George Edwin Waring - Whip and Spur

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, 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 delightful 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 perfectly 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 riders’ bed, that brought Vix and me very closely 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 rations and orders. On Sunday morning McDowell’s army moved out;—we all know the rest. Miles’s thirteen thousand fresh troops lay within 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 débris of the broken-up camp equipage, and dismally crossed the Long Bridge in a pitiless rain, as Monday’s evening was closing in. O, the dreadful days that followed, when a dozen resolute men might have taken Washington, and have driven the army across the Chesapeake, when everything was filled with gloom and rain and grave uncertainty!

Again the old mare came to my aid. My regiment 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. Frémont 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 organization, 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 flattering to Vixen, and that was quite as pleasant.

Arrived at St. Louis, we set about the organization of the enthusiastic thousands who rushed to serve under Frémont. Whatever there was of ostentatious display, Vixen and I took part 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 Saturday 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. Frémont and her daughter. I pass over the eventful pursuit of Price’s army, because the subject of my story played only a passive part in it. At Springfield I tried her nerve by jumping her over the dead horses on brave Zagonyi’s bloody field; and, although distastefully, she did my bidding without flinching, when she found it must be done. The camp-life at Springfield was full of excitement 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 cavalry 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, Frémont’s farewell. He had been relieved. 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 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 fingers, 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 beheld 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 swaying to and fro, with hard and stertorous breath,—every vein swollen and throbbing in the moonlight. De Grandèle, our quiet veterinary 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 Grandèle 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 Grandèle how he could best end her sufferings,—or was there still some hope? 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 not leave her alive. I have had few harder duties than to march that morning. Four days after, De Grandèle sent a message to me at our station near Rolla, that he was coming on nicely, 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.