Cavalry Officer Quotes

Even at the time—twenty years old—I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else. (Guy de Maupassant)

She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. (last lines)

He never looks you straight in the eye; or if he does, it is somehow vaguely, indefinitely; he does not pierce you with the hawk's eye or the falcon's gaze of a cavalry officer. The reason for that is that he sees, at one and the same time, both your features and those of some plaster Hercules standing in his room, or else he imagines a painting of his own that he still means to produce. That is why his responses are often incoherent, not to the point, and the muddle of things in his head increases his timidity all the more.

Early in January 1919 he struck. Between January 10 and 17—“Bloody Week,” as it was called in Berlin for a time—regular and free-corps troops under the direction of Noske and the command of General von Luettwitz* crushed the Spartacists. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were captured and murdered by officers of the Guard Cavalry Division.

On the raptors kept for falconry: "They talk every night, deep into the darkness. They say about how they were taken, about what they can remember about their homes, about their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors, about their training and what they've learned and will learn. It is military conversation, really, like what you might have in the mess of a crack cavalry regiment: tactics, small arms, maintenance, betting, famous hunts, wine, women, and song. Another subject they have is food. It is a depressing thought," he continued, "but of course they are mainly trained by hunger. They are a hungry lot, poor chaps, thinking of the best restaurants where they used to go, and how they had champagne and caviar and gypsy music. Of course, they all come from noble blood." "What a shame that they should be kept prisoners and hungry." "Well, they do not really understand that they are prisoners any more than the cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being 'dedicated to their profession,' like an order of knighthood or something of that sort. You see, the member of the Muse [where Raptors are kept for falconry] is restricted to the Raptors, and that does help a lot. They know that none of the lower classes can get in. Their screened perches do not carry Blackbirds or such trash as that. And then, as for the hungry part, they're far from starving or that kind of hunger: they're in training, you know! And like everybody in strict training, they think about food.

What was said of an earlier tribune was more true of Antony: “He was a spendthrift of money and chastity—his own and other people’s.” The brilliant cavalry officer had all of Caesar’s charm and none of his self-control. In 44 the conspirators had deemed him too inconsistent to be dangerous. After the Ides Mark Antony was in his glory, entirely the man of the hour—at least until Octavian arrived. Cleopatra

A Federal officer called Wyndham “a big bag of wind.

The struggle had been going on same time, when suddenly one of the doors violently pushed open, and a young officer in the uniform of a cavalry captain jumped down, shutting the door as he did so though not too quickly for the nearest spectators to perceive a woman sitting at the back of the carriage. She was wrapped in cloak and veil, and judging by the precautions she, had taken to hide her face from every eye, she must have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.

The Radaune pounded along against the muddy tide that knew but one direction, deftly avoiding sandbanks with the aid of constantly changing pilots. To right and left, beyond the dikes, the same flat landscape with occasional hills, already harvested. Hedges, sunken lanes, a hollow basin with broom, a level plain between the scattered farms, just made for cavalry attacks, for a division of uhlans to wheel in from the left onto the sand table, for hedge-vaulting hussars, for the dreams of young cavalry officers, for battles long past and battles yet to come, for an oil painting: tartars leaning forward, dragoons rearing up, Brethren of the Sword falling, grandmasters staining their noble robes, not a button missing from their cuirasses, save for one, struck down by the Duke of Mazowsze, and horses, no circus has horses so white, nervous, covered with tassels, sinews rendered with precision, nostrils flaring, crimson, snorting small clouds impaled by lowered lances decked with pennants, and parting the heavens, the sunset’s red glow, the sabers, and there, in the background—for every painting has a background—clinging tightly to the horizon, with smoke rising peacefully, a small village between the hind legs of the black stallion, crouching cottages, moss-covered, thatched, and inside the cottages, held in readiness, the pretty tanks, dreaming of days to come when they too would be allowed to enter the picture, to come out onto the plain beyond the Vistula’s dikes, like slender colts among the heavy cavalry.

Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great military emperor was not a washbuckler, and had little respect for tradition. Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army, runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry, and their connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men into battle seems particularly appropriate. It would be difficult to imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line, for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is simply unthinkable. The names of the two officers were Feraud and D'Hubert, and they were both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regiment. [The duel]

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Young of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, the third African American to graduate from West Point and the highest-ranking black officer in US Army history to that point, was discharged for fabricated “health issues” in the spring of 1917 to keep him from being promoted to brigadier general.

West was the only officer on the quarterdeck, and it so happened that the party of hands making dolphins and paunch-mats on the forecastle were all Shelmerstonians. West was gaping rather vacantly over the taffrail when he saw an extraordinarily handsome woman ride along the quay, followed by a groom. She dismounted at the height of the ship, gave the groom her reins, and darted straight across the brow and so below.    'Hey there,' he cried, hurrying after her, 'this is Dr Maturin's cabin. Who are you, ma'am?'    'I am his wife, sir,' she said, 'and I beg you will desire the carpenter to sling a cot for me here.' She pointed, and then bending and peering out of the scuttle she cried 'Here they are. Pray let people stand by to help him aboard: he will be lying on a door.' She urged West out of the cabin and on deck, and there he and the amazed foremast hands saw a blue and gold coach and four, escorted by a troop of cavalry in mauve coats with silver facings, driving slowly along the quay with their captain and a Swedish officer on the box, their surgeon and his mate leaning out of the windows, and all of them, now joined by the lady on deck, singing Ah tutti contenti saremo cosí, ah tutti contenti saremo, saremo cosí with surprisingly melodious full-throated happiness.

This regiment included some of the most famous army officers of the era, including Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, then–Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, Major George H. Thomas, Captains Edmund Kirby Smith and Earl Van Dorn, then-Lieutenant Fitzhugh Lee, and Lieutenant John Bell Hood—all of whom became general officers during the Civil War and five of whom commanded armies.

