatte das von Dir nicht 
 gedacht," — "I never thought that of you"; but 
 it was forgiving too, and promised the remittance, 
 clothing, and gun I have spoken of before. The 
 papers, for the loss of which such tears had been 
 shed at Fort Trumbull, were all there in their 
 well-worn companionship with a soiled paper- 
 collar, and that badge of dawning civilization, a 
 tooth-brush. 
 
 Here were also two photographs, one of the 
 statue of Frederick the Great in Berlin on the 
 card of a St. Louis photographer, and another 
 of himself in Prussian uniform, on the card of 
 a Berlin photographer. The pictures had been 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 159 
 
 " lifted " and changed to the different cards. A 
 more careful neglect of track-covering was never 
 known. The evidence of all his deceptions had 
 been studiously preserved. 
 
 Voisin had given him a dollar to buy some 
 necessary articles, and had left him to his fate. 
 
 The disillusion was complete, and I saw that 
 I had been swindled by a false count even more 
 completely than I ever had been by real barons, 
 — which is much to say. 
 
 Voisin had gathered from the Consul's lawyer 
 that this Stabenow, a valet of the veritable Count 
 Dohna, had been one of a party who had robbed 
 him and committed other serious crimes, and he 
 had fled to this country, with his master's uniform, 
 a valuable wardrobe, and costly jewels. He had 
 here undertaken to personify the Count, and had 
 had on the whole not an unhappy time, especially 
 since he came to New York in recruiting service. 
 He had finally been arrested on the complaint of 
 a lady, one of the many whom he had attempted 
 to blackmail, by threatening exposure through let- 
 ters they had written him in the kindest spirit. 
 
160 WHIP AND SPUH. 
 
 Fortunately this one had had the good sense tc 
 refer the matter to her husband, who brought 
 the interesting career to a close. He had ob- 
 tained several thousand dollars in this way from 
 different persons, and had contracted considerable 
 debts in all directions. The Everett House was 
 an especial sufferer. 
 
 I felt that my claim was secured by the lug- 
 gage at the express-office, and I called for it the 
 next day. The gentlemanly clerk of the establish- 
 ment blandly showed me my name, neatly written 
 in a strange Teutonic hand, to a receipt for the 
 property. Just then I had information that a 
 box addressed to my care was lying at the Hobo- 
 ken office of the German steamers. Indiscreetly 
 mentioning this fact to the Prussian Consul's law- 
 yer, I was informed that it would be necessary 
 to take the box in evidence, and I prudently 
 refrained from making further efforts for its re- 
 covery. 
 
 It was with a chastened spirit that I paid a 
 considerable bill at my tailor's and ordered the 
 overcoat sent to my address; and it was with 
 
HOW I GOT MY OVERCOAT. 1G1 
 
 only mitigated satisfaction that I heard of the 
 sending in irons to his company in California of 
 deserter Stabenow. 
 
 If the Herr Lieutenant Graf zu Dohna-Schlo- 
 dien of the Gardecorps Kiirassier is still living, 
 I beg to inform him that his overcoat — the only 
 memento of a grave Schivindelei — is now a com- 
 fortable wrap to a Rhode Island farmer, who 
 hopes that its rightful owner is as snugly clad 
 in his winter rides about Versailles. 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 
 
 N the desultory and sporadic warfare car- 
 ried on in the Southwest, the scout — 
 or "skeout," according to the dialect 
 of the region — was a very important element 
 of our organization, and it is amusing now to 
 recall the variety of odd-fish of every descrip- 
 tion who applied for the remunerative employ- 
 ment that this branch of the service afforded. 
 
 The interest of our life at Union City was not 
 a little enhanced by two specimens of this genus 
 with whom we had much to do, — Pat Dixon 
 and "The Blind Preacher." 
 
 One day the guard brought in a suspicious 
 character from the picket-line. He was about 
 twenty-five years old, long, lank, and dusky, — 
 a sort of half-Indian, half-Irish looking fellow, 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 163 
 
 with uncombed hair and an over-prominent quid 
 of tobacco. He rode the usual "nag" of the 
 country, — an animal with more blood than bone 
 and more vice than beauty. He dismounted, 
 passed his bridle over his arm, and "squatted," 
 — the usual posture of the country. " The 
 Hun," the professional bully of all our culprits, 
 took this creature in hand, and presently came 
 in with a suggestion that I had better see him 
 alone. He followed me cautiously to one side, 
 leading his horse with him, and squatted again 
 when we had halted at a safe distance from 
 curious ears. 
 
 " I 'm Pat Dixon. I live down Troy way on 
 the North Fork. Ye see, when this yer muss 
 fust broke out I did n't go to take no sides in 
 it. But Merryweather's men they come along a 
 little 'fore sun-up, last month was a year, an' 
 they taken the only nag we had left. I 'd had 
 him hid out all summer, but some derned skunk 
 done found him out. I heern the cusses a tramp- 
 in' roun' an' I was goin' to take a crack at 'em 
 for 'good mornin',' but, you see, I knowed if I 
 
164 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 did they 'd just burn the old woman out, an' she 
 don't git along but porely, anyhow, so I did n't. 
 They conscripted the old man the year afore, an' 
 he hain't been heern on sence. So I come to the 
 conclushin that I wa' n't agoin' to stan' no such 
 treatmint as that — by King ! an' I jest took to 
 the bresb, an' I reckon I 've pestered them 'nns 
 right smart. I ain't agoin' afoot long as theys 
 hosses in West Tannisy, — you bet ! I was agoin' 
 to jine you Yanks, but thinks sez I: 'Old Pat, 
 you kin do a heap better in the bresh nor what 
 you kin in no army,' and so I stuck to it. 0, 
 now, I 'm squar' ! Frank Moore can tell you all 
 'bout me ; I ain't no gam-game, I ain't. If you 
 want a skeout, I 'm on hand, an' I don't want 
 no pass, I kin git 'roun' in this kentry. 
 
 " Which 1 hoss ? Well, 't ain't much of a nag, 
 but theys more on 'em roun', an' if this 'un tuck- 
 ers out I '11 git somethin' to ride. I ain't goin' 
 afoot. — no, mam ! " 
 
 This was very much the sort of talk " Mr." For- 
 rest's emissaries used in seeking our services for 
 his purposes; so, partly to secure ourselves on 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 1G5 
 
 this point, and partly to give Dixon a good char- 
 acter should he go out from our camp in his 
 professional capacity, he was sent for a few days 
 to the guard-house, until Frank Moore should 
 return from an expedition. I believe Frank 
 knew most of the vagabonds of Obion County, 
 and he at once certified that this was no other 
 than Pat Dixon ; that his story was true ; and 
 that, while his controlling motives were not per- 
 haps such as one would most admire, his uncon- 
 querable hatred of Merry weather's men and all 
 their confederates might be relied on with im- 
 plicit confidence; so Pat was engaged as an em- 
 ploye of our Secret Service Department, and sent 
 outside the lines with a conspicuous assurance, as 
 he left his fellow-prisoners, that if found again 
 within our reach he would be hanged forthwith 
 for a spy. I was riding on the road he took, and 
 he gave me a leering wink as he departed, — with 
 instructions to watch the movements of all gue- 
 rilla bands in our front, and to bring speedily any 
 information he might obtain. 
 
 During the remaining mouths of our stay he 
 
166 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 was almost ubiquitous. Every scou ting-party 
 that we sent out in any direction, though en- 
 tirely without notice to him, was pretty sure to 
 meet him with important information, just when 
 information was most needed. 
 
 This part of his work was done perfectly, but 
 he seemed to regard his relation with us as a 
 warrant for unending private iniquities. After 
 his own code of morals he was a strictly virtuous 
 man, but his code was of an extremely loose and 
 pliable character. It is probably safe to say that 
 he never murdered a Union man, and that, unless 
 sorely tempted by the difference in value of the 
 animals, he never forcibly exchanged horses with 
 a Union widow ; neither, I believe, did he com- 
 mit any offence against a known Rebel when 
 there was a probability of his being found out 
 and caught ; but the complaints that came to 
 us of the manner in which he vented his pri- 
 vate wrongs and carried on the feuds of his 
 ancestors gave us frequent annoyance. Some- 
 times it seemed necessary to recall his com- 
 mission and declare him an outlaw, but just 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 167 
 
 then there would transpire some particularly brill- 
 iant achievement that showed him invaluable for 
 our purposes. 
 
 More than once, when our patrols reported the 
 immediate presence of the enemy, Pat would turn 
 up with the assurance that it was only so-and-so's 
 "band," who had come into the neighborhood on 
 a visiting or a marauding expedition, but with 
 no intention of putting themselves in our way ; 
 and invariably we found his report to be correct. 
 Indeed, so frequently did this happen that we 
 became almost too confident in his assistance, 
 and when an excitable picket shot at a donkey 
 or a cow in the night-time, although the patrol 
 of the guard went through the usual routine of 
 investigation, we felt that there could be no se- 
 rious attack or Dixon would have notified us. 
 
 How he obtained his information we could not 
 guess, and his own account of the matter was 
 never satisfactory; but I believe that no consid- 
 erable force of the enemy ever crossed the Mem- 
 phis and Charleston Railroad (the whole State's 
 width to the south of us) without our being 
 
168 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 speedily notified; and through this means we 
 were several times enabled to telegraph to Co- 
 lumbus early information of contemplated raids, 
 — information that was not always heeded, as the 
 surprise of Paducah (on the Ohio River) several 
 days after our warning sufficiently proved. 
 
 One ambition of this worthy man had to remain 
 unsatisfied. How little this was due to the fact 
 that we at the headquarters were all perfectly 
 mounted, modesty makes it improper to state 
 here ; but in our frequent meetings as we rode 
 outside the lines, he rarely failed to tell of some 
 particularly fine horse belonging to some partic- 
 ularly bad man and especially virulent Rebel, 
 which it would really be a virtue to "confisti- 
 cate." The worthy fellow was not satisfied with 
 his own conspicuous appropriations; he would 
 fain have mounted our regiments on the weedy 
 screws which the Rebel impressments had left 
 for the horsing of the crippled region of Western 
 Tennessee. Possibly, too, he may have had some 
 lurking fear that there was a suspicion of iniquity 
 in his thefts, and longed for the reassurance of 
 
TWO SCOUTS 169 
 
 similar conduct on the part of true men like our- 
 selves. 
 
 It was, of course, not long after the commence- 
 ment of this active campaign against the rights 
 of ownership, that we began to receive assurances 
 on every hand that unless we could do something 
 to repress Pat Dixon's vagabondage an outraged 
 people would take the law into their own hands, 
 and avenge the wrongs he had inflicted. With 
 a laudable desire to prevent unnecessary blood- 
 shed, I told him one day of the state of feeling 
 against him, urging him to be more circumspect 
 and to conduct himself like a decent man, else 
 he would be hanged the first time he was caught ; 
 intimating, too, that it would be improper for 
 us to continue to employ him to such needless 
 injury to an inoffensive people. His reply was 
 characteristic. 
 
