Arizona in the Saddle July 2014 | Page 25

of war campaign, Nellie was ridden every day and active in every engagement from August 1863 through April 1864. In one fray, she fell and her rider was taken prisoner. Nellie, however, scrambled to her feet and escaped to swim the Tennessee River and regain Union lines. (After a few days the cavalryman tromped into camp.) Later Nellie was with Sherman’s march into Georgia. Through it all, she was always sure-footed, regardless of rocky passes or the darkest night. She knew, one observer said, “The shriek of a shell and the direction of their flight, almost as well as her owners.” Horses frequently took bullets for their masters. The Confederate general J. O. Shelby had 24 horses shot from under AZintheSaddle.com him. Forrest had even more – 39. The highest Union toll goes to Gen. George A. Custer: 11. Mounts of famous generals became almost as well-known as their riders: among others, Ulysses S. Grant’s Cincinnati, Lee’s Traveller, Custer’s Custis Lee, Stonewall Jackson’s Little Sorrell, Philip Sheridan’s Rienzi and George G. Meade’s Old Baldy (wounded five times in battle). At the 1864 battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, en route from Washington, Sheridan rode Rienzi hard to meet and regroup his fleeing forces, after General Early’s Confederates had broken their lines. As Sheridan rode among them, the men “threw up their hats, shouldered their muskets, and as I passed along turned to follow with enthusiasm and cheers.” Sheridan directed: “We must face the other way; we will go back and recover our camp.” They did. Sources: Boston Evening Transcript, July 22, 1863 and Sept. 2, 1864; Boston Herald, June 21, 1864; Thomas Nelson Conrad, “Rebel Scout”; C. Kay Larson, “Great Necessities”; James M. McPherson, “Battle Cry of Freedom”; Jeffrey R. Morris and Richard B. Morris, eds., “Encyclopedia of American History”; National Museum of the Morgan Horse; Elizabeth Brown Pryda “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Letters”; Philip Sheridan, “Memoirs”; U. S., War Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Anthony Waskie, “Old Baldy.” C. Kay Larson is a member of the board of the New York Military Affairs Symposium and the author of “Great Necessities: The Life, Times, and Writings of Anna Ella Carroll, 1815-1894 and “South Under a Prairie Sky: The Journal of Nell Churchill, U. S. Army Nurse and Scout.” July 2014 25