Great American Horse Stories

by Sharon B. Smith

  There is nothing unduly conservative about the American cavalry instruction, and our officers are keen to avail themselves of all useful novelties. For instance, the West Point cadets have taken up the use of the double-reined bridle and the typical hunting and polo saddle. Not long ago, in quest of new ideas, an officer was detailed for a two years’ course at the great French cavalry school at Saumur.

  There is an analogy, not altogether fanciful, between the experiences of the equine recruit and the soldier recruit, or the “plebe” at West Point. The horse, fresh from the freedom of the ranch, finds himself among strange surroundings. The troop herd to which he is admitted receives him with calm indifference, but to himself it is a matter of such serious import that he is apt to grow feverish and excited in his new environment.

  All the horses of a particular troop, as far as practicable, are of the same color, and the newcomer is assigned according to the shade of his coat. He is allowed to run freely with the troop herd in the corral and on the range. During this period he is “sized up” by the old troop horses, and often receives an admonitory kick or bite if inclined to be too frisky.

  In order to steady him, he is picketed and stalled with old and gentle troop horses as neighbors. He is gradually introduced to the stir and activity of military life, being led by a soldier mounted on a quiet animal through those parts of the post where drills and ceremonies are being held.

  The training in the riding school is begun by teaching the horse to take the snaffle bit properly, and to respond to the pressure of the rein on his neck, and to that of his rider’s legs. He is next fixed in the regulation gaits of the walk, trot, and gallop, and taught to jump ditches and hurdles. Simultaneously with these exercises he is gradually accustomed to the saber and to the discharge of firearms.

  Freedom from fear is not as difficult to acquire as it might seem, for the ordinary horse, if he has not been abused, readily learns to fear nothing except what his memory associates with physical pain. As soon as the horse responds satisfactorily to the snaffle, he is fitted with a curb bit. The curb is the regulation bit of the service, principally because by its use the trooper can manage the horse at all times, employing the left hand alone, with the pressure of the legs as an aid. Bitting is a science in itself, to which the efficient cavalry officer attaches the utmost importance.

  The Rarey system plays an important part in the training of the American cavalry horse. It is an elaborate and detailed system formulated before the Civil War by John S. Rarey, a famous American horse-breaker of his day. With slight modifications, it has been embodied in the United States Cavalry Drill Regulations, and is employed to subdue stubborn animals. It is also brought into general use in the latter stages of training, to complete a cavalry charger’s education, and to impress upon him once for all that man is master.

  One of the most useful of these advanced exercises is the throwing of the horse. The animal is first equipped with the surcingle and watering-bridle. The trooper attaches one end of a long strap to the pastern of the off foreleg, and passes the other end through a ring on the top of the surcingle. The horse’s near foreleg is then tied up by means of a short strap. Taking the free end of the long strap in his hand, the soldier places himself opposite the animal’s croup on the near side, and urges his mount to step forward. As it does so, the trooper pulls on the long strap, which brings it to its knees. When it ceases to plunge, the trooper leans back on the strap, and the horse will gradually lie down on the near side.

  The horse is prevented from rising by passing the reins under the surcingle and pulling his head to the right if he makes any attempt to change his position. Before allowing him to rise, the straps should be removed from his legs. After several repetitions of this exercise, the horse will usually lie down without making it necessary to use the straps.

  As a rule, each trooper has his own horse to care for and to ride—an arrangement which leads the soldier to take pride in his charge and to establish that understanding between horse and man which is so essential to cavalry efficiency. It is this mutual confidence which enables our gritty, active cavalrymen to furnish such fine exhibitions of horsemanship and daredevil riding.

  These showy exercises, however, are but a small part of cavalry routine. The trooper has to think of discipline and drill, of carbine and revolver practice, of saber exercises; of such practical details as bitting, saddling, packing, feeding, shoeing, and stable management, of the duties of mounted reconnaissance, and of the maintenance of men and horses in the hardy form that has made our records for forced marches unsurpassed in the history of the world. So manifold is his service, and so indispensable is he to an army in the field, that it is easy to understand why all the leading nations of Europe are increasing their mounted forces, and why the American military student views with alarm any proposed reduction of our own modest-sized cavalry establishment.