 " Inoffensive, tvkich ? Mebbe you know these 
 people an' mebbe you don't. I do ! and a dern'- 
 der lot of unhung cutthroats an' hoss-thieves you 
 can't find nowheres. As for hangin', you need n't 
 give yourself no worryment 'bout that, They 're, 
 8 
 
170 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 safe enough to hang me if they ketch me, an' 
 I guess I sha' n't hang no higher if I go right on 
 my own gait. If you don't want to employ me 
 you need n't ; theys enough corn an' bacon in th' 
 Obion bottom to keep me awhile yet, and money 
 ain't no 'count down here ; but, by King ! if I kin 
 git a chance to tell you anything that them 'uns 
 don't want you to know, you bet your skin I '11 
 do it, an' you kin trust me every time, for I ain't 
 goin' to lie, — not to your side, not if I know it. 
 Why, you talk to me about inikities. I don't want 
 to do no man any hurt ; but my old dad he was 
 conscripted, an' me an' my brother Jake had to 
 take to the bresh to save ourselves, an' then Jake 
 he was shot in cold blood right afore my eyes, 
 an' I made up my mind then an' there that I 
 would n't give no quarter to the whole State of 
 West Tannisy till this war was over an' ther' was 
 some stronger hand than mine to do jestis an' to 
 furnish revenge. That 's all I 've got to say about 
 it. You need n't give yourself no oneasiness 'bout 
 my doin's, I '11 answer for the hull on 'em ; an' 
 p'r'aps the last thing you '11 hear of Pat Dixon 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 171 
 
 will be that he's hangin' to a tree somewheres 
 down Troy way. I know I 'm booked for that 
 if I 'hi ketched, and till I am ketched I 'm goin' 
 ray own gait." 
 
 We had become too much accustomed to this 
 state of feeling among the scanty Union popu- 
 lation of the Southwest to be so shocked by it 
 as we ought to have been, and it was not with- 
 out sympathy with Dixon's wrongs that I let 
 him go, with an earnest caution that he should 
 mend his ways, if only for his own sake. 
 
 It remains only to say that he did go his own 
 gait, and that he went it with a desperation and 
 an elan that I have never known equalled ; and 
 that, months later, after our snug quarters at 
 Union City had been turned over to a feeble band 
 of home-guards, word came that they had been 
 burned to the ground, and that Pat Dixon, be- 
 trayed at last into the hands of the enemy, had 
 been hanged in the woods near Troy. We could 
 find no fault with the retribution that had over- 
 taken him ; for, viewed with the eyes of his exe- 
 cutioners, he had richly merited it : but we had 
 
172 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 learned to like him for his frank and generous 
 qualities, and to make full allowance for the de- 
 gree to which his rough, barbaric nature had 
 been outraged and inflamed by the wrongs in- 
 flicted on his family. 
 
 A returning patrol one afternoon led to the 
 parade-ground a sorry horse drawing an open 
 wagon in which were a man and a woman. The 
 woman had a cold-blooded, stolid look, and her 
 eyes were filled with the overflowing hatred we 
 so often inspired among her sex at the South. 
 Her husband was dressed in black, and wore a 
 rather scrupulously brushed but over-old silk hat. 
 In his hand was a ponderous and bulging cotton 
 umbrella. 
 
 They had been taken " under suspicious cir- 
 cumstances" at a house a few miles outside the 
 lines, — the suspicion attaching only to the fact 
 that they were not members of the family and 
 seemed to have no particular business in that 
 region. When asked for an explanation, the wo- 
 man said she had nothing to say but that her 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 17 
 
 Q 
 
 husband was a blind clergyman intending to fulfil 
 an engagement to preach, and that she had driven 
 him, as was her habit. He said nothing. It was 
 a rule of our system to follow Hoyle's instruc- 
 tions, and "when in doubt to take the trick": 
 this pair were remanded to the guard-house. 
 
 As they turned away, the reverend gentleman 
 said, in a feeble voice, that if he could see me 
 alone later in the evening, when he had recov- 
 ered from the shock of his capture, I might be 
 willing to talk with him. In the evening the 
 Hun repaired to the dismantled warehouse where 
 the prisoners were lodged, to hold conversation 
 with the new-comers. When he came to the 
 clergyman he found him so low spoken that 
 their talk fell almost to a whisper, but it was 
 whispered that he was to be taken alone, and 
 subsequent disclosures led to his being brought 
 to headquarters. He there informed me that he 
 was a minister of the Methodist church, Cana- 
 dian by birth and education, but married to a 
 lady of that region, and had been for some years 
 engaged there in his capacity as a circuit preach- 
 
174 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 er. He was quite blind, and found it impossi- 
 ble to make his rounds without being driven. 
 
 His sympathies were with the North, and he 
 was burning to make himself useful in the only- 
 way left him by his infirmity. His wife was of 
 a suspecting disposition, and their peaceful con- 
 sorting required that she should always accom- 
 pany him ; but, unfortunately, she was a violent 
 secessionist, and he had been compelled, in the 
 interest of the peaceful consorting above named, 
 to acknowledge sympathy with her views, and to 
 join her in her revilings of the Union army. 
 
 All this made his position difficult, yet he 
 believed that, if the opportunity were given him, 
 he could hide his intention even from her, and 
 could gather for us much useful information. 
 
 He was a welcome visitor at the houses of the 
 faithful, far and near, and warmed their hearts 
 with frequent and feeling exhortation, as he 
 gathered his little meetings at his nightly stop- 
 ping-places. He was now about starting for the 
 southern circuit, and had appointments to preach 
 and to pray at every town between us and Bolivar. 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 175 
 
 Evidently, if this man were honest in his in- 
 tentions, he could be of great service, but I 
 suggested the difficulty that having once started 
 for an appointed round he could not return to 
 bring us any information he might receive. To 
 this he replied that his wife believed him to 
 be in Forrest's service, and that he could at any 
 time come as a spy into our lines. 
 
 It seemed a very questionable case, but, after 
 consultation with Voisin and the Hun, it was 
 determined to give him a trial, to prevent his 
 wife from seeing more than was necessary of our 
 position, and to believe so much as we liked of 
 the information he might give us. The condi- 
 tions of the engagement were agreed upon, and 
 after a severe public admonition, and threats es- 
 pecially appalling to his wife, he was sent out- 
 side the lines, with hints of the serious conse- 
 quences that would follow his second capture. 
 
 We were never quite sure that his wife was 
 wrong in crediting him with complicity with 
 Forrest; but the worst that could be said of 
 him (and this was very likely true) was that he 
 
176 WHIP AND SPtJR. 
 
 was pre-eminently a man of peace, and if he 
 gave information to both sides, it "was always 
 information in compliance with the injunctions 
 of his sacred calling. The Rebel forces several 
 times crossed into Tennessee, and came toward 
 us in numbers that indicated foul intentions, 
 but, from the time our pious friend first visited 
 us, they invariably withdrew without an engage- 
 ment. Frequently small expeditions of our own 
 forces went scouting to the southward, and were 
 checked and turned back by the reports of this 
 benevolent man. 
 
 He may have kept us from the successful ful- 
 filment of some bloody intentions, but we had 
 occasion to know from other sources that he 
 sometimes kept small detachments of our troops 
 from falling in with overpowering numbers of 
 the enemy. Be the theory what it may, from 
 November until February there was no conflict 
 of arms in all the counties we traversed, and 
 neither side advanced to within deadly range of 
 the other. 
 
 The processes of this emissary were hidden 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 177 
 
 and curious. He was employed in a much more 
 regulated manner than Dixon, and we generally 
 knew his whereabouts. Every interview had with 
 him, either within our own camp or when we 
 were abroad, had to be so skilfully managed that 
 no suspicion, even in the eyes of his catlike wife, 
 should attach to him. He never came into our 
 lines except as an unwilling prisoner, and was 
 never sent without them without dire admoni- 
 tion as to the consequences of his return. 
 
 On one occasion Pat Dixon reported that a 
 detachment of Forrest's command, about three 
 hundred strong, had crossed the railroad and 
 was moving north in the direction of our camp. 
 At this time the preacher was near us, and I 
 had an interview with him. He doubted the 
 report, but would investigate. I told him we 
 would start the next day, with five hundred 
 men, in the direction of Trenton, — where he 
 was to hold a prayer-meeting at the hous3 of 
 one of Forrest's captains. The meeting was held, 
 and after it was over, the subject of the advance 
 was talked over very freely by the officers pres- 
 8* L 
 
178 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 ent, he sitting in a rapt state of unconscious- 
 ness — his thoughts on higher things — at the 
 ehiinney-comer. Pleading an early appointment 
 at McKenzie's Station for the following day, he 
 left as soon as the moon was up, and drove to 
 the house of a friend in the village. His wife 
 supposed that he was coming with a false re- 
 port to lead us into a trap laid for us. 
 
 "We arrived at McKenzie's at one o'clock in 
 the morning, after a detestably cold, hard ride, 
 and took up our quarters in a half-finished and 
 half-furnished house, where we struggled the 
 whole night through in the endeavor to get 
 heat out of a fire of wet dead-wood. Early in 
 the morning the Hun started out, in his fiercest 
 mood, with a small escort, seeking for informa- 
 tion and hunting up suspicious characters. At 
 breakfast-time he came upon a large family com- 
 fortably seated at table, with our preacher and 
 his wife as sruests. 
 
 He was asked to "sit by." "Thank you; I 
 have come for more serious business. Who is 
 at the head of this house 1 I should like to 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 179 
 
 see you alone, sir." The trembling, invalided 
 paterfamilias was taken into an adjoining room, 
 and put through the usual coarse of questions 
 as to his age, place of birth, occupation, condi- 
 tion as to literacy, the number of negroes owned, 
 the amount of land, what relatives in the Rebel 
 army, to what extent a sympathizer with the 
 Rebellion, when he had last seen any Rebel sol- 
 diers or scouts or guerillas or suspicious per- 
 sons of any description, and so on, through the 
 tortuous and aggravating list that only a lawyer 
 could invent. Questions and answers were taken 
 down in writing. The sterner questions were 
 spoken in a voice audible to the terror-stricken 
 family in the adjoining room. The man, of 
 course, communicated nothing, and probably knew 
 nothing, of the least consequence. He was sent 
 to a third room and kept under guard. His 
 case disposed of, his wife was examined in like 
 manner, and then the other members of the 
 family. Finally, the coast being clear, our emis- 
 sary was sent for. He came into the room chuck- 
 ling with delight over this skilful exercise of 
 
ISO WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 the art of deceit, in which he was himself such 
 an adept, and laying his hand on the Hud's 
 arm, said, " My dear fellow, I respect you. This 
 has been the most brilliant dodge I ever knew, 
 — capital, — capital ! " And he then went on to 
 recount all that he had heard the evening be- 
 fore. A large detachment of Forrest's command 
 was advancing under Faulkner's leadership, and 
 they doubtless had by this time a full report 
 of our position, for he had met acquaintance on 
 the road who had reported it to him. If we 
 were able to engage a body of three thousand 
 men without artillery, we might find them that 
 night in Trenton, — he was confident that that 
 was about their number. 
 
 The family were now notified that they had 
 been guilty of a great offence in harboring a 
 known spy of the enemy • but they insisted 
 that they knew him only as a devout and active 
 minister, and had no suspicion, nor could they 
 believe, that he had the least knowledge of or 
 interest in either army. With due warning as 
 to the consequences of a repetition of their crime, 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 181 
 
 they were allowed to return to their breakfast, 
 and their guest was brought under guard to 
 headquarters. 
 
