Traveler (horse)
| Traveler | |
 Traveler |
|
| Race: | American Saddlebred |
| Father: | |
| Mother: | |
| Mother, father: | |
| Gender: | gelding |
| Year of birth: | 1857 |
| Year of death: | 1871 |
| Country: | United States |
| Colour: | |
| Owner: | Robert E. Lee |
| Equestrian: | Robert E. Lee |
Traveler (* 1857 ; † 1871 ) was the preferred riding horse of the Southern General Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War .
Life
Traveler was initially called Jeff Davis . He was raised by a Mr. Johnston in Greenbrier County , Virginia (now West Virginia ) near Blue Sulfur Springs . The animal belonged to the Gray Eagle line. In the years 1859 and 1860 it was awarded in Lewisburg . In 1861 it was selected by Captain Joseph M. Broun, a quartermaster of the Wise Legion, and bought by his brother Thomas L. Broun for $ 175.
General Lee was immediately taken with the horse. During the winter he was posted to South Carolina . In Pocotaligo he saw the horse again. Joseph M. Broun finally offered the animal as a gift to the general, which Lee refused. However, he had the horse loaned to him for a week and then sent it back with the remark that such a valuable animal could not be used in war unless it was his. Broun finally sold the animal to the general in February 1862 for $ 200. He gave the horse the name “Traveler”, by which it was then known, and reported to Broun in a letter in 1868 that the animal had survived the war.
An accident occurred once during the war: Traveler threw General Lee off at Sharpsburg in the second Battle of Manassas in 1862 , and Lee broke both of his hands. After this accident he received the easy-to-ride mare "Lucy Long" as a gift from General Jeb Stuart . Lee rode Lucy Long for two years until she had a foal. Lucy Long was later stolen but found and placed with Lee's father in Lexington . She reached old age. Lee himself rode his favorite horse Traveler again, although he owned other riding horses: The stallion "Richmond" was given to him in 1861 in Richmond . He died soon after the fight at Malvern Hill . Lee also bought The Roan in West Virginia. This gradually went blind in the summer of 1862 and was therefore unusable. Another horse, "Ajax," given to Lee in West Virginia, was too big for the general and was rarely ridden by him.
Of all these cavalry horses, Lee only used Traveler after the war. This horse survived the general but did not reach old age: in 1871 Traveler kicked a nail in one of his front feet and suffered a tetanus infection . He was shot and buried on the grounds of Washington and Lee University .
In 1907 Travelers' remains were unearthed and later reburied in a new location in front of Lee Chapel. The grave was marked in 1971 by a plaque with an inscription.
Traveler in literature
In 1988, Richard Adams made Traveler the hero of a book of the same name and had him comment on the American Civil War in an idiom that a critic placed somewhere between the language of Mammy in Gone with the Wind and one of the Waltons .
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.infohorse.com/traveler.asp
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.infohorse.com/traveler.asp
- ↑ http://www.stratfordhall.org/meet-the-lee-family/general-robert-e-lee-1807-1870/general-lees-horses/
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/28/books/books-of-the-times-general-lee-s-horse-discusses-the-civil-war.html