  V

  Working Horses

  15

  Anecdotes of American Horses

  Author unknown

  This affectionate tale of two working horses in western New York during the time of the Erie Canal appeared in one of the publications known as “the knowledge magazines.” These were extremely low-priced compilations of fact-based articles aimed at middle-class readers, products of the expanding public education system. The variety of topics in the knowledge magazines was breathtaking. The volume that includes the story of ferry horse Grizzle and farm horse Charlie also includes a biography of the British spy John Andre, a treatise on the botany of bogs, an explanation of how to milk a cow, and a reflection on babyhood. This horse story is typical of the magazines: easy to read, brief, and intriguing.

  A short distance below Fort Erie, and about a mile from where the river Niagara escapes over a barrier of rock from the depths of Lake Erie, a ferry has long been established across that broad and there exceedingly rapid river, the distance from shore to shore being a little over one-third of a mile. On the Canada side of the river is the small village of Waterloo, and opposite thereto on the United States side is the large village of Blackrock—distant from the young and flourishing city of Buffalo two miles.

  In completing the Erie Canal, a pier or dam was erected up and down the river and opposite to Blackrock at no great distance from the shore, for the purpose of raising the waters of the Niagara to such a height that they might be made to supply an adjoining section of the Erie Canal. This pier was (and is) a great obstruction to the ferryboats; for previous to its erection passengers embarked from terra-firma on one side of the river and were landed without any difficulty on the other; but after this dam was constructed it became necessary to employ two sets of boats—one to navigate the river, and the other the basin—so that all passengers, as well as goods or luggage, had to be landed upon this narrow wall or pier, and re-shipped.

  Shortly after the erection of the pier-dam, a boat propelled by horses was established between this pier and the Canada shore. The horses moved upon a circular platform which consequently was put in motion, to which other machinery was connected, that acted upon the paddle wheels attached to the sides of the boat. The boat belonged to persons connected with the ferry on the American side of the river; but, owing to the barrier formed by the pier, the horses employed on the boat were stabled at night in the village of Waterloo. I well recollect the first day this boat began to ply, for the introduction of a boat of that description, in those days, and in such a situation, was considered an event of some magnitude.

  The two horses (for that boat had but two) worked admirably, considering the very few lessons they had had (upon the treadmill, as it was called) previous to their introduction upon the main river. One of the horses employed on the new ferryboat had once been a dapple gray, but at the period I am speaking of he had become white. He was still hale and hearty, for he had a kind and indulgent master. The first evening after the horses had been a short time in the stable, to which the
y were strangers, they were brought out for the purpose of being watered at the river, the common custom at this place. The attendant was mounted upon the bay horse,—the white one was known to be so gentle and docile that he was allowed to drink where he pleased.

  I happened to be standing close by in company with my friend W——n, the ferry contractor on the Canada side, and thus had an opportunity of witnessing the whole proceedings of old Grizzle, the name that the white horse still went by. The moment he got round the corner of the building, so as to have a view of his home on the opposite side, he stopped and gazed intently.

  He then advanced to the brink of the river, then he again stopped and looked earnestly across for a short time, then waded into the water until it had reached his chest, drank a little, lifted his head and, with his lips closed, and his eyes fixed upon some object on the farther shore, remained for a short time perfectly motionless.

  Apparently having made up his mind to the task, he then waded farther into the river until the water reached his ribs, when off he shot into deep water without a moment’s more hesitation. The current being so strong and rapid, the river boiling and turmoiling over a rocky bed at the rate of six miles the hour, it was impossible for the courageous and attached animal to keep a direct course across, although he breasted the waves heroically, and swam with remarkable vigor.