 Being satisfied, after a close examination of 
 the report, that it would be imprudent to re- 
 main so far from our camp, which could be 
 best reached from Trenton by another road, we 
 left a party of observation, and returned to Union 
 City, directing our scout to go to the vicinity 
 of Trenton and bring to our detachment any 
 information he might obtain. Twelve hours af- 
 ter our arrival home, the detachment returned 
 with the news that Faulkner, with a large force, 
 had moved toward Mayfield, Kentucky, and the 
 event proved that every item of the intelligence 
 we had received had been substantially correct. 
 
 In this manner we were enabled to learn pretty 
 definitely the character of any movement of the 
 enemy anywhere in Western Tennessee, and so 
 far as we had opportunity to investigate the 
 reports they generally proved to be essentially 
 true. These two scouts were worth more as a 
 source of information, than would have been two 
 
182 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 regiments of cavalry in active service. Some- 
 times our Methodist friend acted under definite 
 orders, but more often only according to his 
 own judgment of what was necessary. 
 
 A few days before Christmas we received word 
 that Forrest in person was in Jackson, with a 
 large force, and we moved against him with 
 nearly the whole body of our troops, under the 
 command of old A. J. himself. We reached 
 Jackson at night, after three daj^s' hard march- 
 ing, only to find that Forrest's army had left 
 that morning, destroying the bridges over the 
 swollen rivers and making organized pursuit im- 
 possible. We took up quarters for some days 
 in the town, where we enjoyed the peculiarly 
 lovely climate of the " sunny South " with the 
 thermometer seven degrees below zero, six inches 
 of snow on the ground, and a howling wind 
 blowing. Our own mess was very snugly en- 
 tertained at the house of a magnate, where we 
 had an opportunity to study the fitness of even 
 the best Southern architecture for an Arctic win- 
 ter climate. 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 183 
 
 On New Year's day, as we were sitting at a 
 sumptuous dinner, and mitigating so far as we 
 could the annoyance to our hosts of being in- 
 vaded by a rollicking party of Northern officers, 
 Voisin, who had been called out, returned to 
 the table to tell me that a man and a woman 
 would like to see me in my room. I was not 
 prompt to respond, and asked who they were. 
 He replied, " 0, who can tell? I suppose some- 
 body with a complaint that our men have ' taken 
 some hams of meat ' [" meat " being the Tennessee 
 vulgate for hog flesh only], or something of that 
 sort ; the man seemed to have something the 
 matter with his eyes." And he gave me a large 
 and expressive wink. 
 
 Ensconced, with such comfort as large and 
 rattling windows permitted, before our blazing 
 fire, sat our serene Methodist friend and his 
 sullen wife. Taking me aside, he told me that 
 he had passed the previous evening at a private 
 house between Jackson and Bolivar in religious 
 exercises, which were attended by Forrest and 
 officers of his command. After the devotions 
 
184 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 there was much cheerful and unrestrained talk 
 as to the plans and prospects of the future cam- 
 paign, disclosing the fact that as there seemed 
 no chance of doing efficient service in Tennessee, 
 the whole body would move at once to Central 
 Mississippi and operate in connection with the 
 army in Georgia. This report, which we had 
 no reason to disbelieve, decided A. J. to aban- 
 don a difficult and unpromising pursuit, and to 
 return to Union City and Columbus. We found, 
 on our return, a communication from the head- 
 quarters at Memphis to the effect that Forrest 
 had crossed the railroad and gone far south 
 into Mississippi. 
 
 We had no further service of importance or 
 interest in this region. " Jackson's Purchase " 
 was thenceforward quite free from any consid- 
 erable body of the enemy ; and when our cler- 
 gyman found, a few weeks later, that we were all 
 ordered to the south, he came for a settlement 
 of his accounts, saying that he had been able to 
 deceive his wife only up to the time of our inter- 
 view at Jackson, and as his life was no longer 
 
TWO SCOUTS. 185 
 
 safe in the country, he must depart for the 
 more secure region of his former home in Can- 
 a( j a) — where let us hope that he has been al- 
 lowed to answer the behests of his sacred voca- 
 tion with a mind single to his pious duties, and 
 that domestic suspicion no longer clouds his 
 happy hearthstone. 
 
 Happily, neither A. J. nor Forrest himself 
 had further occasion for his peaceful interven- 
 tion, the fortunate absence of which may have 
 had to do with the notable encounter between 
 these two generals at Tupelo. 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 
 
 HE sun had gone, and above the dreamy 
 blue of the far-lying woods, the early 
 evening had hung the sky with mellow, 
 summery, twilight loveliness. 
 
 The casements of the old house at Whitting- 
 ton glowed ruddy and warm through their mar- 
 vellous clustering ivy, and it was the idlest 
 luxury to hang over the crumbling road - wall, 
 peopling its suggestive chambers with the spirits 
 of their long-gone tenants. It is a farm-house 
 now, and there is no available record to tell the 
 stranger the story of its more glorious days. No 
 rigid history hampers the fancy, and the strolling 
 lover of the by-ways and roadsides of our dear 
 Mother England may let his imagination run with 
 flowing rein, sweeping away the hayricks and 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 187 
 
 marigold beds, and calling back the peacocks and 
 bagwigs of the halcyon days. 
 
 Perhaps for the last time in my life I was tak- 
 ing the breath of an English twilight, — sweet- 
 est to those whose childhood and youth have fed 
 on the rhyme and tale the green old land has 
 sent to her world-wide brood, and who come, in 
 riper life, to find the fancies of early years warm 
 and living on every side, in hedge and field, in 
 cowslip and primrose, in nightingale and lark. 
 The thick-coming impressions such musing brings 
 are vague and dreamy, so that there seemed a 
 shade of unreality in the quiet voice that bade 
 me "Good evening," and added, "Yes, it is an 
 engaging old house, and it has a story that you 
 may be glad to hear." 
 
 It was not from perversity that I turned the 
 subject, but no tale of real life could have added 
 interest to the fancies with which the old manse 
 had clad itself in the slowly waning day. Way- 
 side impressions lose their charm if too much 
 considered, and, as my new companion was walk- 
 ing toward Lichfield, I was glad to turn away 
 
188 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 and join him, — ending a long day's tramp with 
 the slow and quiet gait that his age compelled. 
 There was the least shade of the uncanny in his 
 bearing, and his speech was timorous and gentle. 
 His threadbare and seedy look betokened a na- 
 tive unthrift, but there was an undercurrent of 
 refinement in his mien and in his manner, and 
 a trusting outlook from his large blue eyes that 
 made him the fittest of companions for a summer 
 evening's walk in a country filled with the min- 
 gled flavor of history and romance. 
 
 He was a man of the intensest local training. 
 To him "the County of the City "of Lichfield" 
 was of more consequence than all Staffordshire 
 besides, and far more than all England and all 
 that vague entity called the World. Even the 
 County of the City of Lichfield was large for 
 his concentrated attachment : he knew it as 
 one must know a small town in which he has 
 passed the whole of a long life ; but his heart 
 lay within the cathedral close, and the cathe- 
 dral close lay deep within his heart, — deep and 
 warm, with its history and its traditions, its ro- 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 189 
 
 mance and its reality, so interlaced that he had long 
 since ceased to ask what was real and what unreal. 
 All was unreal in the sense of being of more than 
 worldly consequence in his estimation, and all real 
 as a part of the training of his whole life. 
 
 To him Lichfield Cathedral was no mere pile of 
 sculptured stone, built round with the facts of re- 
 corded history ; it was the fairy handiwork of times 
 and scenes long past, its walls raised by the hand 
 of pious enthusiasm, shattered and cemented by 
 the strife and blood of the civil war, hallowed by 
 the returning glory of the Restoration, blessed 
 by the favor of nxval presence, and now made 
 admirable in his daily sight by the dignity and 
 grace of those holy men its dean and chapter. 
 
 As it was the cathedral I had come to see, 
 and as I had come for no architect's measure- 
 ments, for no student's lore, only to bathe in 
 the charmed atmosphere of its storied past, I 
 had fallen upon a guide after my own heart, and 
 it was as pleasant as it was easy to lend full 
 credence to all he so honestly believed and told. 
 
 In early life he had had gentler training, but 
 
190 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 he had long been a Poor Brother of the Hos- 
 pital of St. John the Baptist in Lichfield, and 
 had, for many years, held, by seniority, the right 
 of presenting a rose, on St. John's nativity day, 
 to the heirs of William Juvenis (goldsmith), who, 
 by grants made in consideration of this ceremony, 
 had secured perennial prayers for the souls of his 
 ancestors and a fragrant memory for his own. 
 
 Hedged about by the traditionary customs 
 and quaint observances of an ancient charitable 
 foundation, deadened in a way, if you please, 
 by the aristocratic pauperism of his condition, 
 my gentle companion had grown to his present 
 dreamy estate. 
 
 As we reached Stow Pool, near the old parish 
 church of St. Chad, he pointed out the spring 
 of pure water where, twelve hundred years ago, 
 this future Bishop of Lichfield — who during 
 his hermit life supported himself on the milk 
 of a doe — was wont to pray naked in the water, 
 standing upon the stone still seen at the bottom 
 of the well, and where St. Ovin heard the an- 
 gels sing as his good soul passed away. 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 191 
 
 Then, with the trusting look of a little child, 
 the Poor Brother went on to tell of the virtues 
 and good deeds of this holy life ; — how even the 
 King of the Mercians, struck with remorse for 
 the crimes he had committed, visited the saint 
 in person, yielded to his eloquent persuasion, be- 
 came a convert to the true faith, and banished 
 all idolatry from his realm ; how he became the 
 head of the church of Lichfield and laid its 
 strong foundations of piety and faith ; and how 
 his virtues so outlived him that his very tomb 
 swallowed the ill-humors of diseased minds re- 
 sorting to its serene presence, that the dust 
 from his grave healed all ills of man and beast, 
 and that the shrine built in his honor after 
 his canonization was so sought by numberless 
 devotees that Lichfield itself began thereupon 
 to increase and flourish. 
 
 To our left, as he ceased, the evening's lin- 
 gering glow gilded the silent pool, where lay 
 the unrippled reflection of the three spires of 
 the cathedral, hardly more unsubstantial than 
 the fairy silhouette that stood clean-cut against 
 
192 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 the sky, and dividing with the reality the rapt 
 admiration of the Poor Brother of St. John's. 
 
 We stood by the water's edge, and he turned 
 toward the phantom spires reversed within it, 
 his talk wandering back to the days of the 
 church's troubles, — when the cathedral close 
 was a fortress, with strong walls and well-filled 
 moat ; when the beautiful west gate, which only 
 our own age was vile enough to destroy, kept 
 stout ward against the outer world, and pro- 
 tected the favored community who formed within 
 the walls a county independent of Lichfield and 
 of Staffordshire. Within the sacred pale no law 
 had force save that of the Ecclesiastical Court, 
 and then, as now, none could there be taken for 
 debt or crime save on the warrant of the dean 
 and chapter. 
 
 He knew by heart the long list of bishops, 
 and would gladly have held me to hear of the 
 good deeds of Langton and Hackett. He was 
 fairly launched in his favorite enthusiasm, and 
 told warmly the more striking features of the 
 church's history, but he told them rapidly lest 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 193 
 
 I should reach the storied pile with less than a 
 full appreciation of its traditional interest. 
 