Up on the bridge of the Anubis, the storm paws loudly on the glass, great wet flippers falling at random in out of the night whap! the living shape visible just for the rainbow edge of the sound—it takes a certain kind of maniac, at least a Polish cavalry officer, to stand in this pose behind such brittle thin separation, and stare each blow full in its muscularity. Behind Procalowski the clinometer bob goes to and fro with his ship’s rolling: a pendulum in a dream. Stormlight has turned the lines of his face black, black as his eyes, black as the watchcap cocked so tough and salty aslant the furrows of his forehead. Light clusters, clear, deep, on the face of the radio gear . . . fans up softly off the dial of the pelorus . . . spills out portholes onto the white river.

The first qualification for most political offices was wealth on a substantial scale. No one could stand for election without passing a financial test that excluded most citizens; the exact amount needed to qualify is not known, but the implications are that it was set at the very top level of the census hierarchy, the so-called cavalry or equestrian rating. When the people came together to vote, the system of voting was stacked in favour of the wealthy.

[from Some words about 'War and Peace'] For a historian considering the achievement of a certain aim, there are heroes; for the artist treating of a man's relation to all sides of life there cannot and should not be heroes, but there should be men. [...] The historian has to deal with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. An historian in describing a battle says: 'The left flank of such and such an army was advanced to attack such and such a village and drove out the enemy, but was compelled to retire; then the cavalry, which was sent to attack, overthrew...' and so on. But these words have no meaning for the artist and do not actually touch on the event itself. Either from his own experience, or from the letters, memoirs, and accounts, the artist realizes a certain event to himself, and very often (to take the example of a battle) the deductions the historian permits himself to make as to the activity of such and such armies prove to be the very opposite of the artist's deductions. The difference of the results arrived at is also to be explained by the sources from which the two draw their information. For the historian (to keep to the case of a battle) the chief source is found in the reports of the commanding officers and the commander-in-chief. The artist can draw nothing from such sources; they tell him nothing and explain nothing to him. More than that: the artist turns away from them as he finds inevitable falsehood in them. To say nothing of the fact that after any battle the two sides nearly always describe it in quite contradictory ways, in every description of a battle there is a necessary lie, resulting from the need of describing in a few words the actions of thousands of men spread over several miles, and subject to most violent moral excitement under the influence of fear, shame and death.

But now Max wanted Gina to look out the window. “The cavalry had arrived,” he told her. Someone was standing directly in front of the tank. Whoever he was—a boy, dressed like a surfer, on crutches—was holding one hand out in front of him like a traffic cop signaling halt. The tank, of course, had rolled to a stop. And Gina realized this was no ordinary surfer, this was Jules Cassidy. Jules was alive! And here she’d thought she was all cried out. Max laughed as he peered out through the slit that passed as a windshield for the tank. “He has no idea that we’re in here,” he said. Damn, Jules looked like he’d been hit by a bus. “Jesus, he has some balls.” Jules turned to the interpreter, who still didn’t quite believe that they weren’t going to kill him. “Open the hatch.” “Yes, sir.” He poked his head out. “Do you speak English?” Max could hear Jules through the opening. “Yes, sir.” “Tell your commanding officer to back up. In fact, tell him to leave the area. I’m in charge of this situation now. My name is Jules Cassidy and I’m an American, with the FBI. There are Marine gunships on their way, they’ll be here any minute. They have armor-penetrating artillery—they’ll blow you to hell, so back off.” “Tell him Jones wants to know if the gunships are really coming, or if that’s just something he learned in FBI Bullshitting 101.” The interpreter passed the message along. As Max watched, surprise and relief crossed Jules’s face. “Is Max in there, too?” Jules asked. “Yes, sir,” the interpreter said. “Well, shit.” Jules grinned. “I should’ve stayed in the hospital.” “I hear helicopters!” Gina’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “I can see them, too! They’re definitely American!” Max took a deep breath, keyed the talk button. And sang. “Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go . . .

—a slave was owned by a Continental Army soldier who'd been killed in the French and Indian War. The slave looked after the soldier's widow. He did everything, from dawn to dark didn't stop doing what needed to be done. He chopped and hauled the wood, gathered the crops, excavated and built a cabbage house and stowed the cabbages there, stored the pumpkins, buried the apples, turnips, and potatoes in the ground for winter, stacked the rye and wheat in the barn, slaughtered the pig, salted the pork, slaughtered the cow and corned the beef, until one day the widow married him and they had three sons. And those sons married Gouldtown girls whose families reached back to the settlement's origins in the 1600s, families that by the Revolution were all intermarried and thickly intermingled. One or another or all of them, she said, were descendants of the Indian from the large Lenape settlement at Indian Fields who married a Swede—locally Swedes and Finns had superseded the original Dutch settlers—and who had five children with her; one or another or all were descendants of the two mulatto brothers brought from the West Indies on a trading ship that sailed up the river from Greenwich to Bridgeton, where they were indentured to the landowners who had paid their passage and who themselves later paid the passage of two Dutch sisters to come from Holland to become their wives; one or another or all were descendants of the granddaughter of John Fenwick, an English baronet's son, a cavalry officer in Cromwell's Commonwealth army and a member of the Society of Friends who died in New Jersey not that many years after New Cesarea (the province lying between the Hudson and the Delaware that was deeded by the brother of the king of England to two English proprietors) became New Jersey.

Once the mobilization button was pushed, the whole vast machinery for calling up, equipping, and transporting two million men began turning automatically. Reservists went to their designated depots, were issued uniforms, equipment, and arms, formed into companies and companies into battalions, were joined by cavalry, cyclists, artillery, medical units, cook wagons, blacksmith wagons, even postal wagons, moved according to prepared railway timetables to concentration points near the frontier where they would be formed into divisions, divisions into corps, and corps into armies ready to advance and fight. One army corps alone—out of the total of 40 in the German forces—required 170 railway cars for officers, 965 for infantry, 2,960 for cavalry, 1,915 for artillery and supply wagons, 6,010 in all, grouped in 140 trains and an equal number again for their supplies. From the moment the order was given, everything was to move at fixed times according to a schedule precise down to the number of train axles that would pass over a given bridge within a given time.

