FAMOUS WAR HORSES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIV, Issue 844, 10 May 1906, Page 9

FAMOUS WAR HORSES.

The stories of General Kuropatkin’s devotion to his favourite charger, circulated so widely during the late Japanese war, remind one of many a great soldier between whom and the horse that has carried him through long campaigns there has been an affection almost human in its intensity.

Who does not recall Lord Roberts’ gallant charger, Volonel —the little gray Arab which carried its medals and its master so proudly in the diamond jubilee procession? Volonel had belonged in his early years to an Indian chief, and when Lord Roberts .bought him he discovered that the Arab’s tail had been broken in two pieces to produce a graceful caudal curve. When Queen Victoria awarded medals to her soldiers who fought in the Afghan campaign and in the expedition to Candahar, Volonel was greatly but not undeservedly honoured. Lord Roberts proudly hung around his neck the Cabul medal, with four clasps, and the Candahar star of bronze, and later the <Jueen presented him with the jubilee medal.

At the advanced age of 23 the game little steed —he was only 14% hands high—was as playful as any kitten. He survived to see his 29th birthday, and “ lies buried near the Royal Hospital, Dublin, in the Rose Garden.” Copenhagen, Wellington’s famous chestnut charger, was only two inches higher than little Volonel. He carried his master through the peninsula war and bore him for eighteen hours on the day of Waterloo. When his fighting days were over the little Danish horse was sent to Strathfieldsaye, where he was tenderly cared for. His last days were somewhat embittered, it is true, by the misguided worship of thousands of his admirers who went to visit him —in fact, the nuisance became so great that the duke was compelled to put him in a

cage. When at last he succumbed to old age, he was accorded an impressive funeral, and a tombstone was erected to commemorate his virtues and his loyal service. An equally honoured old age was that of the white charger, Marenga, which carried Napoleon on the field of Waterloo. After his master’s flight Marenga was found by an English officer wandering disconsolately on the battlefield, and he was sent to England, where he spent many happy years in peaceful pastures and tended by reverent grooms. He survived Napoleon nine years, and when old age and pneumonia combined to end his career his skeleton was sent for preservation to the Royal United Service institution in Whitehall. There has seldom, if ever, been a braver and more loyal war horse than Traveler, who carried his master, General Lee, through scores of battles, and came through them all without a scratch. It is said that he whinnied pitifully when he followed the general’s coffin to the grave; and it was not long after that, while grazing, a nail became emberred in his foot and he died of lockjaw. Copenhagen bore Stonewall Jackson through ten fierce battles before the fatal bullet struck his rider. He survived, through an honoured and lovingly tended old age, until 1886; and he may be seen to-day, stuffed and cleverly mounted, in a glass case in the library of the soldiers’ home, Virginia.

General Washington had many horses who rendered him devoted service, and whom he regarded with affection, but the most prized of them all was the brown charger which he bestrode at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Hung with heavy mourning robes and led by a groom, he followed the coffin of his dead friend and master to his last resting place. General Sheridan’s famous black war horse, Rienzi, long survived all the dangers of war, and died loved and mourned in 1876. His body was mounted and is to be seen in the museum of Governor’s Island, in New York Bay.

It seems to have been the fate of most of these famous horses to survive their masters. Such, however, was not the lot of Nellie Grey, the handsomest charger in all the Confederate army. Nellie, with General Fitzhugh on her back, seemed to bear a charmed life, so many were the dangers she escaped, until at last she fell in the very thickest of the fight at the battle of Winchester. Cincinnati, the most loved of all General Grant’s horses, was more fortunate than Nellie, for he survived all the horrors of the Civil War and died “as sincerely lamented as he had lived respected.”