 From his nervous lips I learned how King 
 Richard II. kept Christmas revels here with a 
 splendor that lavished two hundred tuns of 
 wine, and roasted two thousand oxen, whose 
 bones are still found in Oxenbury field hard 
 by ; how Elizabeth passed three whole days in 
 the close ; and how the solidity of its fortifica- 
 tion, the consummate grace and finish of its 
 architecture, the richness of its sculpture, and 
 the surpassing beauty and magnificence of the 
 nine windows of its lady chapel marked it as 
 the crowning glory of the Western Church, 
 until the dark days of the Revolution lowered. 
 Then its sore trials were recounted, and I learned 
 of the fanatical attack of Lord Brooke, " with 
 his horde of impious Roundheads," made by 
 strange fatality on St. Chad's day ; of the shoot- 
 ing of Lord Brooke by " Dumb Dyott," who 
 was perched in the steeple with a fowling-piece 
 that now hangs over the fireplace of Colonel 
 Dyott's house ; of the surrender of the close 
 9 M 
 
194 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 by Lord Chesterfield ; of the sack and bout that 
 followed; of the recapture by Prince Rupert. 
 
 He told of the foul desecration by the Round- 
 heads, who used every species of havoc, plun- 
 der, and profanation, — pulling down the sacred 
 effigies which were the glory of the western front, 
 hacking to pieces the curious carvings of the 
 choir, mashing the noses of the monumental 
 statues, destroying the valuable evidences and 
 records of the church and the city, shattering 
 the glass of the costly windows, — save only 
 that of the marvellous nine of the lady chapel, 
 which a pious care was said to have removed 
 to a place of safety. They kept courts of guard 
 in the cross aisles, broke up the pavements, and 
 every day hunted a cat with hounds through- 
 out the church, delighting in the echoes from 
 the vaulted roof; they wrapped a calf in linen, 
 and " in derision and scorn of the sacrament of 
 baptism," sprinkled it at the font and gave it a 
 name. 
 
 How the King, after the defeat of Naseby, 
 came from Ashby-de-la-Zouche, and passed the 
 
IN TEE GLOAMING. 195 
 
 night in the close, — how Cromwell's defaming 
 crew completed the work of demolition and dese- 
 cration, and smashed the old bell called "Jesus," 
 with its legend " I am the bell of Jesus, and 
 Edward is our King; Sir Thomas Heywood first 
 caused me to ring," — how, finally, the chapter- 
 house alone had a roof under which service 
 might be said, — how the good Hackett on the 
 first day of his bishopric set his own servants and 
 his own coach-horses at work removing the rub- 
 bish, and never tired until in eight years' time 
 the magnificence of the cathedral was restored, 
 except for the forever irreparable loss of the 
 decorations, and especially of the lady chapel 
 windows, which all the cost of the restoration 
 would not have sufficed to renew, — how the 
 church was reconsecrated with great pomp and 
 solemnity, — all this he told me in detail, and 
 he would gladly have told more, for this Poor 
 Brother had made these few rich historic acres 
 nearly his whole world, and had peopled it with 
 all who throughout the long ages had marred it 
 or had made it. To have given " two good trees " 
 
196 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 for the rebuilding of the church was a title to 
 his lasting and grateful recognition. 
 
 But the light was fast waning, and the cathe- 
 dral must be seen now or perhaps never. It was 
 already past the hour for closing, but one of the 
 vergers had formerly been a Poor Brother of St. 
 John's, and my companion went to him to secure 
 our admission. 
 
 I stood before the west front of the cathedral, 
 which was then bathed in the lingering light of 
 the after-day, its great central window gleaming as 
 though the altar lamps were still burning behind 
 it, and the western spires almost losing them- 
 selves in the sky. The quaint effigies that fill the 
 niches across the whole facade lost their grotesque- 
 ness in the dusk, and seemed really the sacred 
 sculptures they were meant to be. Fair though 
 this rich front must be at high midday, it needs 
 for its full beauty the half-light of a Northern 
 evening. As seen on that rarest of all evenings, it 
 was a fit introduction to the subdued glory which 
 greeted us in the dim religious light to which we 
 entered as the great central door closed behind us. 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 197 
 
 We stood, uncovered and reverent, beneath the 
 vaulted nave, looking down the long curved aisle, 
 bordered by the majesty of the clustered columns, 
 through the light illuminated screen of the choir, 
 full upon the sculptured and gem-set alabaster 
 reredos, above and beyond which stood the famed 
 group of windows of the lady chapel, mellowed 
 by the light of the streaming full moon. 
 
 Rich in the blended mosaic of the floor, in the 
 dimmed canopy overhead, in the lightly arched 
 gallery of the triforium, in the mellow cross-lights 
 of the side windows, in the sombre carvings of 
 the choir, and above all in the marvellous glass 
 of the chapel, it was the very perfection of a wor- 
 shipful church. 
 
 It was too nearly dark to examine the details 
 of the decoration, and we wandered down the 
 aisles, remarking here and there the bruised stat- 
 ues of the tombs, and halting before the sleeping 
 children of Chantrey to marvel how much somno- 
 lent repose can be cut in chiselled stone. 
 
 "But come," said the gentle Brother, "we have 
 only light enough left for the storied glass which 
 
198 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 alone of all the richness of the old church out- 
 lived its desecration, and, as by a miracle, was 
 preserved to tell these later generations of the 
 higher art our forefathers' sons forgot." 
 
 As he spoke, we stood within the charmed light 
 of the nine windows of the apse, — windows which 
 have perhaps no remaining equals in the world, 
 and before which one can only bow in admiration 
 and regret for an art that seems forever lost. 
 Holding me fast by the arm, he went on : — 
 
 " In the restoration of the church, the spandrels 
 of the old windows were rebuilt, and the frames 
 were set with plain glass, to the sad defacement 
 of the edifice ; and so they stood for nigh two 
 hundred years, no art being equal to their worthy 
 replacement, and no ancient store to the supply- 
 ing of so large a demand. 
 
 "But listen, now, how the hand of Heaven shel- 
 tered its own, and how true servants of the Church 
 are ever guided to reclaim its lost splendor. 
 
 "A few years ago, a canon of the cathedral, 
 travelling in Flanders, wishing to contribute to 
 the renewed work of restoration, visited the dis- 
 
IN THE GLOAMING. 199 
 
 mantled convent of Herkenrode in the ancient 
 bishopric of Liege. Here he sought among the 
 rubbish of the lumber-room for wood-carvings 
 which might be used in the rebuilding of the 
 prebendal stalls. His search discovered many 
 boxes of colored glass, the origin of which no 
 one knew, and whose existence even had been 
 forgotten. Thinking to embellish some of the 
 curious triangular windows above the triforium, 
 he purchased the whole store for two hundred 
 pounds of our money, and presented it to the dean 
 and chapter as a tribute of affectionate devotion 
 to the cathedral. There was more than he had 
 supposed, and the large figures of some of the 
 fragments indicated a coherent design. 
 
 "This chapel was fenced off from the aisles, 
 and here the canon's wife and daughter, devot- 
 ing themselves to the solution of the puzzle, 
 slowly pieced out the varying connections. They 
 worked patiently for weeks, with a steadily in- 
 creasing excitement of success, until [and here 
 his grasp grew tremulous and close], lying col- 
 lated on this pavement where we stand, only a 
 
200 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 bit wanting here and there, marking the exact 
 sizes of the varied openings, the grand old Lich- 
 field windows, perfect as you see them now in 
 this softened moonlight, had come back to enrich 
 forevermore the dear old church to whose glory 
 they had shone in the bygone centuries, and whose 
 sore trials their absence had so long recalled. 
 
 "Kind stranger," said he, "this is a true tale. 
 Sceptics have questioned it, but it is true ! true ! 
 And I thank Heaven that it has been permitted 
 to me, who have grown old in the love of this 
 sacred pile, to live to see, in this crowning act 
 of its restoration, the higher help the hand of 
 man has had in performing its holy work." 
 
 His upturned blue e} T es were moistened with 
 tears, and his voice trembled with emotion. I 
 led him gently away and to the doorstep of the 
 Hospital of St. John the Baptist, where we parted 
 in silence, and forever. 
 
 Supping at the Swan Inn, I took the late train 
 for Liverpool and home, bringing with me an ideal 
 Lichfield, to which it would perhaps have been 
 rash to hold the light of a Lichfield day, 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 
 
 N entering the Kegent Hotel at Lea- 
 mington the first object that attracts 
 attention, after the stuffy old porter 
 who hobbles about to see some one else handle 
 the luggage, is a small frame, over the smoking 
 coal-fire, which contains the following notice, dec- 
 orated with an old cut of a fox's mask : — 
 
 MERRY & CO.'S HUNTING APPOINTMENTS, AND GUIDE 
 TO THE DIFFERENT COVERTS. 
 
 December 30, 1872. 
 
 Warwickshire, — at 10. 45. 
 Days. Meet at 
 
 M. Goldicote House. 
 Tu. Radway Grange. 
 W. Snitterfield. 
 
 Th. Red Hill. 
 F. Pebworth. 
 
 Miles. To go through 
 
 11. Wellerbourne and Loxley. 
 
 12. Tachbrook and Kineton. 
 7. Warwick and Stratford Road. 
 
 13. Warwick and Snitterfield. 
 16. Warwick and Stratford, 
 
 9* 
 
202 
 
 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 
 North Warwickshire, — at 11. 
 
 Days 
 
 Meet at Miles. 
 
 To go through 
 
 M. 
 
 Solihull. 14. 
 
 Warwick and Hatton. 
 
 Tu. 
 
 Cubbington Gate. 2. 
 
 Lillington. 
 
 Th. 
 
 Stoneleigh Abbey. 4. 
 
 On Kenilworth Road. 
 
 F. 
 
 Tile Hill. 9. 
 
 By Kenilworth Castle. 
 
 
 Pytchley, - 
 
 -at 10.45. 
 
 M. 
 
 Naseby. 26. 
 
 Princethorpe and Rugby. 
 
 Tu. 
 
 Hazlebeach. 31. 
 
 Dunchurch and Crick. 
 
 W. 
 
 Dingley. 33. 
 
 Rugby and Swinford. 
 
 F. 
 
 Crausley. 36. 
 
 Maidwell. 
 
 S. 
 
 Swinford. 19. 
 
 Princethorpe and Rugby. 
 
 
 Atherstone, — at 11. 
 
 M. 
 
 Coombe. 12. 
 
 Bubbenhall and Wolston. 
 
 W. 
 
 Harrow Inn Gate. 20. 
 
 Coventry and Nuneaton. 
 
 F. 
 
 Brinklow Station. 12. 
 
 Bubbenhall and Wolston. 
 
 S. 
 
 Corley. 14. 
 
 Stoneleigh and Coventry. 
 
 
 Bicester, - 
 
 -at 10.45. 
 
 M. 
 
 Fenny Compton. 12. 
 
 Radford and Ladbrook. 
 
 Tu. 
 
 Trafford Bridge. 19. 
 
 Southam and Wormleighton. 
 
 Th. 
 
 Hellidon. 14. 
 
