JOHN A. SEAVERNS

luno univtngn i lid

<r\s

3 9090 013 420 365

>C-

Webster Family Libn

Cummings Si ". . . .

Tufts

200 i )oro Road

North Grafton, MA 01536

nary Medicine

y Medicine at

WHIP AND SPUR

WHIP AND
SPUR

BY

COL. GEORGE E. WARING, JR.

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &
COMPANY . . . MCMIV

COPYRIGHT, 1897
BY DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.

CONTENTS.

♦—

Page

Vix 7

Ruby 34

Wettstein 67

Campaigning with Max ... 93

How I got my Overcoat 138

Two Scouts 162

In the Gloaming 186

Fox-Hunting in England .... 201

WHIP AND SPUR.

VIX.

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 buy1? 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 j

8 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. 9

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
unelastic 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 watched her for years, and scraped
acquaintance with her different owners as fast as
she had changed them, and finally, when she was
far gone with pneumonia, he had accepted her as
a gift, and, by careful nursing, had cured her.
Then, for a time, he rode her himself, and his eye
brightened as he told of her leaps and her stride.
Of course he rode her to the races, and — one
luckless day — when he had lost everything, and

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 lacer, 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

H 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 young 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. Sho had suc-
cumbed to dire necessity, and earned her ignoble
oats with dogged fidelity. She had a little warm

16 WHIP AND SPUR.

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 j 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-

v/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 hour and forty-five
minutes, including a rest of twenty minutes at
Pelham Bridge, and I frequently rode twenty-five
miles out in the morning and back in the 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 carried 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

VIX. 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 cb 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, who had
made herself perfeetly 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

VI X. 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 Cavalry, the moral effect of
whose unseen terrors was driving our herds,
panting, back to the Potomac. Late in the
night we turned our backs on our idle field,
and brought up the rear of the sad retreat.
Our regiment was the last to move out, and
Vix and I were with the rear-guard. Wet, cold,
tired, hungry, unpursued, we crept slowly through
the scattered 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 resolute 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

VJX. 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 was very active, and Vix had hard service
on insufficient food, — she seemed to be sustained
by sheer nervous strength.

At last the order to advance was given, and we
were to move out at daybreak; then came a
countermanding order; and then, late in the
evening, 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 would have been Price's opportunity.

It was the loveliest Indian-summer weather,
and the wonderful opal atmosphere of the Ozark
Mountains was redolent with the freshness of a

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 fbgers, she came back to her old way, and
went on nicely. Still she perspired unnaturally,
and I felt uneasy about her when I dismounted
and gave her rein to Rudolf, my orderly.

Late in the night, when the moon was in
mid-heaven, he came to my tent, and told me
that something was the matter with Vixen. My
adjutant and I hastened out, and there we 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 SPUR.

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, when 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 hope1? 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* o

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-
bie d'Eaux ; and probably life was easier to all
under me when I was satisfied and happy. I an?
not conscious of having been mean and crabbed,
or of favoring those who favored me to the disad-

RUBY. 35

vantage of those who did not. I cannot recall
an instance of taking a bribe, even in the form
of a pleasant smile. It was probably easier, in
the long run, to be fair than to be unfair, and
therefore the laziest private ever ordered on extra
duty could not lay his hand on his heart and say
he thinks it was done because he was not diligent
in foraging for turkeys and hens for my private
mess. I had very early in life been impressed
with the consciousness that the way of the trans-
gressor is not easy ; and as I wanted my way to
be easy, I fell into the way of not transgressing.
This may not have been a very worthy motive
to actuate the conduct of a military commander ;
but perhaps it was as good as the average in
our Department of the Southwest, where, if the
truth must be told, virtue did not have it all its
own way, — we were different from troops farther
east ; and although it made me sometimes wince
to have my conduct ascribed to a noble upright-
ness of purpose, and showed that it wtfuld 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

p— ii — — — i m mmmtmmm ^i ... ■ ■ ■ i «

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 1 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

- ~ * ■-.— — - ■ i . . — . . .,- . i ■ . i . . ,i i I. I., . ^

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 t. e 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 cany 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? well now, I reckon he 's a consid'-
able of a boss."

I sent him to look at him again, and he came
back with a very thoughtful air, — evidently he
had been impressed. At last he said, " Well now,
Colonel, I don't reckon you bought that hoss to
look at him on the picket-line, did ye?"

