Monthly Archives: May 2014

Civil War Horses

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Some Civil War Horses And Their Riders

Horses used by Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and George B. McClellan in the Civil War.

Traveller and Robert E. Lee

General Robert E. Lee and Traveler

General Robert E. Lee and Traveller

Confederate General Robert E. Lee came to Richmond, Virginia in the spring of 1861. During this visit Lee was given a bay stallion named Richmond. Richmond was a nervous horse and he proved to be unsatisfactory. When Richmond was near strange horses he would tend to squeal and this was not a good thing for a Civil War horse to do.

Lee took Richmond to West Virginia and purchased another horse called The Roan or Brown-Roan. Unfortunately, The Roan began to go blind during the Seven Days’ Battle in June and July of 1862. The horse Richmond died after Malvern Hill. After Second Bull Run, cavalryman Jeb Stuart got Lee a mare named Lucy Long and also around this time, Lee received a sorrel horse named Ajax.

When Lee rode to Appomattox Court House to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 he was riding his favorite and most known horse. This gray colored horse was Traveller. After the Civil War when Robert E. Lee was president at Washington University (later renamed to Washington and Lee University), Lee’s favorite old war-horse Traveller was still with him. When Lee died, the horse Traveller walked behind Lee’s hearse in the funeral procession. Traveller walked with his head bowed and in a slow gait. Traveller is buried outside of the Lee Chapel on the campus of Washington and Lee University. Robert E. Lee is interred in a crypt beneath the Lee Chapel.

Lexington, Sam, and William Tecumseh Sherman

William Tecumseh Sherman had two favorite horses during the Civil War, these horses were named Lexington and Sam. Sherman rode Lexington at Atlanta and in the Grand Review in Washington at the close of the war. Sam was injured several times during the Civil War. At Shiloh, three of Sherman’s horses were killed during the battle. Two of these three horses died as an orderly held their reigns.

Cincinnati and Ulysses S. Grant

As a young man, Ulysses S. Grant developed a love of horses when he worked at his father’s farm. Grant became a skilled equestrian. Grant was an exceptional equestrian while a cadet at West Point, although he didn’t stand out as having exceptional talents in anything else at West Point. When Grant finished at West Point, he was hoping for a commission in the cavalry. At the time the cavalry had no vacancies, so Grant ended up in the infantry. For a horse-loving equestrian like Ulysses S. Grant, the infantry assignment must have been a great disappointment.

An admirer gave the horse Cincinnati to Grant after the Battle of Chattanooga and Cincinnati became Grant’s favorite horse during the Civil War. Cincinnati was seldom ridden by anyone other than Grant. One notable exception being President Abraham Lincoln, who rode Cincinnati when the president last visited City Point, Virginia. Other horses Grant had in the Civil War were Jack, Fox, and Kangaroo. Kangaroo was left on the Shiloh battlefield by the Confederates. This horse was described as ugly and raw-boned. Grant having an eye for horses however, knew that Kangaroo was a thoroughbred. After becoming a Yankee horse, Kangaroo got rest and care, and became a fine horse.

Little Sorrel and Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson on Little Sorrel

Stonewall Jackson on Little Sorrel

Little Sorrel was Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson’s horse. Stonewall was riding this horse when he was shot by friendly fire at Chancellorsville. Little Sorrel became Jackson’s horse in May of 1861 at Harpers Ferry. The horse was about eleven-years-old at this time. Note: There is reference to Stonewall’s horse being called both Old Sorrel and Little Sorrel.

That Devil Dan and George B. McClellan

Union General George B. McClellan’s favorite war-horse was named Daniel Webster. Members of General McClellan’s staff began to call this horse “that devil Dan” because Daniel Webster was a speedy horse. The horses of McClellan’s staff members had trouble keeping up with “that devil Dan.” Daniel Webster was with McClellan at Antietam. This horse was described as being a dark bay, about seventeen hands high, a pure bred, handsome, and he seldom showed signs of fatigue. Daniel Webster was a fine example of a horse. When McClellan retired from military service, the horse Daniel Webster went with him. The horse nicknamed “that devil Dan” became the family horse of the McClellan family.

My Kingdom for a Horse: Confederate Leaders and their Horses

“A dog may be man’s best friend, but the horse wrote history.”