 Southam and Priory Marston. 
 
 S. 
 
 Steeple Claydon. 40. 
 
 Gaydon and Banbury. 
 
 Twenty-two meets in the week, all within easy 
 reach, by road or rail. Let us dine and decide. 
 At table we will leave the menu to the waiter; 
 but let him bring for consideration during the 
 meal the list of meets. " Brinklow Station, twelve 
 miles " ; that seems the most feasible thing in the 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 
 
 catalogue for the morrow, and who has not heard 
 that the Atherstone is a capital pack 1 But then 
 the Pytchley is even better known, and the train 
 reaches Rugby in time for the meet. Let the 
 choice be decided with the help of coffee and 
 cigars and possible advice, during the soothing 
 digestive half-hour in the smoking-room. Din- 
 ner over, wander away through the tortuous, 
 dim passage that leads to the sombre hall where 
 alone in English inns the twin crimes of billiards 
 and smoking are permitted, and, while writhing 
 under the furtive glances of the staid and middle- 
 aged East-Indian who evidently knows you for 
 an American, and who is your only companion, 
 decide, with your nation's ability to reach conclu- 
 sions without premises, whether it shall be Pytch- 
 ley or Atherstone. Don't ask your neighbor : he 
 is an Englishman, and have we not been told that 
 Englishmen are gruff, reticent men, who wear 
 thick shells, and whose warm hearts can be 
 reached only with the knife of a regular intro- 
 duction'? However, you must make up your 
 mind what .to do, and you need help which 
 
204 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 neither the waiter nor the porter can give; the 
 "gentlemanly clerk" does not exist in England 
 (thank Heaven !) and you have not yet learned 
 what an invaluable mine of information " Boots " 
 is, — faithful, useful, helpful, and serviceable to 
 the last degree. I salute him with gratitude for 
 all he has done to make life in English hotels 
 almost easier and more homelike than in one's 
 own house. It is safe to advise all travellers to 
 make him an early ally, to depend on him, to 
 use him, almost to abuse him, and, finally, on 
 leaving, to "remember" him. Not yet having 
 come to know the Boots, I determined to throw 
 myself on the tender mercies of my stern, silent 
 companion, and I very simply stated my case. 
 My stern, silent companion was an exception to 
 the rule, and he told me all I wanted to know 
 (and more than I knew I needed to know) with 
 a cordiality and frankness not always to be found 
 among the genial smokers of our own hotels. His 
 voice was in favor of the Atherstone as being the 
 most acceptable thing for the next day. 
 
 Ford, the veterinary surgeon of Leamington, 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 205 
 
 had, on several occasions, done good service for 
 friends who had gone before me over the hedges 
 of North Warwickshire, and I went to him for 
 advice about a mount. Here I found that I had 
 made a mistake in not engaging horses in advance. 
 To get a " hunter " for the next day would be im- 
 possible, but he would do what he could for a few 
 days hence. All he could promise for the morn- 
 ing would be to lend me a horse of his own, a 
 thoroughbred mare, not up to my weight, but 
 tough and wiry, and good for any amount of 
 road-work. He kindly volunteered to arrange 
 for our going by the first train to Coventry, only 
 a couple of miles from Brinklow (it turned out 
 to be nine miles), so that we should arrive fresh 
 on the ground. At seven o'clock in the morning 
 he came to my room to say that everything was 
 arranged, and that I should find the mare at the 
 station in an hour. Swallowing a glass of milk 
 as a stay-stomach, — my usual habit, — I put my- 
 self, for the first time since the war ended, into 
 breeches and boots, and drove to the station. On 
 a turn-out stood a "horse-box," one of the insti- 
 
206 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 tutioiis of England, — a three-stabled freight-car 
 for the transportation of horses. Paying five shil- 
 lings for a horse-ticket to Coventry (only twice 
 the cost of my own seat), I saw the mare snugly 
 packed into one of the narrow stalls and made 
 fast for the journey. Passing through a beauti- 
 ful farming country, we came in due time to the 
 quaint old town of Coventry, where several horse- 
 boxes, coming from Birmingham and other sta- 
 tions, were discharging their freight of well-bred 
 hunters. As we rode from this station another 
 hard-shelled Englishman in brown top-boots and 
 spotless white leather breeches accosted me pleas- 
 antly, reminding me that we had come from Lon- 
 don together the day before, and asking, as he 
 had recognized me for an American, if he could 
 be of service to me. 
 
 "Pray how did you know that I am from 
 America 1 " 
 
 " Only by your asking if you should change 
 'cars' at Rugby. An Englishman would have 
 said 'carriages.'" 
 
 "Very well; I am glad my ear-mark was no 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 207 
 
 greater. Can you direct me to a hotel where 
 I can get a bite before I go on?" 
 
 " Certainly : you will find the Angel very com- 
 fortable ; take the next street to the right, and 
 you will soon reach it. Good morning ; it is nine 
 miles to the meet, and I will move on slowly. 
 Command me if I can help you when you come 
 up." 
 
 I did find the Angel comfortable, (as what Eng- 
 lish inn is not?) and soon fortified myself with 
 cold pheasant and sherry, — a compact and little- 
 burdensome repast to ride upon, — served in a 
 cosey old coffee-room by the neatest and most 
 obliging of handmaidens. 
 
 On the road I fell in with straggling groups of 
 horsemen, in red coats and black coats, leather 
 breeches and cords, white tops and black; all 
 neat and jaunty, and all wearing the canonical 
 stove-pipe hat. My little mare was brisk, and I 
 had no hard riding to save her for, so I passed 
 a dozen or more of the party, getting from each 
 one some form or other of pleasant recognition, 
 and finally from a handsome young fellow on a 
 
208 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 very spicy mount, " Excuse rue, are you going 
 to Brinklow 1 ? You must turn to the right." 
 
 Confound these Englishmen, thought I, where 
 is their traditional coldness and reserve? And I 
 reined up for a chat. 
 
 My companion came from the vicinity of Bir- 
 mingham. Like so many of his class, he devotes 
 three days a week to systematic hunting, and 
 he was as enthusiastic as an American boy could 
 have been in telling me all I wanted to know 
 about the sport. To get hold of a grown man 
 who had never seen a foxhound seemed an event 
 for him, and my first instructions were very agree- 
 ably taken. Our road ran past the beautiful deer- 
 stocked park of Coombe Abbey, where the green 
 grass of a moist December and the thick cluster- 
 ing growth of all-embracing ivy carried the fresh 
 hues of our summer over the wide lawn and to 
 the very tops of the trees about the grand old 
 house. The few villages on our way were neither 
 interesting nor pleasant, but the thatched farm- 
 houses and cottages, and the wonderful ivy, and 
 the charming fields and hedges were all that 
 could have been asked. 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 209 
 
 And then the roadsides ! and the stiles and the 
 foot-paths, and the look of age and the richness 
 of the well-kept farms j and again and every- 
 where the ivy clinging fast to each naked thing, 
 and clothing it with luxuriant beauty ! 
 
 There is in all our hearts an inherited chord 
 that thrills in the presence of this dear old home 
 of our race. Not this spot and not these scenes, 
 but the air, the tone, the spirit of it all, — these 
 are as familiar to our instincts as water to the 
 hen-brooded duckling. 
 
 Brinklow Station has the modern hideousness 
 and newness of railroad stations everywhere in 
 country neighborhoods, and it was pleasant to 
 leave it behind and follow the gay crowd down 
 a sloping and winding road into the real coun- 
 try again, and into a handsome and well-kept 
 park, beyond which there stood a fine old house 
 of some pretension, and well set about with ter- 
 raced lawn and shrubbery, — a charming English 
 country-seat. 
 
 Here my eyes were greeted with the glory of 
 my first " meet," and a glory it was indeed I 
 
 N 
 
210 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 Pictures and descriptions had suggested it, but 
 they had only suggested it. This was the real- 
 ity, and it far exceeded my anticipation. The 
 grounds were fairly alive with a brilliant com- 
 pany of men and women, — happy and hearty, 
 and just gathered for the day's sport. Red coats, 
 white breeches, and top-boots were plenty, and 
 the neat holiday air of the whole company was 
 refreshing and delightful. Scattered about sin- 
 gly and in groups, mounted, on foot, and in car- 
 riages, were a couple of hundred people of all 
 ages and of all conditions. Chatting from the 
 saddle and over carriage-doors, lounging up and 
 down the Drive, or looking over the hounds, the 
 company were leisurely awaiting the opening of 
 the ball. They had come from a circuit of twenty 
 miles around, and they appeared to be mainly 
 people who habitually congregate at the cover- 
 side throughout the hunting-season, and to be 
 generally more or less acquainted with each other. 
 The element of coquetry was not absent ; but 
 coquetry is apparently not a natural product of 
 the English soil, and that sort of intercourse was 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 211 
 
 not conspicuous. The same number of handsome 
 youug men and women would be more demon- 
 strative at a similar gathering in America. A 
 similar gathering, however, would not be possi- 
 ble in America. We have no occasion on which 
 people of all sorts come so freely and so natu- 
 rally together, interested in a traditional and 
 national sport, which is alike open to rich and 
 poor, and meeting, not for the single occasion 
 only, but several times a week, winter after win- 
 ter, often for many years. Noblemen, gentlemen, 
 farmers, manufacturers, professional men, snobs, 
 cads, errand-boys, — everybody, in short, who 
 cared to come seemed to have the right to come, 
 and, so far as the hunt was concerned, seemed 
 to be on an equal footing. Of course the poorer 
 element was comparatively small, and mainly 
 from the immediate neighborhood. The habitues 
 of a hunt are seldom below the grade of well- 
 to-do farmers. Servants from the house were 
 distributing refreshments, riders were mounting 
 their hunters, grooms were adjusting saddle- 
 girths, too fiery animals were being quieted, and 
 
212 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 there was generally an air of preparation about 
 the whole assemblage. 
 
 A little at one side, kept well together by the 
 huntsman and a couple of whippers-in, were the 
 hounds (the Atherstone pack), about forty of 
 them, or, technically, " twenty couples," strong- 
 limbed, large-eared, party-colored, wholesome- 
 looking fellows. They attracted much atten- 
 tion and elicited frequent commendation, for they 
 were said to be the very finest pack in England, 
 — as was also each of the three other packs that 
 I saw. To the unskilled eye, and simply viewed 
 as dogs, they were not remarkable ; but it was a 
 case in which the judgment of an unskilled per- 
 son could have no value. 
 
 The horses appealed to me much more strong- 
 ly. Certainly I had never before seen together 
 the same number of the same average excellence ; 
 and some of them were fit to drive one wild with 
 envy. There was, on the whole, less of the 
 " blood " look than would be expected by a man 
 who had got his ideas of the hunting-field from 
 Leech's drawings, but there was a good deal of 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 213 
 
 it, nevertheless, and in its perfection too ; and 
 where it was wanting there was plenty of bone 
 to make up for it. 
 