"No, Ike, or he should be sold out very

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 SPUR.

high I don't know, probably not fifteen feet, but
it seemed that, and covering a good stretch to
the front. It was the most enormous lift I had
ever had, and (after an appreciable time in the
air), when he landed square on all four feet, it
was to strike a spanking, even trot, the bit 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 1 Nice pretty strong
horse, what?"

And then, his English failing him, he fell,
through an attempt at French, into German, in
which his tongue was far more ready than my
ear. Still it was easy to gather enough to un-
derstand some of the processes by which the

47
RUBY.

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 SPUR.

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 " Roubie
d'Eaux," which was soon translated and short-
ened to "Kuby," — 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 wheD, 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? — well, the hoss could have
won the race fast enough, but then, you see, my
master, — well, he was a drinkin' kind of a man,
an' I thought I might as well fix it. I knowed
I was up for stakes, an' that's how I come to
Missouri ; I ain't no Missouri man born, but that 's
how it was."

He had become a good body-servant without
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 wavs.

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, was all that
the native male population had to keep them
out of mischief, for weeks and weeks together.
There was just enough of this sort of armed
lawlessness to furnish us with a semblance of
duty ; not enough seriously to interrupt our more
regular avocations.

Lebanon is on the high table-land of the
Ozarks, in the heart of a country flowing with
prairie-hens and wild turkeys, and bountifully
productive of the more humdrum necessaries
of life. Thanks to the fleeing of Rebel 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 les3 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 anything
at Lebanon when, finally, we set out for Arkansas.

We made our first considerable halt early in
May, at Batesville, on the White River, — a lovely,
rose-grown village, carrying, in the neatly kept
home of its New England secessionists, evidence
that they remembered their native land, where, in

RUBY. 57

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 skiu anything around here, I don't
know nothin' about horses."

"Ike, did you ever run that horse 1"

"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 always
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

04 WHIP AND SPUE.

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? 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.

" 0 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.

66

WHIP AND SPUR.

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

WETTSTEIN. 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 SPUR.

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 "VVettstein's horn, they earned
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 ? 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 SPUR.

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 humps, straight as a gun-barrel, the
brightest of bugles suspended across his back by-
its tasselled yellow braid, slashed like a harlequin
over the breast, his arms chevroned with gorgeous
gold, — Wettstein, with his cap-front turned up
so as to let the sun fall full on his frank blue eyes
and his resolute blond mustache, was the very
picture of a cavalry bugler in active campaign.

Smoking, gabbling, singing, rollicking, from
morning until night, and still on until morning
again if need be, he never lost spirit nor temper.
He seemed to absorb sunshine enough during the
day to keep every one bright around him all night.
When at last his bugle had been stilled forever,
we long missed the cheer of his indomitable 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 SPUR.

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 were short, he sent me,
from the guard-house where he had been confined
for getting them, a dozen bundles of corn-blades
for my horses; not as a bribe, but because he
would not allow the incidents of discipline to 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 iie strolled
free past my tent. Altogether, I never saw hia
like before or since. The good fortune to get

76 WHIP AND SPUR.

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 all one to him and Klitschka ; and
in Vix's day they followed her lead over many a
spot that the others had to take by flank 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 Eebel 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 necessaiy 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.

WETTSTEIN. 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, t't'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-

WET T STEIN. 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 SPUE.

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 SPUR.

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 foimd 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,

WET T STEIN. 85

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
Rebel 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-
maduke'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 ;

WET T STEIN. 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
Rebels 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 Fairview Road for Little Rock. The last
bird had flown, and we could safely march back
at our leisure.

Wettstein filled 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 saug 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,

WETT 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 WITE 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 was 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 writhin, —
a mellow geniality that warmed to the influences
of our modest hospitality, and lasted far into
the night ; and then, when 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,
5 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; 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
Euby 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 had 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 work 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 gun 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 counted 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 banks " with the
thaw. We reached the ferry only at nightfall of
the 23d, over roads that had hourly growrn 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 Karge, 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 cross-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 Tallahatchce at New Albany barelj.'

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 ; 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

H

114 WHIP AND SPUR.

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 ho 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 hill top, 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 SPUR.

of the opening of the short engagement ; 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 — pfivit — 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
went 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
6

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 and 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
inoiAint 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 SPUR.