People are so soon gone; let us catch them. That man there, by the cabinet; he lives, you say, surrounded by china pots. Break one and you shatter a thousand pounds. And he loved a girl in Rome and she left him. Hence the pots, old junk found in lodging-houses or dug from the desert sands. And since beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful, and he is static, his life stagnates in a china sea. It is strange though; for once, as a young man, he sat on damp ground and drank rum with soldiers. One must be quick and add facts deftly, like toys to a tree, fixing them with a twist of the fingers. He stoops, how he stoops, even over an azalea. He stoops over the old woman even, because she wears diamonds in her ears, and, bundling about her estate in a pony carriage, directs who is to be helped, what tree felled, and who turned out tomorrow. (I have lived my life, I must tell you, all these years, and I am now past thirty, perilously, like a mountain goat, leaping from crag to crag; I do not settle long anywhere; I do not attach myself to one person in particular; but you will find that if I raise my arm, some figure at once breaks off and will come.) And that man is a judge; and that man is a millionaire, and that man, with the eyeglass, shot his governess “through the heart with an arrow when he was ten years old. Afterwards he rode through deserts with despatches, took part in revolutions and now collects materials for a history of his mother’s family, long settled in Norfolk. That little man with a blue chin has a right hand that is withered. But why? We do not know. That woman, you whisper discreetly, with the pearl pagodas hanging from her ears, was the pure flame who lit the life of one of our statesmen; now since his death she sees ghosts, tells fortunes, and has adopted a coffee-coloured youth whom she calls the Messiah.* That man with the drooping moustache, like a cavalry officer, lived a life of the utmost debauchery (it is all in some memoir) until one day he met a stranger in a train who converted him between Edinburgh and Carlisle by reading the Bible. Thus, in a few seconds, deftly, adroitly, we decipher the hieroglyphs written on other people’s faces. Here, in this room, are the abraded and battered shells cast on the shore.

Major General Leonard Wood Leonard Wood was an army officer and physician, born October 9, 1860 in Winchester, New Hampshire. His first assignment was in 1886 at Fort Huachuca, Arizona where he fought in the last campaign against the fierce Apache warrior Geronimo. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory and was promoted to the rank of Captain, commanding a detachment of the 8th Infantry. From 1887 to 1898, he served as a medical officer in a number of positions, the last of which was as the personal physician to President William McKinley. In 1898 at the beginning of the war with Spain, he was given command of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment was soon to be known as the “Rough Riders." Wood lead his men on the famous charge up San Juan Hill and was given a field promotion to brigadier general. In 1898 he was appointed the Military Governor of Santiago de Cuba. In 1920, as a retired Major General, Wood ran as the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, losing to Warren Harding. In 1921 following his defeat, General Wood accepted the post of Governor General of the Philippines. He held this position from 1921 to 1927, when he died of a brain tumor in Boston, on 7 August 1927, at 66 years of age after which he was buried, with full honors, in Arlington National Cemetery.

Madam, you can’t be more desperate than I.” He wound his arms around her and grunted. “The evidence is drooling on your stomach. I have not lost this erection for five days. Doral looks at me and winces. You have obliterated my dignity in front of my staff. I have become a laughingstock, a by-word for ‘pussy-whipped male’. Every time I walk into a room, the conversation dies. I entered the mess hall, yesterday—530 officers and enlisted men. Silence, Fleur. Dead silence.” She sniffed. By the gods, this must be a unique experience for him. I’m certain he has never been the butt of the joke before. “I don’t think you appreciate the torture and humiliation you inflict. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to ride a horse when I’m like this? Do you know how disconcerting it is to discuss cavalry deployment with Major Truillo while I’m sporting a cockstand to rival a stud horse? I couldn't get the man to look me in the face. Worse, he thought I reacted to him.” She nuzzled her face into Ari’s chest and tried to contain her amusement. Her imagination supplied the picture of the very handsome, very homosexual, very short Major Truillo standing with covetous eyes riveted to Ari’s substantial erection, all the while discussing the dry topic of cavalry placement. “For half an hour all I saw was the top of his head.” He paused for a moment then threw out, “He has a bald spot.

Colleague, given that I’m detached to go hunting bandits, I’d be grateful for the continued loan of your horses until we return. A squadron of cavalry could make all the difference when we’re chasing around the forests after shadows.’ Licinius gave him a jaundiced look. ‘You’ve got sticky fingers, young man. Every soldier that comes into contact with your cohort seems to end up as part of it. Hamian archers, borrowed cavalrymen. I’ll even wager you that the half-century of legionaries Dubnus borrowed from the Sixth will end up in your establishment. And yes, you can extend the loan if you think it’ll do you any good, and you can keep that decurion you promoted to command them.

Robert Murray McCheyne spoke at the ordination of young Dan Edwards in the 1840s. He said something like this: “Mr. Edwards, do not forget the inner man, the heart. The cavalry officer knows that his life depends upon his saber, so he keeps it clean. Every stain he wipes off with the greatest care. Mr. Edwards, you are God’s chosen instrument. According to your purity, so shall be your success. It is not great talent; it is not great ideas that God uses; it is great likeness to Jesus Christ. Mr. Edwards, a holy man is an awesome weapon in the hand of God” (see 2 Tim. 2:21). McCheyne was right, and God’s will is that you be holy—sanctified.

Clever feller,” a leather-skinned officer muttered before spitting out a slug of tobacco juice. He had a few marks of rank on his dark-blue United States Army uniform and was obviously the man in charge.  His matching cavalry hat had a few dirt streaks on it, but the distinct golden tassel still stood out proudly.  The week-old stubble on his face was a patchwork of gray and light brown.  He scratched his neck while considering the next move.