…Unknown

Clara Barton – The Angel Of The Battlefield

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Clara Barton Spent Her Life Helping And Serving Others

A young lad is badly injured when he falls from the rafters of a barn at North Oxford, Massachusetts in 1832. His name is David, and the fall makes him an invalid. Young David will spend the next two years recovering from his injuries and during this time his eleven-year-old sister stays by his bedside nursing him back to health. The sister’s name was Clara, and this was the beginning of Clara Barton’s life of caring for and helping others.

Civil War Nurse Clara Barton

Civil War Nurse Clara Barton

Clara Barton was born on Christmas day in 1821 and like her four older siblings, Clara’s schooling was at home. At age fifteen she becomes a schoolteacher and then later she starts a free public school in Bordentown, New Jersey. Clara Barton would spend her life aiding and serving others. During the Civil War, Clara Barton becomes known as “The Angel of the Battlefield.”

When the Civil War began in 1861, Clara Barton was working for the United States Patent Office and living in Washington, D.C. The women working at the Patent Office before the Civil War were known as “government girls” as they were part of the growing Federal government. These women had jobs that were previously held only by men. When the Civil War began, these “government girls” lost their jobs.

The Baltimore Riot occurs on April 19, 1861 when Massachusetts and Pennsylvania militia making their way to Washington are attacked by secessionists in Baltimore. Four militiamen and twelve citizens are killed. Clara Barton starts a relief program for the 6th Massachusetts Regiment when it arrives at Washington.

Barton advertised in the Worcester, Massachusetts, Spy newspaper for donations when she learned after First Bull Run that the injured men did not have adequate medical supplies for their needs. Clara started an independent organization to distribute the collected supplies. Her efforts were successful, and the next year Clara Barton was granted a general pass by United States Surgeon General William A. Hammond to travel along with the army ambulances. Hammond’s pass said Barton’s presence with the ambulances was: “for the purpose of distributing comforts for the sick and wounded, and nursing them.” Clara accepted this pass, but she was somewhat reluctant to do so, she was afraid she might be confused as one of the women who made it a habit of following the army – but not for the good, and higher purposes like her’s.

After Second Bull Run, Clara Barton was part of the volunteer nurses United States Secretary Edwin M. Stanton called for to help the troops spread along the defeated Union line of retreat. She gathered and solicited wagonloads of food and needed medical supplies, taking them to the troops on the front lines. Barton would aid the injured and sick, and make soup and coffee.

“The men were brought down from the field till they covered acres. By midnight there must have been three thousand helpless men lying in that hay…. All night we made compresses and slings – and bound up and wet wounds, when we could get water, fed what we could, traveled miles in that dark over to those poor helpless wretches, in terror lest some one’s candle fall into the hay and consume them all.”

— Clara Barton writing of her experiences tending to the injured men after Second Bull Run. Barton had helped spread bales of hay onto the ground for the men to lay on.

Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital

Washington, D.C. Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital

Clara Barton was almost killed during the Antietam Campaign in September, 1862. While she is attending to an injured soldier a bullet passes through a sleeve of her dress. The bullet misses Clara, but strikes and kills the injured soldier. Clara also dug a bullet out the cheek of another soldier using only her pocketknife. A few days after Antietam, Barton becomes ill with typhoid fever.

Clara Barton was working in field hospitals of General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James in June, 1864. Also in 1864, Barton was part of a petition along with other notables such as Horace Greeley, P. T. Barnum, William Cullen Bryant, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, for the establishment of veteran’s homes. By 1933, fifteen such homes were built.

In February 1865, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Clara Barton to attend to correspondence to help reunite missing soldiers with their families. That July, she was at the infamous Andersonville prison in Georgia to manage the identification of unmarked graves. From hospital and burial records, Clara was able to create a list of missing prisoners.

In 1877, Clara Barton organized the American National Committee and three years later it became the American Red Cross. Clara served as the first president of the American Red Cross and she published a book in 1882, titled: History of the Red Cross.

Clara Barton retired from the Red Cross to her home at Glen Echo outside of Washington, D.C. in 1904. “The Angel of the Battlefield died on April 12, 1912.

“If I were to speak of war, it would not be to show you the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their tracks; and how, while they marched on with tread of iron and plumes proudly tossing in the breeze, some one must follow closely in their steps, crouching to the earth, toiling in the rain and darkness, shelterless themselves, with no thought of pride or glory, fame or praise, or reward; hearts breaking with pity, faces bathed in tears and hands in blood. This is the side which history never shows.”

— Clara Barton

Clara Barton: The Beginnings of the American Red Cross