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 cavalry
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 was 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 hitting1?" 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 whom four years of cavalry
service had estranged from eveiy 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 Voisin'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
Bome inconveniences that were then attending it
in St. Louis. Would I get him enlisted? 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

BOW 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
well-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

HOW 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 mone}r-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 Kiirassier, 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 nothiug 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 pla}Ted 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. 149

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 singu-
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 was
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 SPUR.

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

SOW 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 b}'
a fond young mother in the remote castle of
Schlodien ; 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

EOW 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 youth
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 SPUR.

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. 161

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 Kurassier is still living,
I beg to inform him that his overcoat — the only
memento of a grave Schwindelei — 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 denied 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 ccwscripted 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 bresh, an' I reckon I 've pestered them 'uns
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 gum-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. 165

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-
ploy^ 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 months of our stay he

1G6 WHIP AND SPUR.

was almost ubiquitous. Every scouting-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, tvhich? 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 'm ketched, and till I am ketched I 'm goin'
my 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 SPUR.

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. 173

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 SPUR.

was pre-eminently a man of peace, and if lie
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 house 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
chimney-corner. 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 guests.

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 course 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

180 WHIP AND SPUR.

the art of deceit, in which he was himself such
an adept, and laying his hand on the Hun'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 days' 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 tell1? 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-
ada,— 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 TEE 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 royal 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 wan-ant 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 Dyo^tt," 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 tho

IN THE 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 Hey wood 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.

11 But come," said the gentle Brother, " we have
only light enough left for the storied glass which

198 WHIP AND SPUR.

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, untir [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 eyes 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 Eegent 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

Miles.

To go thrmigh

M.

Goldicote House.

11.

Wellerbourne and Loxley.

Tu.

Radway Grange.

12.

Tachbrook and Kineton.

W.

Snitterfield.

7.

Warwick and Stratford Road.

Th.

Red Hill.

13.

Warwick and Snitterfield.

F.

Pebworth.

9*

16.

Warwick and Stratford.

202

WHIP AND SPUR.

North Warwickshire, — at 11.

Days. Meet at Miles.

M. Solihull. 14.

Tu. Cubbington Gate. 2.

Th. Stoneleigh Abbey. 4.

F. Tile Hill. 9.

To go through
Warwick and Hatton.
Lillington.

On Kenilworth Road.
By Kenilworth Castle.

Pytchley, — at 10.45.

M. Naseby.

Tu. Hazlebeach.

W. Dingley.

F. Cransley.

S. Swinford.

26 . Princethorpe and Rugby.

31. Dunchurch and Crick.

33. Rugby and Swinford.

36. Maidwell.

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 Wornileighton.

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. 203

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 1 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.

tutions 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 % "

"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 on1?"

" 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 me, are you going
to Brinklow1? 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.

VOX-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 ; 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 !

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
young 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
brambly, 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 ciy " 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-
ably 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 ; and it is worth the
while to see.

Rain 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 with berries, and the laurustinus was al-
ready in bloom.

No 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 walk
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 physical.
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 hours).
The cure was a hot bath and a dish of hot soup,
followed by a log-like sleep of two hours on a sofa
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.

My second day was near Stratford-on-Avon, —
on Ay-von, the misguided English call it. The
meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the

220 WHIP AND SPUR.

"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. It 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 nry 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-yard 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

FOX-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 — when 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-

FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 227

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 unravel 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 ; 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 AND SPUR.

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 carefully avoided when going at a slow
pace, than if it were so much sawdust; fences
are torn down, and there is no time to replace

FOX-HUNTING 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-
ests, 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 SPUE.

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,! 16

* The run of the house.

+ We are apt to consider this a petty swindle, but it has the
advantage that you get what you pay for.

236 WHIP AND SPUE.

& 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, ... 26

Dog-cart to Sharks Lodge, 10 6

" " " Oundle, 12 6

" " " Peterborough, . . . • .80

Thomas Percival.
Jan. 4. Hire of hunter to Barnwell, . . . 4 4 0

" 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-HUNTING 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 SPUR.

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
sraft. 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

■ ■ ■ ■ ^-*- ...i— - ■ ■ ■ ■ ... ■ . i ■ i ■ — — — . j

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 ! " was 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 was
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 were 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 lost.
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 SPUE.

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.; Fees, 2 s.; and well worth the
money."

THE END.

Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Cumn 4 (if veterinary Medicine at

Tufts

200 Wes

North Grafton, MA 01538

V

:- :i

:";

■ ■ : ■

'■'•:

' ■ '■ ;

■ ;:

■■ ■

■ - .