 At eleven the hounds were led out to the 
 cover, and the whole field followed slowly and 
 irregularly and at some distance. There were 
 about one hundred and fifty mounted for the 
 hunt. Perhaps one third of these wore scarlet 
 coats, white breeches, and top-boots ; another 
 third had black coats and some of them black 
 boots ; and the remainder of the field was made 
 up of half a dozen ladies, a few stout old gen- 
 tlemen of seventy or so on stout old cobs of 
 discreet age, little boys on smart ponies, farmers 
 and tradesmen and their clerks mounted on what- 
 ever they could get, and men of every interme- 
 diate grade, and with all sorts of horses. A cer- 
 tain amount of riff-raff, not mounted at all, but 
 good on their pins and ready for a run, were 
 hanging about for a chance to pick up a whip 
 or a hat, or to catch a horse, or brush a muddy 
 coat, or turn an honest shilling in any way that 
 might offer in the chances of the day. Some 
 
214 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 of these fellows, rigged out with the cast-off 
 clothing of their betters, sported red coats, black 
 velvet caps, and leather leggings. One added to 
 all this gorgeousness the refinement of bare feet. 
 
 The hounds were taken into the cover, a 
 brain bly, tangled wood near by, which had prob- 
 ably been planted and made a little wilderness 
 to serve as a cover for foxes. 
 
 They soon found a fox, drove him to the open, 
 and followed him out of the wood with a whim- 
 pering sort of cry which was disappointing after 
 the notion that the "full cry" of the books had 
 given, and which is heard in the very different 
 fox-hunting of our Southern woods. The run lay 
 up a steepish hill, several fields wide and across 
 an open country. One bold rider (not a light 
 one), mounted on a staving black horse, went to 
 the right of the cover, and made a splendid leap 
 up hill, over a stiff-looking hedge, and landed at 
 the tail of the pack. The " master " and his 
 assistants had got away with the hounds. The 
 rest of the field went to the left, waiting their 
 turns, through a farm-gate. Once through, some 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 215 
 
 twenty of them dashed up the hill, cleared a 
 clever hedge, and kept the pack in sight. The 
 rest took an easier place, where a farm laborer had 
 pulled away the stakes by which a gap had been 
 filled. Here there was much very light jumping, 
 and much more of waiting until predecessors had 
 made it lighter. In the mean time other gaps 
 were found, and it was not many minutes before 
 all were through ; but during these minutes the 
 fox, the hounds, and the harder riding men were 
 putting a wide space between themselves and us, 
 who were at the tail of the field. Yet there 
 were some in the party who did not look like 
 laggards, and whose horses were good enough 
 for any work such a country could give them. 
 
 Even when across the gap, these men went 
 with the rest of us, by gates and lanes, toward 
 a point to which it was thought by the know- 
 ing ones that the fox would double, — and the 
 knowing ones were right. Gradually, as their 
 judgment indicated, they left the roads and took 
 to the fields. This course was taken by three 
 well-mounted young ladies. I followed the gate- 
 
216 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 openers for about half an hour, when, coming 
 out on a high-road, I concluded that, with seven- 
 teen miles to ride home, it was only just to my 
 little mare to give the thing up and head for 
 Leamington. The hounds were far away on my 
 right and quite out of sight. 
 
 Having come to look on and learn, I had prob- 
 acy seen and heard all that day had in store 
 for me, — surely enough for one's first day at 
 fox-hunting. When I had ridden for a few min- 
 utes I saw, far across the fields, that the hounds 
 had turned to the left and were making for my 
 road. Pressing forward, I came up in time to 
 see them cross to the front, and go scurrying 
 away over the grass, nosing out the scent as they 
 ran. There had been a check, and " the field" 
 was well up. The road was lower than the fields, 
 and was bordered by a ditch at each side. From 
 this the ground rose a little, and on each bank 
 stood a three-and-a-half-foot thorn hedge. Nei- 
 ther leap was difficult, but the one out of the 
 road was not easy. Here I sat and saw fully a 
 hundred horsemen, dressed in the gay colors of 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 217 
 
 the hunting-field and mounted as men rarely are 
 mounted out of England, all, horses as well as 
 men, eager and excited in the chase, flying over 
 hedge and ditch into the carriage-way and over 
 ditch and hedge into the higher field, beyond and 
 away, headlong after the hounds, every man for 
 himself, and every man for the front, and on 
 they went over another hedge, and out of sight. 
 In the thick of the flight were two ladies, rid- 
 ing as well and as boldly as the men, and two 
 men were brushing their hats in the road, their 
 empty saddles keeping well up with the run. 
 More than satisfied with this climax of my first 
 day's experience, I trotted out for home. The re- 
 sult of the run I never heard, and I leave its 
 description where I lost sight of it. A mile far- 
 ther on I did see a fagged-looking fox making 
 his rapid way across my road again, and sneak- 
 ing off under the hedge toward a thicket, and I 
 halted to listen to what sounded like the horn 
 of a huntsman at check over the hill to the 
 left ; but possibly the conclusion I drew was not 
 a correct one. 
 10 
 
218 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 I wish that words could give an idea of the 
 life and action of the headlong flight I had just 
 seen ; but the inadequacy of all I had read to 
 convey it to me makes it seem useless to try. 
 Photography and description may, in a measure, 
 supply the place of travel ; but he who would 
 realize the most thrilling intensity of eager horse- 
 manship must stand in a hedge-bound English 
 lane, and see with his own eyes, and for the 
 first time in his life, a hundred gayly dressed 
 and splendidly mounted fox-hunters flashing at 
 full speed across his path j and it is worth the 
 while to see. 
 
 Puiin never fell on a more lovely country than 
 that part of Warwickshire through which my wet 
 way lay. For ten miles of the seventeen it 
 rained, gently as it rains with us in April ; nor 
 is our grass more green in April than this was 
 in Christmas week. The all-prevailing ivy was 
 filled v>ith berries, and the laurustinus was al- 
 ready in bloom. 
 
 Xo born Englishman could have cared less for 
 the soaking rain ; and, wet to the skin, tired to 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 219 
 
 the bone, and stiff to the marrow, I have rarely 
 been more exuberant than when I gradually re- 
 gained the use of my legs in the half-mile i 
 to the hotel, resolving that not even the glories 
 of American citizenship should ever keep me 
 away from England in winter were I only able 
 to afford the luxury of regular hunting. But 
 the exuberance was moral rather than | 
 I had not been so tired for years, — stiff as an 
 old horse, after over thirty miles of really hard 
 riding (the last seventeen miles in two h<. 
 The cure was a hot bath and a dish of hot soup, 
 followed by a log-like sleep of two hours on a 
 before a blazing hot fire, a sharp half-hour's walk, 
 a very plain dinner, and a couple of hours' chat 
 with my interested East-Indiaman in the smok- 
 ing-room : the cure was complete ; and all that 
 was left of the day's sport was its brilliant rec- 
 ollection. 
 
 Ify second day was near Stratford-ou-Avon. — 
 on Jy-von, the misguided English call it. The 
 meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the 
 
220 WHIP AXD SPUE. 
 
 " fixtures " of the Warwickshire Hunt. There 
 were about a hundred persons, including a few 
 ladies, and one little bareheaded " blue -coat " 
 school-boy (from Charles Lamb's school), who, 
 with his folded umbrella, long skirt, low shoes, 
 and yellow hose, was in for as much sport as his 
 Christmas holiday could give him. As a further 
 penalty for want of forethought, I was reduced 
 to riding a friend's coach- horse. However, the 
 reduction was not great, for whether by early 
 instruction or by inheritance, he was more than 
 half a hunter, and gave me a capital look at the 
 whole day's chase ; while his owner, on a most 
 charming black blood mare, being out of con- 
 dition for hard riding, kindly applied himself 
 to urging me to severer work than one likes to 
 do with a borrowed horse. He introduced me to 
 a venerable old gentleman in a time-and-weather- 
 stained red coat, velvet cap, and well-used nether 
 gear, mounted on a knowing-looking old gray, 
 and attended by his granddaughter. He could 
 not have been less than eighty years old, and 
 his days of hard riding were over; but constant 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 221 
 
 hunting exercise every winter for over sixty years 
 had protected him wonderfully well against the 
 ravages of time, and it is rare to see an Ameri- 
 can of sixty so hale and hearty, and so cheerful 
 and jolly. I was told that if I would take him 
 for my leader, I would see more of the run than 
 I could in any other way with such a mount as 
 I had. He seemed to know the habits of the 
 foxes of South Warwickshire as thoroughly as he 
 did every foot-path and gate of the country, and 
 he led us by cross-cuts to the various points to 
 which Reynard circled, so that we often had the 
 whole field in sight. Tt was not an especially 
 interesting day, and the fox got away at last, 
 among a tangle of railway lines that blocked our 
 passage. My old mentor, who had given me 
 much valuable instruction in the details of hunt- 
 ing, was vastly disgusted at the result, and broke 
 out with, " Ah ! it 's all up with old England, I 
 doubt ; these confounded railways have killed 
 sport, There 's no hunting to be had any lon- 
 ger, for their infernal cutting up the country in 
 this way. I Ve hunted with these hounds under 
 
222 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 fifteen different masters, but I 've about done, 
 and I sha' n't lose much, — it *s all up. How- 
 ever, I suppose we could never pay the interest 
 on the national debt without the railways ; but 
 it 's all up with hunting." At that, he called 
 away the young lady, bade me a melancholy 
 "good-by," and rode half sadly home. I gal- 
 loped back to Stratford with my handsome old 
 host, — a little more knowing in the ways of the 
 field, but without yet having had a fair taste of 
 the sport. 
 
 Seven miles from Peterborough, in the dismal 
 little village of Wansford, near the borders of 
 Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, is, per- 
 haps, the only remaining old posting-inn in Eng- 
 land that is kept up in the unchanged style of 
 the ante-railroad days. The post-horses are gone, 
 but the posting-stables are filled with hunters ; 
 the travelling public have fled to the swifter 
 lines, and Wansford is forever deserted of them ; 
 but the old Haycock keeps up its old cheer, and 
 Tom Percival, who boasts that he has had the 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 223 
 
 Princess Victoria for a guest, and has slept five 
 dukes in one night, has little occasion to com- 
 plain of neglect. The good wine that needs no 
 bush still makes his cellar known, and no one 
 should criticise English cooking until he has 
 dined once at the Haycock. Nowhere is the 
 inn-maid of whom we have read so much to be 
 found in such simple, tidy, and courtesying per- 
 fection ; and nowhere, in short, can one find so 
 completely the solid comfort of hostelry life. 
 Half old farm-house and half wayside-inn ; with 
 a marvellous larder, through whose glass-closed 
 side the guest sees visions of joints and jams 
 and pastry in lavish profusion ; backed by a 
 stable-}'ard where boys are always exercising 
 good horses ; and flanked by a yardful of quaint 
 clipped yews, — the old house at Wansford (in 
 spite of its dull-looking road front) is worth a 
 visit from those who would get out of the sight 
 and sound of steam, and see the old, old coun- 
 try life of England. The visitor is not num- 
 bered and billeted and pigeon-holed, as in the 
 modern hotel ; but the old fiction of host and 
 
224 WHIP AND SPUR 
 
 guest is well kept up. Your coming should be 
 announced in advance ; and you are received as 
 in some sort a member of the family, whose 
 ways are made to conform more or less to the 
 wishes of yourself and your convives, mainly 
 young swells from London, who are few, and who 
 are there, as you are, not for business, but for 
 rest, good living, and regular sport. Three packs 
 of hounds are within reach ; and on the days 
 when none of the meets is near, there is always 
 the " larking " — the training of young horses 
 — to supply a good substitute, so far as the 
 riding goes. One who cares for hunting pure 
 and simple, rather than for the gayer life of 
 Leamington and Cheltenham, cannot do better 
 than to make the season, or a part of it, at the 
 Haycock, with regularly engaged horses for as 
 many days in the week as he may choose to 
 ride. It costs, — but it pays. One is none the 
 less welcome among the guests for being an 
 American. 
 
