February 1, 2010 • 20 mins
Although prehistoric societies hunted horses for food, they quickly realized the animals were more useful as a means of transportation. Tune in as Katie and Sarah explore one of the most specialized types of horses -- battle steeds -- throughout history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dality And Katie, I
received an email from Caitlin who noticed that our podcasts
were keeping pace with her a POS history lessons and
(00:24):
Caitlin I also learned about the canning of Charles Sumner
in a push, so it must be a standard part
of the course. But she also suggested that we look
into a little equine history. So consider it done, Caitlin,
that's our subject for today. Yeah, we're gonna be talking
about all horses today. And when Katie and I were
initially planning out this podcast, we were like, Okay, well
(00:45):
we can talk about all race horses or miss the
biscuit and fatigue or something. But um our research on
Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalus for the Battle of the
Hydaspes made us curious about the great battle horses and
stead whether they're mythological or very real. But first, we're
going to give you a little bit of horse history,
(01:07):
starting with somewhat distressing a fact, which is that we
probably hunted horses for food in prehistoric times. But once
they were domesticated, well after dogs and cattle, they became
our companions and helpers. Yeah, and according to George Louis
le Clerk, who was the Comte de Baufant, a French zoologists,
(01:28):
the horse was the proudest conquest of man, which I
kind of like that quote. I do too a lot.
They were probably first domesticated by a tribe of Indo
European origin that lived in the mountains near the Black
and Caspian seas, and ever since then we've used them
for transportation, checking herds, exploring new lands, carrying us into battle,
(01:49):
but also for fun so riding and tournaments and jousts,
and we have words like chivalry and cavalier coming from horse.
And plus they're just special and honored above most other animals.
Greeks built up entire myths around them. Think of centaurs, Pegasus,
the hippocamp um, a sea horse, which made sense since
(02:11):
Poseidon was god of the sea and a horsons and
great men have their horses buried next to them. So
we have horses that have been found in the tombs
of the Scythian kings or the Egyptian pharaohs, and even
the legend of Camelot is completed and rounded out by
a horse. Um lambre, who is King Arthur's horse? That's Welsh.
I'm not totally share and pronouncing her probably wrong, honest.
(02:35):
But onto our list. Um, so why did we pick
battle horses? Well, they're obviously really important. Sarah has a
good quote for this one from Shakespeare's Richard the Third
A horse, A horse, my kingdom for a horse. And yeah,
you know that as Richard the Third's line after he's unhorsed,
And uh, I'm sure he wasn't really quite so eloquent.
(02:57):
But Richard really does go down in the Battle of
bossworth Field when he's unhorsed and cut down in the bog.
So a good battle horse is important. That's the end
of the war the roses. And I guess Richard the
Third's horse probably won't make our list just for that reason. Um,
we don't know much about it, but we do know
about Roan Barbary, who was the steed of Richard the Second,
(03:20):
who also gets a reference in Shakespeare. But think about
all the attributes a battle horse might be called to have. Um,
in the time of armor, you'd have to have a
huge horse to be able to support a full grown
man wearing just plates and plates of chain mail and
armor and armor. And the horse a battle horse might
(03:40):
need to be fast, have good stamina, um, and probably
the most important aspect is its temperament. You couldn't be
too sensitive if you're in the middle of battle with
all that noise, I can imagine. Yeah, so time to
profile our individual horses. We're going to start with the
one that got us started on this topic in the
first place, Alexander the Great be Cephalus and the story
(04:04):
or perhaps the legend A lot of these are just stories,
only very loosely based in historical fact, we should say that.
But the idea is that Philinnikis brings a wild horse
to Philip the Second of Macedonia, who is Alexander's father,
But no one can handle this horse, and Philip the
Second has no idea why he's been brought angry about it. Yeah,
(04:27):
he's got this unruly horse on his hands, and what
is he supposed to do with it? But Alexander defies
his father and says that he can handle it, and
so the father and son make a bet together if
Alexander can ride the horse, Philip will buy it. If
he can't, Alexander will have to buy the horse. And
because Alexander is just a boy at the time, this
is going to be a pretty hefty purchase for him
(04:48):
to make if he loses the bet. But he's smart
and he's noticed that the horse shies away from its
own shadow, so Alexander leads it into the sun so
that its shadow is behind it. And if truly the horse,
lets Alexander mount and ride him, and he names him
be Cephalis, which means ox head, and rides it on
all his campaigns. And we've already talked a bit about
(05:10):
Bucephalus's life in the military, but um, when he dies
at the Battle of the Hydaspes, Alexander names the city
in honor of him. So that brings us to our
next horse, which is Elsin's horse, bobby Aca. And there
are again several folk tales about how Babieca came to
be the favorite steed of el Sid, who, by the way,
(05:31):
is the leader of the Reconquista, the rebellion that threw
over the moors, and he's the here here saying yeah.
