Horses of the Civil War
The oldest photos that we have provide glimpses of horses bred in the United States from a time before there were any horse registries, breed clubs or “papers” for non-Thoroughbreds.
The oldest photos that we have provide glimpses of horses bred in the United States from a time before there were any horse registries, breed clubs or “papers” for non-Thoroughbreds.
Out of a shattered glass photographic plate stares the handsome face of a bearded man in a Civil War uniform. His clear eyes convey an almost infinite sadness, for they have witnessed carnage of both man and horse on a scale that has never been seen before or since. The expression reveals intelligence, but the hard, thin line of the mouth speaks of an iron will. This is the Civil War portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, who was appointed Commanding General of the Union Army by Abraham Lincoln in 1864.
Brave in battle, Grant understood and liked horses. Gen. Horace Porter, his Chief of Staff and later ambassador to France, said Grant was “a great rider, simply splendid. He could ride 40 or 50 miles and come in perfectly fresh and tire out younger men.”
During his service in the MexicanAmerican War (1846-1848), Grant became famous as a messenger and scout. Of course there was no radio in those days, and “despatch riders” were selected for their ability to ride fast and fearlessly across broken country.
A freed slave who worked in Grant’s household as a cook remembered, “Grant was always fond of fast horses. He was mounted on his race horse, Nellie, a very fleet-footed animal when he performed his daring ride to the camp of Gen. [Zachary] Taylor during the Mexican war. I have heard him describe the wonderful speed this horse exhibited when he made that perilous trip of two and a half miles exposed to showers of bullets from the rifles of the enemy. He appeared to look upon Nellie’sN conduct as more courageous th This article is the culmination of my series reconstructing the origin and development of the Morgan horse and documenting the early roots of the characteristically
American horse breeds---Morgan, American Standardbred, American Saddlebred, American Quarter Horse ---as well as the Thoroughbred on these shores. I have had to present most horses from before the Civil War in paintings or etchings because, as we learned in the previous installment of
this series, good photography did not yet exist. The Civil War is the first real opportunity, through the oldest set of photos that we have, to look at the conformation of horses bred in America from a time before there were any horse registries, breed clubs or “papers” for non-Thoroughbreds.
GENERAL GRANT’S HORSES
The splendid 1865 painting by Norwegian artist Ole Peter Hansen Balling, “Grant and His Generals,” stands at the top of this article as Grant himself stood at the apogee of
horsemanship. The impoverished son of an Ohio tanner, Grant never succeeded in any enterprise outside of the Army and the Presidency. Neither was his physique of the elegant sort generally expected in a top-notch rider. Balling reports that on one occasion when he was with the general at the front, a package arrived containing a pair of big leather boots, the kind with high tops that extend above the knees. Grant put them on and laughed at how they made him look, for he had short legs. Once in the saddle, however, he could get just about any horse to do just about anything for him. As news of Grant’s war exploits and victories spread, he earned hero status. As he rose through the ranks, his salary increased, and this permitted him to purchase some very fine horses. On several occasions, however, horses that not even a general’s salary could buy were given to him.
Through the Mexican-American and then the Civil War, Grant owned many horses, but we have photographs of only three. One was Egypt, a longnecked and elegant 16-hand black, bred in southern Illinois. Grant used Egypt for parade but also rode him in combat. The general’s favorite charger, however, was the magnificent brownbay Thoroughbred Cincinnati, 17 hands tall and full of fire, a worthy son of the famous Lexington, last of the great American heat-racers. It is upon this horse that Grant appears in the painting that opens this essay.
Both Cincinnati and Egypt had been given to Grant by admirers, but not all of the general’s horses were gifts, for it was normal for army officers to purchase and train their own mounts. Toward the end of the war when Grant began to suffer from prostate trouble, he rode the 14:2 hand black “Jeff Davis,” so named because he had been captured
at Davis’s farm. Grant asked the Army procurement department to assess the value of the horse, and then Grant bought him for the price stated. “Jeff Davis” carried Grant on the long rides between battles because he, like Egypt, possessed “easy” ambling gaits.
APPALLING SLAUGHTER
It is fully in character for Grant to have insisted that, if a monumental painting were to be made, other men who were instrumental in winning the war for the North be included in it with him. Twenty-seven generals, including Grant, are portrayed in Balling’s painting. The artist has drawn them as if all were as comfortable and balanced in a cavalry charge as in a parlor chair. Such portraits idealize the horses as well. It is this that makes photographs such valuable sources of data---for they romanticize nothing and miss no detail.
Of the generals who appear in Balling’s painting, seven appear here in photographs. Grant is not among them, for there is only one photograph known of him on horseback, and that appears to have been taken after the war. The firm seat and kind hands of almost all the mounted soldiers, as well as their tack and training ideals, were highlighted in our last installment. The primary purpose of this article is to show the various physical types of horse. The old “wet-plate” photographic images form an indelible record of American breeds, which were at that time just beginning to become differentiated.
Relatively few photos of Confederate soldiers remain; luckily we possess images of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on his famous horse “Traveller” as well as a few photos showing the ragged backwoods troops and militias that, as Southern resources dwindled,
increasingly fought as guerrilla units.
The paucity of images from the South is unfortunate because before the Civil War, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana were important centers of horse breeding. The number of good horses killed in action was simply appalling, and conscription not only of men but of horses broke the back of many a Southern breeding farm. Thus we see Southern fighters mounted on any sort of horse they could lay a hand on. In horses recruited from Missouri and Kansas, we have the earliest images of soldiers on horses showing mustang and Appaloosa influence. Likewise, troops operating in Florida conscripted horses showing ChoctawSpanish influence.