 I there had a day with the George Fitz William 
 hounds. Not being, as yet, quite at home in the 
 
POX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 225 
 
 field, I took a wise old horse, " Cock Robin," who 
 was well up to my weight, and who, as Percival 
 told me, would teach me more than I could teach 
 him. He was sent on early with the other hunt- 
 ers, and I took a " hack " to ride to cover. We 
 were a party of four, and we went through the 
 fields and the lawns and the rain, to where the 
 meet was fixed for eleven o'clock, at Barnwell 
 Castle, a fine old Norman ruin, — square and low, 
 with four large corner towers draped in magnifi- 
 cent ivy. It was a dreary morning, and not more 
 than sixty were out ; but among these, as always, 
 there were ladies, and there was more than the 
 usual proportion of fine horses. One cover was 
 drawn blank, and we moved to another, where 
 a fox was found, and whence the run was sharp 
 and too straight for a prudent novice to see very 
 much of it ; and it was some minutes before Cock 
 Robin and his rider came up with the hounds, 
 who had come to a check in a large wood. 
 Throughout the day there was a good deal of 
 waiting about different covers, between which 
 the fox ran back and forth. Finally he broke 
 10* o 
 
226 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 away for a long, quick burst over the fields, 
 which lay to the left of a farm-road down which 
 we were riding, and which was flanked by a high 
 and solid-looking hedge. Near the head of the 
 party was a well-mounted blonde of seventeen, 
 who had hitherto seemed to avoid the open coun- 
 try and to keep prudently near to her mother and 
 her groom. The sight of the splendid run, fast 
 leaving us behind, was too much for her, and she 
 turned straight for the hedge, clearing it with a 
 grander leap than I had seen taken that day, 
 and flying on over hedges and ditches in the 
 direct wake of the hounds. A young German 
 who followed her said, as we rode back to the 
 Haycock, "It is vort to come from America or 
 
 from Owstria to see zat lofely Lady go over 
 
 ze cowntry " ; and it was. 
 
 Luck often favors the timid ; Cock Robin and 
 I were quite alone — he disgusted, and I half 
 ashamed with my prudence — w T hen the fox, who 
 had found straight running of no avail, came 
 swerving to the right over the crest of a distant 
 hill, closely followed by the hounds, and, in splen- 
 
F0X-UUNT1NG IN ENGLAND. 22 
 
 i 
 
 did style, by the first flight of the field. Soon 
 he crossed a brook which was fenced in with 
 rails, and the horsemen all had to make a long 
 detour, so that I, who had been last, now became 
 first. I had the fox and the hounds all to my- 
 self; my horse was fresh, and the way was easy. 
 My monopoly lasted only a moment, but it was 
 not a moment of tranquillity. Finding an open 
 gate and bridge, I followed the pack into a large 
 low field, surrounded on three sides by the wide 
 brook. The fox was turned by this and ran to 
 the right along the bank ; at the corner of the 
 field he turned again to the right, still keeping 
 by the edge of the stream ; this gave the hounds 
 an immense advantage, and cutting off the angle, 
 they came so closely upon him that with still 
 another turn of the brook ahead of him, he had 
 but one chance for his life, and that was a des- 
 perate one for a tired fox to consider. He did not 
 consider, but went slap at the brook, and cleared 
 it with a leap of nearly twenty feet. The fore- 
 most hounds whimpered for a moment on the 
 bank before they took to the water, and when 
 
228 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 they were across Reynard was well out of sight, 
 and they had to nose out his trail afresh. He 
 brought them again to a check, and finally, after 
 half an hour's skirmishing, he ran down a railway 
 cutting in the wake of a train, and got away. 
 
 Incidentally, here was an opportunity for an 
 English gentleman to show more good temper 
 and breeding than it is one's daily lot to see. 
 He was one of a bridgeful of horsemen watching 
 the hounds as they vainly tried to unraTel the 
 fox's scent from the bituminous trail of the loco- 
 motive, when, full of eager curiosity, one of the 
 ladies, middle-aged and not "native and to the 
 manner born," but not an American, rode directly 
 on to his horse's heels. To the confusion of my 
 lady, the horse, like a sensible horse as he was, 
 resented the attack with both his feet. His rider 
 got him at once out of the way, and then re- 
 turned, bowing his venerable head in regretful 
 apology, and trusting that no serious harm had 
 been done. " How can you ride such a kicking 
 brute ! " was the gracious acknowledgment of his 
 forbearance. 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 229 
 
 In this storied little island one is never for long 
 out of the presence of places on the traditions 
 of which our life-long fancies have been fed. Our 
 road home lay past the indistinct mass of rubbish, 
 clustered round with ivy and with the saddest 
 associations, which was once Fotheringay Castle; 
 and as we turned into the village my companions 
 pointed out the still serviceable but long-unused 
 "stocks" where the minor malefactors of the 
 olden time expiated their offences. 
 
 We reached the Haycock at three, a moist but 
 far from unpleasant body of tired and dirty men, 
 having ridden, since nine in the morning, over 
 fifty-five miles, mostly in the rain, and often in 
 a shower of mud splashed by galloping hoofs. 
 By six o'clock we were in good trim for dinner, 
 and after dinner for a long, cosey talk over the 
 events of the day, and horses and fox-hunting in 
 general. My own interest in the sport is confined 
 mainly to its equestrian side, and I am not able 
 to give much information as to its details. Any 
 stranger must be impressed with the firm hold 
 it has on the affections of the people, and with 
 
230 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 the little public sympathy that is shown for the 
 rare attempts that are made to restrict its rights. 
 
 It would seem natural that the farmers should 
 be its bitter opponents. It can hardly be a cheer- 
 ful sight, in March, for a thrifty man to see a 
 crowd of mad horsemen tearing through his 
 twenty acres of well-wintered wheat, filling the 
 air with a spray of soil and uprooted plants. 
 But let a non-riding reformer get up after the 
 annual dinner of the local Agricultural Associa- 
 tion and suggest that the rights of tenant-farmers 
 have long enough lain at the mercy of their land- 
 lord and his fox-hunting friends, with the rabble 
 of idle sports and ruthless ne'er-do-weels who fol- 
 low at their heels, and that it is time for them to 
 assert themselves and try to secure the prohibi- 
 tion of a costly pastime, which leads to no good 
 practical result, and the burdens of which fall so 
 heavily on the producing classes, — and then see 
 how his brother farmers will second his efforts. 
 The very man whose wheat was apparently ruined 
 will tell him that in March one would have said 
 the whole crop was destroyed, but that the stir- 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 231 
 
 ring up seemed to do it good, for he had never 
 before seen such an even stand on that field. 
 Another will argue that while hunting does give 
 him some extra work in the repair of hedges and 
 gates, and while he sometimes has his fields torn 
 up more than he likes, yet the hounds are the 
 best neighbors he has ; they bring a good market 
 for hay and oats, and, for his part, he likes to get 
 a day with them himself now and then. Another 
 raises a young horse when he can, and if he turns 
 out a clever fencer, he gets a much larger price 
 for him than he could if there were no hunting 
 in the country. Another has now and then lost 
 poultry by the depredations of foxes, but he never 
 knew the master to refuse a fair claim for dam- 
 ages j for his part, he would scorn to ask compen- 
 sation ; he likes to see the noble sport, which is 
 the glory of England, flourishing, in spite of 
 modern improvements. At this point, and at 
 this stage of the convivial cheer, they bring in 
 the charge at Balaklava, and other evidences that 
 the noble sport, which is the glory of old Eng- 
 land, breeds a race of men whose invincible daring 
 
232 WHIP AXD SPCR. 
 
 always has won and always shall win her honor 
 in the field; — and Long live the Queen, and 
 Here 's a health to the Handley Cross Hunt, and 
 Confusion to the mean and niggardly spirit that 
 is filling the country with wire fences and that 
 would do away with the noble sport which is 
 the glory of old England ! Hear ! hear ! ! And 
 so it ends, and half the company, in velvet caps, 
 scarlet coats, leathers and top-boots, will be early 
 on the ground at the first meet of the next 
 autumn, glad to see their old cover-side friends 
 once more, and hoping for a jolly winter of such 
 healthful amusements and pleasant intercourse as 
 shall put into their heads and their hearts and 
 into their hearty frames and ruddy faces a tenfold 
 compensation for the trifling loss they may sustain 
 in the way of broken gates and trampled fields. 
 
 I saw too little to be able to form a fair opinion 
 as to the harm done ; but when once the run 
 commences no more account is made of wheat, 
 which is carefullv avoided when goimr at a slow 
 pace, than if it were so much sawdust ; fences 
 are torn down, and there is no time to replace 
 
FOX-HUXTIXG IN ENGLAND. 233 
 
 them ; if gates are locked, they are taken off the 
 hinges or broken : if sheep join the crowd in an 
 enclosure and follow them into the road, no one 
 stops to see that they are returned : we are after 
 the hounds, and sheep must take care of them- 
 selves. I saw one farmer, in an excited manner, 
 open the gates of his kitchen-garden and turn 
 the hounds and twenty horsemen through it as 
 the shortest way to where he had seen the fox 
 go ; his womenfolk eagerly calling " Tally-ho ! " to 
 others who were going wrong. I have never 
 seen a railroad train stopped because of the con- 
 ductor's interest in a passing hunt, but I fancy 
 that is the only thing in England that does not 
 stop when the all-absorbing interest is once awak- 
 ened. 
 
 Whatever may be the effect on material inter- 
 the benefit of this eager, vigorous, outdoor 
 life on the health and morals of the people is most 
 unmistakable. Such a race of handsome, hale, 
 straight-limbed, honest, and simple-hearted men 
 can nowhere else be found as in the wide class that 
 passes as much of every winter as is possible in 
 
234 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 regular fox-hunting; and to make an application 
 of their example, we could well afford to give over 
 many of our fertile fields to ruthless destruction, 
 and many of our fertile hours to the most sense- 
 less sport, if it would only replace our dyspeptic 
 stomachs, sallow cheeks, stooping shoulders, and 
 restless eagerness with the hale and hearty and 
 easy-going life and energy of our English cousins. 
 Hardly enough women hunt in England to con- 
 stitute an example ; but those who do are such 
 models of health and freshness as to make one 
 wish that more women had the benefit of such 
 amusement both there and here. It is very com- 
 mon to see men of over sixty following the hounds 
 in the very elite of the field ; they seem still in the 
 vigor of youth. At seventy many are yet regular 
 at their work ; and it is hardly remarkable when 
 one finally hangs up his red coat only at the age 
 of eighty. Considering all this, it almost becomes 
 a question whether, patriotism to the contrary 
 notwithstanding, it would not be a good thing for 
 a prosperous American, instead of settling down at 
 the age of forty-five to a special partnership and a 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 235 
 
 painful digestion, to take a smaller income where 
 it would bring more comfort, and by a judicious 
 application of the pig-skin to rehabilitate his en^ 
 feebled alimentation. 
 