  Had he been able to steer his way directly across, the pier wall would have proved an insurmountable barrier. As it was, the strength of the current forced him down to below where the lower extremity of this long pier abuts upon an island, the shore of which being low and shelving, he was enabled to effect a landing with comparative ease. Having regained terra-firma, he shook the water from his dripping flanks, but he did not halt over a few minutes, when he plunged into the basin and soon regained his native shore.

  The distance from where Grizzle took the water to where he effected a landing on the island was about seven hundred yards; but the efforts made to swim directly across, against the powerful current, must have rendered the undertaking a much more laborious one. At the commencement of his voyage, his arched neck and withers were above the surface, but before he reached the island nothing but his head was visible to us.

  He reached his own stable door, that home for which he had risked so much, to the no small astonishment of his owner. This unexpected visit evidently made a favorable impression upon his master, for he was heard to vow that if old Grizzle performed the same feat a second time, for the future he should remain on his own side of the river and never be sent to the mill again. Grizzle was sent back to work the boat on the following day, but he embraced the very first opportunity that occurred of escaping, swam back in the way he had done before, and his owner, not being a person to break the promise he had once made, never afterwards dispossessed him of the stall he had long been accustomed to, but treated him with marked kindness and attention.

  During my residence on the headwaters of the Susquehanna, I owned a small American horse of the name of Charlie that was very remarkable for his attachment to my own person, as well as for his general good qualities. He was a great favorite with all the family; and being a favorite, he was frequently indulged with less work and more to eat than any of the other horses on the farm.

  At a short distance from the dwelling-house was a small but luxuriant pasture, where, during the summer, Charlie was often permitted to graze. When this pasture had been originally reclaimed from its wild forest state, about ten years previous to the period of which I am speaking, four or five large trees of the sugar maple species had been left standing when the rest were cut down, and means had afterwards been found to prevent their being scorched by the fire at the time the rest of the timber had been consumed. Though remarkably fine trees of their kind, they were, however, no great ornament, their stems being long and bare, their heads small and by no means full of leaves, the case generally with trees that have grown up in close contact with each other in the American forests. But if they were no ornament, they might serve as shade-trees.

  Beneath one of these trees Charlie used to seek shelter, as well from the heat of the meridian sun, as from the severe thunder gusts that occasionally ravage that part of the country. On an occasion of this sort Charlie had taken his stand close to his favorite tree, his tail actually pressing against it, his head and body in an exact line with the course of the wind; apparently understanding the most advantageous position to escape the violence of the storm, and quite at home, as it were, for he had stood in the same place some scores of times.

  The storm came on and raged with such violence that the tree under which the horse had taken shelter was literally torn up by the roots. I happened to be standing at a window from whence I witnessed the whole scene. The moment Charlie heard the roots giving way behind him, that is, on the contrary side of the tree from where he stood, and probably feeling the uprooted tree pressing against his tail, he sprang forward and barely cleared the ground upon which, at the next moment, the top of the huge forest tree fell with such a force that the crash was tremendous, for every limb and branch were actually riven asunder.

  I have many a time seen horses alarmed, nay, exceedingly frightened; but never in my life did I witness any thing of the sort that bore the slightest comparison to Charlie’s extreme terror; and yet Charlie, on ordinary occasions, was by no means a coward. He galloped, he reared his mane and tossed his head, he stopped short and snorted wildly, and then he darted off at the top of his speed in a contrary direction, and then as suddenly stopped and set off in another, until long after the storm had considerably abated, and it was not until after the lapse of some hours that he ventured to reconnoiter—but that at a considerable distance—the scene of his narrow escape.

  For that day at least his appetite had been completely spoiled, for he never offered to stoop his head to the ground while daylight continued. The next day his apprehension seemed somewhat abated, but his curiosity had been excited to such a pitch that he kept pacing from place to place, never sailing to halt as he passed within a moderate distance of the prostrate tree, gazing thereat in utter bewilderment, as if wholly unable to comprehend the scene he had witnessed the preceding day.