Knott County was riven by the terrible “Knott County War,” which raged for many years between the followers of “Cap” Hays and Clabe Jones. Hays had been a cavalry captain in the Confederate army and Jones a pro-Union, guerilla leader. When these two strong willed men resumed the war in Knott County most of the population enlisted in one faction or the other and in a pitched battle at McPherson Post Office (which later became Hindman, the county seat) a half-dozen men were shot to death. Old Clabe Jones was renowned in song as a “booger,” little less evil than the devil himself. When he was not feuding with the followers of “Cap” Hays he warred with “Bad John” Wright, his neighbor in Letcher County. This mountain baron was an ex-Confederate who was captured during the war and imprisoned in Ohio. He escaped and thereafter acquired a small fortune by repeatedly enlisting in the Union Army for the bounties which were paid. With his roll of “Yankee greenbacks” he returned to his Rebel unit, where he remained until the war ended. He and Hays were eventually able to decimate the Jones crowd and bring this war, at least, to a close.

The superintendent of the new consolidated school, Emory Huyck, had been recommended for the job by his alma mater, Michigan State Agricultural College.1 He was born in 1894 in Butternut, Michigan, not far from Carson City, one of eleven children, all of whom would outlive him, as would both his parents, William and Mary. After graduating from high school at the top of his class, Emory briefly attended the Ferris Institute in Big Rapids, Michigan. Ferris had been founded in 1884 by future Michigan governor and US senator Woodbridge Nathan Ferris as an “industrial school” meant to provide both practical training and a basic liberal arts education “to all young men and women, regardless of their ages, regardless of their mental attainments, regardless of their present conditions, who desire to make themselves stronger and better.”2 In 1917, while teaching at a school in the Montcalm County village of Pierson, Emory registered for the draft. His registration card suggests that he was not merely willing but was keen to serve his country. To the question “Do you claim exemption from draft?” he answered with an emphatic “I do not,” rather than a simple “no,” as most young men did.3 Stationed at Camp Custer near Battle Creek during the war years, he served as a training officer. He would eventually be commissioned second lieutenant of cavalry in the Officers’ Reserve Corps.4

The following is the order of battle of the military units presently quartered at Fort Knox. Of the 3rd Armored Division, there is only the Spearhead, but there are also the 6th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 15th Armor Group, the 160th Engineer Group and approximately half a division from all units of the United States Army currently going through the Armored Replacement Training Center and Military Human Research Unit No 1. There is also a considerable body of men associated with Continental Armored Command Board No 2, the Army Maintenance Board and various activities connected with the Armored Center. In addition there is a police force consisting of twenty officers and some four hundred enlisted men. In short, out of a total population of some sixty thousand, approximately twenty thousand are combat troops of one sort or another.

British and Indian troops were sent in, and an Indian Cavalry guard escorted them to work. That evening there was a further disturbance, and one of the labourers, Mohamed Ahmed, knocked a British officer unconscious with a stick and seized his rifle and bayonet, before being overpowered by three other Egyptians. Twelve days later he was tried for ‘a disturbance of a mutinous nature’, found guilty and shot.

Officers received more than ordinary soldiers, cavalry more than infantry.

In fact, minimal thought ever went into race-related issues when it came to the Sussexes. This is the same institution that suggested that Lady Susan Hussey (yes, that Lady Susan Hussey) help biracial Meghan acclimate to Palace life and navigate the royal system. The duchess turned down the offer, probably having already sensed that it might not be the best idea. When Palace aides later told reporters, including myself, that they “bent over backwards” to make Meghan feel comfortable at Buckingham Palace, this included a follow-up suggestion that perhaps the Queen’s Ghanaian-born household cavalry officer Lieutenant Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah should be the one to help Meghan. Though a charming and intelligent man, it stood out like a sore thumb to Meghan and her friends that, due to a lack of Black or other non-white staff, let alone women, in relevant senior roles, the Palace had to turn to someone who was the Queen’s attendant. “I doubt Kate was offered an equerry [for guidance],” a pal said to Meghan.

Gen. Pendleton may lecture and create a sensation that will put money in his pocket, but he will never convince the fighting men who are left of Longstreet's corps that the grim commander at whose word they so often threw themselves against the battalions of the north, was a traitor to the cause he sacrificed for. No matter what his politics may be; no matter how much derided, vilified and abused, Longstreet's name will go sounding down the corridors of time as one of the best, bravest, and most unassuming officers the southern confederacy produced. -- 'One of Longstreet's Foot Cavalry,' Morning Republican (Little Rock, AR), May 14, 1873.

As a former cavalry officer, he’d grown used to facing danger, even death. Strange how the prospect of losing his heart to his wife suddenly seemed more terrifying.

It is something of a curiosity that the American cavalry arm utilized a tactical manual and a saddle developed by an officer who had never served—and would never serve—a day with the cavalry.

The confusion is the result of a strategic mistake made by the pharaohs. The Egyptians hired the Sea People as mercenaries—a short-term decision that would have long-term consequences. The Romans also hired foreigners as auxiliaries. One of them, Arminius, a cavalry officer, led Germanic tribes in the massacre of several Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest.

One of Pleasonton’s officers later observed that at Antietam the Federal cavalry arm “had not yet fallen into the hands of those who knew the proper use to make of it.

Well they don't really look at themselves as prisoners, anymore than cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being dedicated to their profession...

After Scotland's mounted knights had been routed by Edward I in 1296, resistance leaders worked out new methods of waging war, using foot-soldiers armed with long pikes and axes. Medieval infantry usually fled when charged by cavalry, but William Wallace and Robert Bruce (King Robert I) solved the problem by organising their men into massed formations ('schiltroms'), and fighting on the defensive on well-chosen ground; that is how Robert I's army won the battle of Bannockburn. Also, Robert ordered that castles recaptured from the English should be demolished or slighted. This denied the English any bases for garrisons, and meant that subsequent warfare consisted chiefly of cross-Border raids - in which Robert I perfected the technique of making rapid hard-hitting strikes. The English could not win this type of warfare. The actual fighting was done by ordinary Scotsmen; most of the pikemen came from the substantial peasantry, whose level of commitment to the independence cause was remarkably high. But the organisation and leadership came from the Normanised Scottish landowners. Norman military success had been based on these qualities as well as on armoured cavalry; now they were vital in countering the armies of English knights. There is a most significant contrast here with the Welsh and the Irish, who never found the way to defeat the English in warfare. It was the Normanised Scottish landowners, forming the officer corps of Scotland's armies, who achieved that crucial breakthrough.