 Fox-hunting is a costly luxury if one goes well 
 mounted and well appointed. It can hardly be 
 made cheap, even when one lives in his own 
 house and rides his own horses. With hotel bills 
 and horse-hire, it costs still more. As an occa- 
 sional indulgence it is always a good investment. 
 My own score at the Haycock was as follows, — by 
 way of illustration, and because actual figures are 
 worth more than estimates. (I was there from 
 Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning, went 
 out with a shooting-party on Friday, dined out on 
 Friday night, and hunted on Saturday.) 
 
 THE HAYCOCK INN. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Jan. 2. Dinner and wine, 10 6 
 
 Bed and fire, 3 6 
 
 " 3. Breakfast, .....•• 2 6 
 
 Apartments,* bed and fire, . . • .50 
 
 Attendance,! • * 6 
 
 * The ran of the house. 
 
 f We are apt to consider this a petty swindle, but it has the 
 advantage that yon get what you pay for. 
 
236 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 Jan. 4. Breakfast, 2 6 
 
 Dinner and wine, 10 6 
 
 Apartments, bed and fire, 5 6 
 
 Attendance, 16 
 
 " 5. Breakfast, 2 6 
 
 Stable. 
 
 Conveying luggage from station, . . . 2 6 
 
 Dog-cart to Sharks Lodge, 10 6 
 
 " " " Oundle, 12 6 
 
 " " " Peterborough, . . . • .80 
 
 Thomas Percival. 
 
 Jan. 4. Hire of hunter to Barnwell, . . . 4 4 
 
 " hack " " .... 10 6 
 
 Eight pounds, twelve shillings, and sixpence ; 
 which being interpreted means $ 47.30 in the 
 lawful currency of the United States. The hunter 
 and hack for one day cost $ 23.52. 
 
 An American friend living with his family in 
 Leamington (much more cheaply than he could 
 live at home), kept two hunters and a hack, and 
 hunted them twice a week for the whole season 
 (nearly six months) at a cost, including the loss on 
 his horses, which he sold in the spring, of less 
 than $ 1,500. I think this is below the average 
 expense. 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 237 
 
 The cost of keeping up a pack of hounds is 
 very heavy. The hounds themselves, a well-paid 
 huntsman, two or three whippers-in, two horses 
 a day for each of these attendants (hunting four 
 days a week, this would probably require four 
 horses for each man), and no end of incidental 
 expenses, bring the cost to fully $ 20,000 per 
 annum. This is sometimes paid wholly or in part 
 by subscription and sometimes entirely by the 
 Master of the Hounds. One item of my friend's 
 expenses at Leamington was a subscription of 
 ten guineas each to the Warwickshire, North 
 Warwickshire, Atherstone, and Pytchley hunts. 
 Something of this sort would be necessary if 
 one hunted for any considerable time with any 
 subscription pack, but an occasional visitor is 
 not expected to contribute. 
 
 A stranger participating in the sport need only 
 be guided by common modesty and common- 
 sense. However good a horseman he may be, 
 he cannot make a sensation among the old stagers 
 of the hunting-field. Probably he will get no 
 commendation of any sort. If he does, it will be 
 
238 WHIP AND SPUR 
 
 for keeping out of the way of others, — taking 
 always the easiest and safest road that will bring 
 him well up with the hounds, not flinching when 
 a desperate leap must be taken, and following (at 
 a respectful distance) a good leader, rather than 
 trying to take the lead himself. However prom- 
 ising the prospect may be, he had better not do 
 anything on his own hook ; if he makes a conspic- 
 uous mistake, he will probably be corrected for it 
 in plainer English than it is pleasant to hear. 
 
 One of the memorable days of my life was the 
 day before New- Year's. Ford had secured me a 
 capital hunter, a well- clipped gelding, over six- 
 teen hands high, glossy, lean, and wiry as a racer. 
 " You 've got a rare mount to-day, sir," said the 
 groom as he held him for me to get up ; and a 
 rare dismount I came near having in the little 
 measure of capacity with which Master Dick and 
 I commenced our acquaintance, before we left the 
 Regent. He was one of those horses whose spirits 
 are just a little too much for their skins, and all 
 the way out he kept up a restless questioning of 
 
FOX-HUNTIXG IN ENGLAND. 239 
 
 his prospect of having his own way. Still he was 
 in all this, as in his manner of doing his work 
 when he got into the open country, such a perfect 
 counterpart of old Max, who had carried me for 
 two years in the Southwest, that I was at home 
 at once. If I had had a hunter made to order, I 
 could not have been more perfectly suited. 
 
 The meet (North Warwickshire) was at Cub- 
 bington Gate, only two miles from Leamington, 
 and a very gay meet it was. The road was filled 
 with carriages, and there was a goodly rabble on 
 foot. About three hundred, in every variety of 
 dress, were mounted for the hunt, a dozen or so of 
 ladies among them. Three of these kept well up 
 all day, and one of them rode very straight. The 
 hounds were taken to a wood about a mile to the 
 eastward of Cubbington, where they soon found a 
 fox, which led us a very straight course to Prince- 
 thorpe, about three miles to the northeast. 
 
 I had done little fencing for seven or eight 
 years, and the sort of propulsion one gets in being 
 carried over a hedge is sufficiently different from 
 the ordinary impulses of civil life to suggest at 
 
240 WHIP AND SPUE. 
 
 first the element of surprise. Consequently, 
 though our initial leap was a modest one, I landed 
 with only one foot in the stirrup and with one 
 hand in the mane ; but I now saw that Dick was 
 but another name for Max, and this one moderate 
 failure was enough to recall the old tricks of the 
 craft. As the opportunity would perhaps never 
 come again, this one was not to be neglected, 
 and I resolved to have one fair inside view of real 
 fox-hunting. Dick was clearly as good a horse as 
 was out that day ; the leaping was less than that 
 to which we were used among the worm-fences, 
 fallen timber, and gullies of Arkansas and Ten- 
 nessee ; and there was but a plain Anglo-Saxon 
 name for the only motive that could deter me 
 from making the most of the occasion. Mr. Lant, 
 the Master of the Hounds, was not better mounted 
 for his lighter weight than was I for my fourteen 
 stone ; and his position as well as his look indi- 
 cated that he would probably go by the nearest 
 practicable route to where the fox might lead, so 
 we kept at a safe distance behind him and well in 
 his wake. The hesitation and uncertainty which 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 241 
 
 had at first confused my bridle-hand being re- 
 moved, my horse, recognizing the changed position 
 of affairs, settled down to his work like a well- 
 trained and sensible but eager beast as he was. 
 From the covert to Princethorpe we took seven 
 fences and some small ditches, and we got there 
 with the first half-dozen of the field, both of us 
 in higher spirits than horse and rider ever get 
 except by dint of hard going and successful fen- 
 cing. 
 
 Here there was a short check, but the fox was 
 soon routed out again and made for Waveley 
 Wood, a couple of miles to the northwest. 
 
 Waveley Wood is what is called in England a 
 " biggish bit of timber," and the check here was 
 long enough to allow the whole field to come 
 up. As we sat chatting and lighting our cigars, 
 " Tally-ho ! " w T as called from the other side of 
 the cover, and we splashed through a muddy 
 cart-road and out into the open just as the 
 hounds were well away. Now was a ride for dear 
 life. Every one had on all the speed the heavy 
 ground would allow. In front of us was a " bull- 
 11 p 
 
242 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 finch " (a neglected hedge, out of which strong 
 thorny shoots of several years' growth have run 
 up ten or twelve feet above it). I had often 
 heard of bullfinches, and no hunting experience 
 could be complete without taking one. It w T as 
 some distance around by the gate, the pace was 
 strong, and the spiny fringe had just closed be- 
 hind Mr. Lant's red coat as he dropped into the 
 field beyond. " Follow my leader " is a game 
 that must be boldly played ; so, settling my hat 
 well down, holding my bridle-hand low, and cov- 
 ering my closed eyes with my right elbow, with 
 the whip-hand over the left shoulder, I put my 
 heart in my pocket and went at it, and through 
 it with a crash ! An ugly scratch on the fleshy 
 part of the right hand was the only damage done, 
 and I was one of the very few near the pack. 
 Dick and I w r ere now up to anything ; we made 
 very light of a thick tall hedge that came next 
 in order, and we cleared it like a bird ; but we 
 landed in a pool of standing water, covering 
 deeply ploughed ground, the horse's forefeet 
 sinking so deeply that he could not get them 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 243 
 
 out in time, and our headway rolled us both 
 over in the mud, I flat on my back. Dick got 
 up just in time for his pastern to strike me in 
 the face as I was rising, giving me a cut lip, a 
 mouthful of blood, and a black and blue nose- 
 bridge. My appearance has, on occasions, been 
 more respectable and my temper more serene 
 than as I ran, soiled and bleeding, over the 
 ploughed ground, calling to some workmen to 
 "catch my horse." 
 
 I was soon up and away again. There seemed 
 some confusion in the run, and the master being 
 out of sight, I followed one of the whips as he 
 struck into a blind path in a wood. It was a 
 tangled mass of briers, but he went in at full 
 pace, and evidently there was no time to be Io&t. 
 At the other side of the copse there was a set 
 of low bars, and beyond this a small, slimy ditch. 
 My leader cleared the bars, but his horse's hind 
 feet slipped on the bank of the ditch, and he fell 
 backwards with an ugly kind of sprawl that I had 
 no time to examine, for Dick took the leap easily 
 and soon brought me into a field where, on a little 
 
244 WHIP AND SPUR. 
 
 hillock, and quite alone, stood the huntsman, dis- 
 mounted, holding the dead fox high in his left 
 hand, while with his long-leashed hunting-crop 
 he kept the hungry and howling pack at bay. 
 The master soon came up, as did about a dozen 
 others, including a bright little boy on a light 
 little pony. The fox's head (mask), tail (brush), 
 and feet (pads) were now cut off and distributed 
 as trophies under the master's direction. The 
 carcass was then thrown to the pack, that fought 
 and snarled over it until, in a twinkling, the last 
 morsel had disappeared. This was the "death," 
 — by no means the most engaging part of the 
 amusement. From the find to the killing was 
 only twenty-five minutes, into which had been 
 crowded more excitement and more physical 
 happiness than I had known for many a long 
 day. 
 
 The second cover drawn was not far away. 
 With this fox we had two hours' work, mainly 
 through woods at a walk and with the hounds 
 frequently at fault, but with some good leaping. 
 Finally he was run to earth and abandoned. 
 
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 245 
 
 We then went to a cover near Bubbenhall, but 
 found no fox, and then, with the same luck, to 
 another east of Baggington. It was now nearly 
 four o'clock, growing dusk, and beginning to rain. 
 The hounds started for their kennels, and Dick 
 and I took a soft bridle-path skirting the charm- 
 ing road that leads, under such ivy-clad tree- 
 trunks and between such hedges as no other land 
 can show, through Stoneleigh Village and past 
 Stoneleigh Abbey to Leamington, and a well- 
 earned rest. 
 
 My memorandum for that day closes : " Horse, 
 £2 12 s. Qd.-j Fees, 2 s.; and well worth the 
 money." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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