The North was hurt less than the South in terms of breeding farms, many of which survived the war. By the outbreak of the Civil War, however, most farmers above the Mason-Dixon line did not deliberately breed easy-gaited saddle horses. Although there were some Thoroughbred studs in the North, especially in New York, the most common Northern horse was the “plump and pleasing” multifunctional Morgan type
that served farmers for light plowing and hauling, driving and riding. Huge numbers of the descendants of Justin Morgan---entire bloodlines and families---as well as the related Canadian trotter/pacer were sacrificed in the Civil War. In the South, tens of thousands of easy-gaited part-Thoroughbreds were lost as well as grade horses and well-bred mules.
Horses were absolutely necessary to all aspects of army life during the Civil War. While railroads and riverboats were used for bulk transport from factory to station or port, overland transport---the way that food, clothing and supplies actually reached soldiers in the field---was by pack train and wagon, powered by horses and mules. All divisions required horses, whether cavalry, infantry, artillery or irregular “guerrilla” fighters. Although the South prided itself on the high quality of its horses, and Southern cavalry often proved to be superior riders and fighters, the North’s victory ultimately came because it could field more mounts.
Huge numbers were required. To give some idea, records indicate that the Union Army Farriers’ Corps, based outside Washington, D.C., and serving only the Army of the Potomac, in 1862 alone shod more than 120,000 horses. A group photo of this Farrier Corps shows over 300 men---all in leather aprons with hammers. To replace losses,
about 500 horses were requisitioned every day by Union forces in the East. Northern farmers supplied these to government buyers.
NASCENT AMERICAN HORSE BREEDS
Characteristically American horse breeds originating east of the Mississippi River are the Narragansett Pacer, Old Canadian, Morgan, American Quarter Horse, American Standardbred (harness racer) and American Saddlebred (saddle horse). These later gave rise to “derivative” breeds, including the Tennessee Walking Horse, the Missouri Foxtrotter and the Rocky Mountain Horse. West of the Mississippi, the mustang and Appaloosa developed from importations from Mexico and Canada.
The Thoroughbred contributed to the development of all the American breeds east of the Mississippi and north of Florida. Thoroughbred breeding began in the Colonies, especially New York, Virginia and the Carolinas, and spread westward after the Revolutionary War. The route followed Daniel Boone’s people through the Cumberland Gap, down the Ohio Valley and into Kentucky and the Illinois country. The Morgan was developed as a topcross of Thoroughbred on Canadian and Narragansett Pacer. The American Standardbred and American Saddlebred were developed by topcrossing Morgan, Canadian and occasionally Hartdraaver (Friesian) mares with selected Thoroughbred stallions. The American Quarter Horse began in Virginia and North Carolina in the same way, but the mares were of Hobby or Narragansett Pacer extraction.
All these breeds can be thought of as part-Thoroughbreds---but the reader
who wants to think of it that way would be well advised never to forget the identity of the mares, whose contribution is always more important than that of the stallions.
Until the 1890s, there was no registry for any American-bred horse except the Thoroughbred. Earlier in the 19th century, people were not thinking about “papers” when they referred to horses of different “breed.” Instead, they identified horses by the name of the farmer or family that bred them. For example, someone might remark, “I own a horse of Morgan breed,” by which he would have meant that his horse descended from the stallion owned by Mr. Justin Morgan. Equally a horse might be referred to as “a Jones” or “a Smith.”
Alternatively, horses were sometimes identified by the sire’s bloodline, as in “a Janus” or “a Printer” (quarter running-horse), “a Denmark” or “a Fearnought” (easy-gaited saddle horse), or “an Ethan Allen” or “a Hambletonian” (harness racer).
The important realization is that all the characteristically American horse breeds came out of the same pool of horses. For this reason, people of other countries often find our breeds difficult to tell apart, most frequently mixing up Saddlebred and Standardbred. The Eastern breeds differ only in the percentage of Canadian, Hartdraaver, Narragansett Pacer, Hobby or Thoroughbred that went into the mix, and in whether the Thoroughbreds or part-Thoroughbreds used as sires were of the older, 18th century amblergalloper type or of a 19th century strain with strictly diagonal gaits (if you had not been aware that many early Thoroughbreds were “gaited,” see “America’s Major Horse Breeds Emerge,” EQUUS 473).
The Civil War photos presented in this article are of extreme value because they clearly show the spectrum of physical types. Some individuals
look just like modern registered Quarter Horses, Morgans or American Saddlebreds. One gets an occasional glimpse of a horse that must have been part-mustang, part-Choctaw/Chickasaw, or that has roaning and spotting and the short tail, wiry build and arched head of the “old type,” pre-registry Appaloosa. A few horses represent “grades”---durable and useful, but of lower overall quality and more or less indifferent appearance.
As you thumb through this wonderful picture gallery, use my commentary as a guide to details. Compare the range of different physical types. How many horses today are as substantial, as structurally correct in the limbs, joints and hooves, or as handsome as those you see here? How would your own horse compare to those that our greatgrandfathers bred? Would your horse be able to stand up to weeks on the march, covering hundreds of miles on roads and tracks? Could he mentally and emotionally endure the stresses of gunfire, clouds of smoke, other horses pressing up close, the need to change speed or direction quickly to avoid being killed? Yes, as I noted in the previous installment of this series, our world has changed a great deal since the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
Next: The Adventures of Ethan Allen 50, last of the great Morgan harness racers.
How many horses today are as substantial, as structurally correct in the limbs, joints and hooves, or as handsome as those you see in these photos? How would your own horse compare to those that our great-grandfathers bred?