Before they came in Lee had a couple of adventures. He first clashed with a sergeant of a Mississippi regiment who wandered over the wet field. Lee called out sharply: "What are you doing here, sir, away from your command?" "That's none of your business," the ragged soldier said. "You are a straggler, sire, and deserve the severest punishment." The sergeant shouted in rage, "It is a lie, sir. I only left my regiment a few minutes ago to hunt me a pair of shoes. I went through all the fight yesterday, and that's more than you can say; for where were you yesterday when General Stuart wanted your cavalry to charge the Yankees after we put 'em to running? You were lying back in the pine thickets and couldn't be found; but today, when there's no danger, you come out and charge other men with straggling." Lee laughed and rode off. Behind him an officer baited the sergeant, who thought he had been talking with a "cowardly Virginia cavalryman". "No, sir, that was General Lee." "Ho-o-what? General Lee, you say?" "Yes." "Scissors to grind, I'm a goner." The sergeant tore out of sight along the muddy road.

the cavalry was better paid than ordinary infantrymen; and officers,

The dances were not without their downside notwithstanding all their glitter and gaiety. Quite apart from any damage to hearts or reputations, wax dripped from the overhead candelabra and chandeliers onto the dancers with some regularity. The wilder dances involved mad sorties across the floor (one etiquette book found it necessary to warn cavalry officers not to wear spurs in the ballroom) and with the bracelets that some ladies wore, in at least one instance someone slammed into another girl cutting her arm and sending blood spurting all over.

As a young cavalry officer out of St-Cyr, de Mun first became acquainted with the lives and problems of the poor through the charitable work of the Society of St-Vincent de Paul in his garrison town. During the Commune, as an aide to General Galliffet, who commanded the battalion that fired on the insurgent Communards, he saw a dying man brought in on a litter. The guard said he was an “insurgent,” whereupon the man, raising himself up, cried with his last strength, “No, it is you who are the insurgents!” and died. In the force of that cry directed at himself, his uniform, his family, his Church, de Mun had recognized the reason for civil war and vowed himself to heal the cleavage. He blamed the Commune on “the apathy of the bourgeois class and the ferocious hatred for society of the working class.” The responsible ones, he had been told by one of the St. Vincent brothers, were “you, the rich, the great, the happy ones of life who pass by the people without seeing them.” To

Emmie had not told her vicar she would marry him, but as October drifted into November, St. Just knew she hadn’t turned the man down, either. It had taken some time to see why the decision was difficult, though he’d initially considered that he held the trump card—Winnie. Except there were low cards in his hand, as well, something he was finding it difficult to come to grips with. In the army, his men had become loyal to him for three reasons. He did not have charm, luck, or diplomacy in sufficient quantity to inspire followers, but he was, first, foremost, and to the marrow of his bones, a horseman. In the cavalry, a man who truly admired and understood the equine, and the cavalry mount in particular, was respected. St. Just’s unit was always a little better mounted, their tack in a little better shape, and their horses in better condition, primarily because St. Just saw to it. He commandeered the best fodder, requisitioned the best gear, and insisted on sound, sane animals, though it might cost him his personal coin to see to it. The second attribute that won him the respect of his subordinates was a gentleman’s quotient of simple common sense. Stupid orders, written for stupid reasons, were commonplace. St. Just would not disobey such an order, but he would time implementation of it to ensure the safety of his men. In rare cases, he might interpret an order at variance with its intended meaning, if necessary, again, to protect the lives of his men and their mounts. But when battle was joined, St. Just’s third strength as a commander of soldiers manifested itself. His men soon found those fighting in St. Just’s vicinity were safer than their comrades elsewhere. Once the order to charge was given, St. Just fought with the strength, size, speed, and skill of the berserkers of old, leaving murder, mayhem, and maiming on all sides until the enemy was routed. His capacity for sheer, cold-blooded brutality appalled, even as it awed, particularly when, once victory was assured, his demeanor became again the calm, organized, slightly detached commanding officer. And Emmie Farnum had no use for that latent capacity for brutality. She’d seen its echoes in his setbacks and his temper, in his drinking and insomnia, and St. Just knew in his bones she was smart enough to sense exactly what she’d be marrying were she to throw in with him. Barbarians might be interesting to bed, but no sane woman let one take her to wife. Nonetheless, having reasoned to this inevitable, uncomfortable conclusion, St. Just was still unable to fathom why, on the strength of one intimate interlude, he could not convince himself to stop wanting her to do just that.

How funny do you think it feels not to be able to play the piano when it’s all I’ve done of worth in the past twenty-some years? I did not excel at school, and I can’t point to an illustrious career like my brother, the former cavalry officer. I haven’t Westhaven’s head for business. I wasn’t a jolly good time like Bart or a charmer like Vic. But, by God, I could play the piano.” “And you can build stone walls and referee between Day and Phil and keep an eye on Nick Haddonfield when he hares all over the Home Counties,” Darius retorted. “Do you think one activity defines you?” “I’m like a whore, Darius, in that, yes, the one activity, in my case playing the piano, defines me.” Val heard weariness in his own voice. “When Dev was driven mad by nightmares, I played for him so he couldn’t hear the battles anymore. When his little Winnie was scared witless by all the changes in her life, I played for her and taught her a few things to play for herself. When Victor was so sick, I’d play for him, and he’d stop coughing for a little while. It’s how I let people know they matter to me, Darius, and now…” Darius got up and crossed the room, then lowered himself to sit beside Val in the shifting candlelight. “Now all this playing for others has left you one-handed, angry, and beating yourself up.” Not beating himself up, precisely, but feeling beaten up. “The piano is the way I have a soul, Dare. It’s always there for me, always able to say the things I can’t, always worth somebody’s notice, even if they don’t know they notice. It has never let me down, never ridiculed me before others, never taken a sudden notion not to know who I am or what I want. As mistresses go, the piano has been loyal, predictable, and lovely.” “You