  After this occurrence took place I kept this favorite horse several years, and during the summer months he usually enjoyed the benefit of his old pasture. But it was quite clear that he never forgot, on any occasion, the narrow escape he had had; for neither the burning rays of the noontide summer sun, nor the furious raging of the thunderstorm, could compel Charlie to seek shelter under one of the trees that still remained standing in his small pasture.

  16

  The Cumbersome Horse

  by H. C. Bunner

  Henry Cuyler Bunner was probably best known as an editor of Puck Magazine, a publication that managed to find humor in politics. But he was also a poet, a novelist, and an author of short stories.

  Bunner specialized in ironic takes on life in Manhattan, a world in which horses rarely figured. But one of his best-known works was the story of an old farm horse who insisted that a promise be kept, no matter how inconvenient.

  It is not to be denied that a sense of disappointment pervaded Mr. Brimmington’s being in the hour of his first acquaintance with the isolated farmhouse which he had just purchased, sight unseen, after long epistolary negotiations with Mr. Hiram Skinner, postmaster, carpenter, teamster, and real estate agent of Bethel Corners, who was now driving him to his new domain.

  Perhaps the feeling was of a mixed origin. Indian Summer was much colder up in the Pennsylvania hills than he had expected to find it; and the hills themselves were much larger and bleaker and barer, and far more indifferent in their demeanor toward him, than he had expected to find them. Then Mr. Skinner had been something of a disappointment, himself. He was too familiar with his big, knobby, red hands; too furtive with his small, close-set eyes; too profuse of tobacco-juice, and too raspingly loquacious. And certain
ly the house itself did not meet his expectations when he first saw it, standing lonely and desolate in its ragged meadows of stubble and wild grass on the unpleasantly steep mountainside.

  And yet Mr. Skinner had accomplished for him the desire of his heart. He had always said that when he should come into his money—forty thousand dollars from a maiden aunt—he would quit forever his toilsome job of preparing Young Gentlemen for admission to the Larger Colleges and Universities, and would devote the next few years to writing his long-projected “History of Prehistoric Man.” And to go about this task he had always said that he would go and live in perfect solitude—that is, all by himself and a chore-woman—in a secluded farmhouse, situated upon the southerly slope of some high hill—an old farmhouse—a Revolutionary farmhouse, if possible—a delightful, long, low, rambling farmhouse—a farmhouse with floors of various levels—a farmhouse with crooked stairs, and with nooks and corners and quaint cupboards—this—this had been the desire of Mr. Brimmington’s heart.

  Mr. Brimmington, when he came into his money at the age of forty-five, fixed on Pike County, Pennsylvania, as a mountainous country of good report. A postal guide informed him that Mr. Skinner was the postmaster of Bethel Corners; so Mr. Brimmington wrote to Mr. Skinner.

  The correspondence between Mr. Brimmington and Mr. Skinner was long enough and full enough to have settled a treaty between two nations. It ended by a discovery of a house lonely enough and aged enough to fill the bill. Several hundred dollars’ worth of repairs were needed to make it habitable, and Mr. Skinner was employed to make them. Toward the close of a cold November day, Mr. Brimmington saw his purchase for the first time.

  In spite of his disappointment, he had to admit, as he walked around the place in the early twilight, that it was just what he had bargained for. The situation, the dimensions, the exposure, were all exactly what had been stipulated. About its age there could be no question. Internally, its irregularity—indeed, its utter failure to conform to any known rules of domestic architecture—surpassed Mr. Brimmington’s wildest expectations. It had stairs eighteen inches wide; it had rooms of strange shapes and sizes; it had strange, shallow cupboards in strange places; it had no hallways; its windows were of odd design, and whoso wanted variety in floors could find it there. And along the main wall of Mr. Brimmington’s study there ran a structure some three feet and a half high and nearly as deep, which Mr. Skinner confidently assured him was used in old times as a wall bench or a dresser, indifferently.