The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

BUGLE ECHOES, 385
but space forbids. Julius D. Rhodes, in a late letter in the Bugle, speaks very highly of
the First West Virginia Cavalry. He can not think better of my regiment than I do of
the Fifth New York Cavalry. Great big double-fisted fellows, like Rhodes, could and
did go in and knock down and drag out, and win commissions for gallant conduct, as
also did your humble servant. I read in the Bugle a piece of poetry by Edward P.
Tobie, " To His Old Army Horse," that just hit me. I rode some of the best, and not
less than fifteen horses. I do not see how one could stand Tobie all the way through.
I will tell you of one old horse of mine for which I traded a much finer looking horse.
The boys called him Bob Ridley or old Bob. He was a dark brown, and rather heavy
for a cavalry horse, and had broad feet, but he was a trotter and no mistake. You
should see him go. General, you remember Chantilly, on the pike leading to Aldie?
Well, I was on picket with twenty-five men in a grove on the right, in front of Chan-
tilly mansion, three hundred yards, in a meadow, in the spring of 1863, in February, I
believe. My boys had all been in the army from 1861 and we looked hard, and some
new recruits, who came to the First Vermont Cavalry, were sent to my post to reheve
me. I was dressed rough and my horse looked bad with a common cavalry saddle on
him. I wore a blouse with no shoulder straps and was making coffee in a black quart
cup when the relief was seen coming over the meadow, and soon up dashed a new lieutenant
on a fine bright sorrel horse with yellow trimmings and fine saddle, with his new
recruits mounted on fat horses and dressed in new uniforms, with feathers in their hats.
The lieutenant brought them " front into line " and came up within forty feet of the
grove where I had just boiled the coffee. He enquired for the officer in command.
I was forthcoming but still held on to my quart cup of coffee, which was too hot to
drink in a hurry. General, you- have tried to drink hot coffee quick and you know
how it is yourself. Well, I came armed with the black quart cup and introduced
myself to the new lieutenant. I told one of the boys to give my horse an ear of corn
while the new lieutenant and I drank the coffee. One or two of the soldiers in line
snickered and laughed as they beheld old Bob, and one said, " What a poor horse that
lieutenant rides." Thinks I to myself, " I'll take the conceit out of you fellows." I
told the lieutenant I would go the rounds with him and he could leave his men two on
each post and I would bring mine in to the reserve picket. It was a bare pasture field
and three hundred yards or more to the pike. We started, the heutenant and I, at the
head of the column. We rode at a slow trot and the lieutenant's horse broke into a
gallop in the first seventy-five yards. He remarked to me, " You have a good trotter.''
I told him he was not trotting, but as soon as we got to the pike I would let him out.
So I stood up in the stirrups and old Bob trotted. By the time we got to the pike I
had the lieutenant's iiorse and the whole party on the run attempting to keep up with
old Bob. " Now," says I, " if you will send a sergeant to the rear to keep the men
closed up I will show you a trotter." We went about one and one-half miles out on
the pike and they all acknowledged old Bob was a daisy. They never laughed at my
horse afterwards. The First Vermont was a good regiment. Did you see where Col.
H. C. Parsons of the First Vermont, was assassinated at Natural Bridge, Va., where he
has lived ever since the war in the hotel business? As Tobie says, if there is a Heaven
for horses I will ride old Bob, for I do think all good, vahant soldiers will get to
Heaven, sure. I have ridden old Bob one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and
no man but a cavalryman knows just what a good sound horse can stand. The boys