I will say again that Louisa should have been a cavalry officer. She has the gallantry for it and the excellent seat.” “Also the outspoken opinions and tendency to take charge of matters outside her authority.” “You can’t blame the girl if she takes after her mama in some regards.” Esther sat forward and aimed a glare at him, until he smiled at her ruffled feathers. She smiled too and subsided against him. “Shameless man, and you a duke.” “Also

Get rid of it,” he said, settling the hilt of the knife in her palm. “I’ll get you a lady’s version of a pocket pistol and teach you how to use it, unless you’d rather approach one of your brothers to see to it.” “My brothers?” “St. Just would be best suited to the task.” Devlin St. Just was a decorated cavalry officer, one who’d been awarded an earldom for his exploits in the Peninsular War. Or for being a duke’s firstborn bastard. “He’s gone back North, where he’s likely to stay,” Miss Windham said. “If you can spare the time, I will take my instruction from you. But I hardly think your purpose in meeting me tonight was to accost me with a knife.” “Of

Hullo, Aunt Jen!” “Bronwyn, hello. Please tell Scout not to knock anything over.” On the mantel, Timothy had come to attention, though he remained sitting. He hissed at the dog and added a low, menacing growl for good measure. “Scout, come.” The dog ignored his owner, another Windham grandchild, this one down from the North with St. Just and his countess. The scent of Elijah’s boots was apparently more compelling than the punishment for indifferent hearing. “Scout, come here this instant.” Bronwyn sounded like her papa, the former cavalry officer, but the dog had apparently never bought his colors. Elijah nudged the beast in the direction of the door with his knee. “Miss Winnie, was there something you were looking for? Something you wanted to tell us?” “Yes!” The dog walked over to the girl while Jenny steadied a jar of brushes his tail had nearly knocked to the floor. “I forget—oh, I remember. Aunt Eve is here. You have to come get kissed. She’s going to have a baby, and Papa says from the size of her he thinks it will be a baby horse.” Jenny hoped St. Just hadn’t said that within Eve’s hearing—though he probably had. “We’ll be along presently. You can tell everybody we’re coming.

I’ve just been to see Audrey,” Beatrix said breathlessly, entering the private upstairs parlor and closing the door. “Poor Mr. Phelan isn’t well, and--well, I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but--here’s a letter from Captain Phelan!” Prudence smiled and took the letter. “Thank you, Bea. Now, about the officers I met last night…there was a dark-haired lieutenant who asked me to dance, and he--” “Aren’t you going to open it?” Beatrix asked, watching in dismay as Prudence laid the letter on a side table. Prudence gave her a quizzical smile. “My, you’re impatient today. You want me to open it this very moment?” ”Yes.” Beatrix promptly sat in a chair upholstered with flower-printed fabric. “But I want to tell you about the lieutenant.” “I don’t give a monkey about the lieutenant, I want to hear about Captain Phelan.” Prudence gave a low chuckle. “I haven’t seen you this excited since you stole that fox that Lord Campdon imported from France last year.” “I didn’t steal him, I rescued him. Importing a fox for a hunt…I call that very unsporting.” Beatrix gestured to the letter. “Open it!” Prudence broke the seal, skimmed the letter, and shook her head in amused disbelief. “Now he’s writing about mules.” She rolled her eyes and gave Beatrix the letter. Miss Prudence Mercer Stony Cross Hampshire, England 7 November 1854 Dear Prudence, Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise. We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman. We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed. Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent. May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade? It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency. Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad. I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before. Ever yours, Christopher P.S. Sketch of Albert included

Forrest had about 4,000 cavalry with him, composed of thoroughly well-disciplined men, who under so able a leader were very effective. Smith’s command was nearly double that of Forrest, but not equal, man to man, for the lack of a successful experience such as Forrest’s men had had. The fact is, troops who have fought a few battles and won, and followed up their victories, improve upon what they were before to an extent that can hardly be counted by percentage. The difference in result is often decisive victory instead of inglorious defeat. This same difference, too, is often due to the way troops are officered, and for the particular kind of warfare which Forrest had carried on neither army could present a more effective officer than he was.

As other officers clung to the need for cavalry in the inter-war years, Guderian would remember what he had seen and argue that the machine-gun would make mounted soldiers a thing of the past. He would later say, “New weapons require new tactics. Never put new wine into old bottles.” As a wireless communications officer, he did not see the successes an ambitious young man might have hoped for, if only because like any new system, wireless communications had growing pains and opportunities were missed as a result.

Young fops and lordlings of the garrison Kept up by England here to keep us down . . . And doubtless, as they dash along, regard Us who stand outside as a beggarly crew. ’Tis half-past six. Not yet. No, that’s not he. Well, but ’tis pretty, sure, to see them stoop And take the ball, full gallop . . . Polo was still dominated by British cavalry officers, and the stretch called Nine Acres was seen by militant nationalists to be an offensive appropriation of public land—a little enclave of England—as was the cricket ground. Phoenix Park’s statues—the robed figure in the People’s Garden commemorating an earlier lord lieutenant, the Seventh Earl of Carlisle, as well as the bronze equestrian memorial of the war hero Lord Gough—were further reminders of British rule (both demolished by twentieth-century nationalists). Ferguson’s verses, however, express more than national resentment. The poet, later to be worshipped by the young W. B. Yeats, cannot have known about Patrick Egan’s plan for James Carey, and yet, with remarkable insight, he reveals it: “Lord Mayor for life—why not?” Carey muses,

Real fights are always messy and chaotic, and real fighters rarely do exactly what they’re supposed to do under fire. And yet any leader of irregular cavalry or light infantry (or, indeed, any mounted constabulary officer) of the past century would recognize these simple tactics.

As a troop and battalion commander, Gen. (then Capt.) BUFORD was among the first of the cavalry officers of the “old army” to depart from the cast-iron rule of Martinetism, and to treat the soldier as a thinking, reasoning being. He took especial [sic.] pains, as a troop commander, to dignify and elevate the non-commissioned

Lee crushed this idea in a few words. “If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.” Although Lee meant “the South” when he said “the country,” he was doing something for which the North as well as the South had reason to thank him, even before he went to see Grant.

Fire on the cavalry!” cried an officer from behind them. Javert raised his musket and glared with one open eye at the approaching horde. His eyes trained on a man in white astride a large bay mount. The Mameluk cavalry had their curved swords wielded, and they shone in the sun like blinding jewels. Javert tried to decide whether he should hit the horse or the rider. Without hesitating, he made his decision and pulled the trigger. The Mameluk cavalry rider’s arms flung upward as he was struck, and his body hurtled backward as though shoved by an invisible hand. The bay horse galloped onward in terror, leaving its master behind on the sand. The man’s white robes went scarlet around his belly, and he did not move again. Javert hurried to reload his musket, glancing over to see that Masse was sitting and staring over the battlefield in silence.

Why don’t they charge?” Gaston looked at the field. A shell exploding overhead made both their horses jump. “I believe they’re having trouble in the mud, sir,” he said when he had his horse under control. “The good news is the Vin horsemen have even farther to go, over ground just as muddy.” It was true. Hell, it was part of the reason he’d chosen this place to make his stand—it neutralized the Vins’ advantage in cavalry—but he hadn’t counted on conditions this bad. As he watched, the flank of the Vin skirmish line fired a rippling volley that put down dozens of dragoons. “Goddamn it!” he bellowed. They were only skirmishers, which God in His wisdom had placed on Earth so they could be slaughtered by horsemen, and yet here they were, taking a piss on his dragoons. Gaston had a telescope to his eye. He lowered it and said, “I fear we cannot blunt this assault, sir. We might think of an ordered withdrawal.” “To where, Gaston?” He paused to take a cup of tea from the aide he’d sent out. He sipped it. Nice and hot. Wonderful. “To Arle? To be trapped there by encircling forces? No, it’s here or nowhere.” He could tell Gaston didn’t agree, but Gaston was a good officer and said nothing of it. General Lord Fieren sipped his tea, accidentally wetting his mustache when a round shot shrieked overhead

Having won the Cross of St. George as a dashing young cavalry officer in the war of 1877 against the Turks, Sukhomlinov believed that military knowledge acquired in that campaign was permanent truth. As Minister of War he scolded a meeting of Staff College instructors for interest in such “innovations” as the factor of firepower against the saber, lance and the bayonet charge. He could not hear the phrase “modern war,” he said, without a sense of annoyance. “As war was, so it has remained … all these things are merely vicious innovations. Look at me, for instance; I have not read a military manual for the last twenty-five years.

In dust, heat, and discouragement and fatigue beyond telling, the British retreat continued. Trailing through St. Quentin, the tired remnants of two battalions gave up, piled up their arms in the railroad station, sat down in the Place de la Gare, and refused to go farther. They told Major Bridges whose cavalry had orders to hold off the Germans until St. Quentin was clear of troops, that their commanding officers had given the mayor a written promise to surrender in order to save the town further bombardment. Not caring to confront the battalion colonels whom he knew and who were senior to him, Bridges wished desperately for a band to rouse the two hundred or three hundred dispirited men lying about in the square. “Why not? There was a toy shop handy which provided my trumpeter and myself with a tin whistle and a drum and we marched round and round the fountain where the men were lying like the dead playing the British Grenadiers and Tipperary and beating the drum like mad.” The men sat up, began to laugh, then cheer, then one by one stood up, fell in and “eventually we moved off slowly into the night to the music of our improvised band, now reinforced with a couple of mouth organs.

As vanguard of the invasion, the cavalry’s mission was to reconnoiter the position of the Belgian and French armies, to watch out for British landings, and to screen the German deployment against similar enemy reconnaissance. On the first day the duty of the advance squadrons, supported by infantry brought up in automobiles, was to seize the crossings of the Meuse before the bridges were destroyed and capture farms and villages as sources of food and forage. At Warsage, just inside the frontier, M. Flechet, the Burgomaster of seventy-two, wearing his scarf of office, stood in the village square as the horsemen clattered over the cobblestones of the Belgian pavé. Riding up, the squadron’s officer with a polite smile handed him a printed proclamation which expressed Germany’s “regret” at being “compelled by necessity” to enter Belgium. Though wishing to avoid combat, it said, “We must have a free road. Destruction of bridges, tunnels and railroads will be regarded as hostile acts.” In village squares all along the border from Holland to Luxembourg the Uhlans scattered the proclamations, hauled down the Belgian flag from the town halls, raised the black eagle of the German Empire, and moved on, confident in the assurance given them by their commanders that the Belgians would not fight.

The politicians are the guilty ones," said one cavalry officer. "I am all for revolution after this bloody massacre. I would hang all politicians, diplomats, and so-called statesmen with strict impartiality." "I'm for the people," said another. "The poor, bloody people, who are kept in ignorance and then driven into the shambles when their rulers desire to grab some new part of the earth's surface or to get their armies going because they are bored with peace." "What price Christianity?" asked another, inevitably. "What have the churches done to stop war or preach the gospel of Christ? The Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, all those conventional, patriotic, cannon—blessing, banner-baptizing humbugs. God! They make me tired!" Strange words to hear in a

have had to pay for a visit to the discreet mansion near the Opéra—into a fund. And tonight they were going to draw lots to discover which of them was to take the money and visit La Belle Hélène. But before the lottery took place, they would drink champagne and enjoy the show at the Moulin Rouge. Roland de Cygne had never been to the Moulin Rouge before. He’d often meant to go. But as a regular patron of the rival Folies-Bergère, which was nearer the center of town and whose first-rate comedy and modern dance had always satisfied him, he’d somehow never got around to the Moulin Rouge with its saucier fare. Needless to say, as soon as his companions had discovered this fact, he’d had to endure some teasing, which he did with good humor. His brother officers liked Roland. He’d shown a fine aptitude for a military career right from the start. When he’d attended the military academy of Saint-Cyr, he’d come out nearly top of his class. Perhaps even more important to his aristocratic companions, he’d shown such prowess at the Cavalry Academy at Saumur that he’d almost made the elite Cadre Noir equestrian team. He was a good regimental soldier, respected by his men, a loyal friend with a kindly sense of humor. He could also be trusted to tell the truth. And he certainly looked the part of the cavalryman. He

THE AMERICANS Major James Pitman: West Point graduate, lover of dogs and horses. Executive officer of the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Lieutenant William Donald “Quin” Quinlivan: Career cavalryman. Assigned to the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Colonel Charles Hancock “Hank” Reed: Virginia-born, expert horseman, commanding officer of the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Ferdinand Sperl: Swiss-born naturalized U.S. citizen. Interrogator attached to the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Thomas Stewart: Son of a Tennessee senator. Intelligence officer in the 2nd Cavalry.

Of all the cities of the east that our men had passed through,” one New Zealand cavalry officer recalled, “Jericho easily led the way as the filthiest and most evil-smelling of them all.”8

IN 1943 POLISH SOLDIERS TRAINED AN ADULT brown bear to help them fight Nazis in an old monastery atop a mountain in the Italian Alps. Yes, this is a true story, not the plot of the next Pixar film. The bear doesn’t sing or dance or talk, but it does carry artillery shells, take baths, and smoke cigarettes, even though smoking is really bad for you. Voytek the Soldier Bear’s story starts back during the German blitzkrieg against Poland at the very beginning of the war. As the Nazis were crushing their way through western Poland, the brave Polish defenders suddenly felt the stab of a knife in their back when the forces of the Soviet Union came rolling across Poland’s eastern border, eager to grab land for the USSR while the Polish were preoccupied with getting punched in the head by the German Army. One of the few, outnumbered defenders who stood his ground against the Soviet juggernaut was Captain Wladislaw Anders, a resolute cavalry officer who valiantly launched a charge against Soviet troops but was wounded in battle and taken as a prisoner of war. For over a year he rotted in Lubyanka Prison, one of Stalin’s worst and most inhospitable one-star prison facilities. Then a weird thing happened. On August 14, 1941, the Red Army guards unlocked the prison cell and told Anders he was a free man. The Germans had invaded Russia, and now the Soviets were prepared to offer Anders and 1.5 million other Polish citizens their freedom if they’d help old Uncle Joe Stalin battle those big evil Nazis. Anders cocked an eyebrow. He wasn’t exactly crazy about the idea of trusting his life to the men who had just shot and imprisoned him, but he agreed anyway. He was shipped out by rail and reunited with twenty-five thousand other Polish soldiers who had been similarly released from the Soviet prison system. Anders immediately

L. Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evening Journal; and General Henry Eugene Davies, who wrote a pamphlet, Ten Days on the Plains, describing the hunt. Among the others rounding out the group were Leonard W. and Lawrence R. Jerome; General Anson Stager of the Western Union Telegraph Company; Colonel M. V. Sheridan, the general's brother; General Charles Fitzhugh; and Colonel Daniel H. Rucker, acting quartermaster general and soon to be Phil Sheridan's father-in-law. Leonard W. Jerome, a financier, later became the grandfather of Winston Churchill when his second daughter, jenny, married Lord Randolph Churchill. The party arrived at Fort McPherson on September 22, 1871. The New York Herald's first dispatch reported: "General Sheridan and party arrived at the North Platte River this morning, and were conducted to Fort McPherson by General Emery [sic], commanding. General Sheridan reviewed the troops, consisting of four companies of the Fifth Cavalry. The party start[s] across the country tomorrow, guided by the renowned Buffalo Bill and under the escort of Major Brown, Company F, Fifth Cavalry. The party expect[s] to reach Fort Hays in ten days." After Sheridan's review of the troops, the general introduced Buffalo Bill to the guests and assigned them to their quarters in large, comfortable tents just outside the post, a site christened Camp Rucker. The remainder of the day was spent entertaining the visitors at "dinner and supper parties, and music and dancing; at a late hour they retired to rest in their tents." The officers of the post and their ladies spared no expense in their effort to entertain their guests, to demonstrate, perhaps, that the West was not all that wild. The finest linens, glassware, and china the post afforded were brought out to grace the tables, and the ballroom glittered that night with gold braid, silks, velvets, and jewels. Buffalo Bill dressed for the hunt as he had never done before. Despite having retired late, "at five o'clock next morning . . . I rose fresh and eager for the trip, and as it was a nobby and high-toned outfit which I was to accompany, I determined to put on a little style myself. So I dressed in a new suit of buckskin, trimmed along the seams with fringes of the same material; and I put on a crimson shirt handsomely ornamented on the bosom, while on my head I wore a broad sombrero. Then mounting a snowy white horse-a gallant stepper, I rode down from the fort to the camp, rifle in hand. I felt first-rate that morning, and looked well." In all probability, Louisa Cody was responsible for the ornamentation on his shirt, for she was an expert with a needle. General Davies agreed with Will's estimation of his appearance that morning. "The most striking feature of the whole was ... our friend Buffalo Bill.... He realized to perfection the bold hunter and gallant sportsman of the plains." Here again Cody appeared as the