So one story is that el Sid got the horse
from his godfather, who was a priest Um pare Pringoes
or fat Pete, that's his nickname. Um. The priest offers
said whichever horse he wants from the monastery, and the
monastery has all these beautifully bred horses, and said picks
(05:56):
this awkward little cult and his godfather is upset at
him and thinks it's an awful choice and shouts babby Aca,
which means stupid. And it's unclear if he's shouting at
the horse or Elsaid, but I'm going to guess it
was at Elsaid. And the second story is that perhaps
I'll said won the horse in a battle. The king
(06:17):
of Saville rode to meet, I'll said, on this beautiful
white horse, which was adorned with purple and gold and
silver bells, a jeweled bridle, and Elsaid says his opponent
looks more like he's going to a tournament than a battle,
so he issues a challenge that whoever wins will get
not only Valencia but also the pretty horse, and said
(06:38):
routs the moors, and although the king escapes, he leaves
behind his horse. So whatever the story is, Babbyaca carries
all said for thirty years, even when Elsid is dead.
This is in caps in the Atlines's very important, so
Elsaid orders his men to array him in his armor
and have him ride out on his old horse should
(07:01):
he be killed in battle. He does die in his
final fight with the Moors, and his men follow his wishes,
put him in his armor, prop him up on his horse,
and have him ride out promptly at midnight to fight
the enemy, backed up by white robe knights. And yeah,
it obviously terrifies the men who have seen him mortally
(07:23):
wounded the day before, and they're all, oh, Elsid has risen,
and I just have to note it's a little bit
like it's weekend at Elsa'd the screenplay we're working on together,
Babby Aca outlives his master and dies two years after
he did, unridden. And an interesting note on breeds here.
(07:45):
Babby Eca was an end illusion which is considered by
many to be the epitome of a Spanish horse. And
another famous and illusion was William the Conqueror's horse, who
he rode in the Battle of Hastings. We could talk
about him if we knew his name, but we don't,
so that horse's name did not go down in history,
unlike Elmore Ceo, who was the pride and joy of
(08:08):
one of our most famous conquistadors, Cortez. Elmo SiO was
a black Spanish barbed stallion and his name means black
with a reddish luster. And the story goes on the
way to Honduras, Elmo Cio gets a large splinter in
his hoof and he's really debilitated by this, and he's
ferried across the river. You know, they're trying to help
(08:30):
him out, but he's not well. He's got bad water,
low rations, and vampire bats keep on attacking him and
sucking his blood at night. Um. And it's gone to
the point where Cortez has to press on and leave
behind his horse, but he wants to make sure he's
taken care of, so he leaves him with the Indians
near like Patain, and you know, says, please take good
(08:52):
care of my horse. And the Indians take this very
seriously and treat Elmsio like a god, feeding him tropical ours,
fruits and chicken. And I don't know if you know
much about horses, but they don't eat chicken that so
the poor horse starves. Yeah, And so the Aztecs are
obviously concerned about the potential wrath of Cortez, and they
(09:15):
carve a stone statue of the deceased horse sitting on
his haunches, which is an odd position for a horse
to be in, and they call the effigy Ziminchak, possibly,
which is the god of thunder and lightning. But later
Spanish missionaries destroy the statue, so you cannot go and
see it for yourself. So skipping ahead a bit in time,
(09:39):
we get to Napoleon's famous horse, Marengo. He had three
white horses. Although you were telling me, one historian was
saying that right. She wrote a book on Morango, an
entire book just on him, and she said that his
white chargers that are so famous in paintings were actually gray,
and they were just neted white in the pictures, you know,
(10:03):
just to show off Napoleon. But Napoleon's favorite horse was Marango,
who was an Arabian and he's a small, high spirited charger,
much like Napoleon. When Napoleon was exiled, he took some
of his horses with him, but he left Marango in Paris.
He was of course planning to return, which he did.
He even rode Marango in Waterloo, and we know how
(10:25):
that went, and that's where the horse was injured for
Mango No, And on his retreat Marango lags behind somehow
and he's captured by another general, General J. J Engerstein,
who tried to use him as a stud but also
that apparently didn't go well. So Marango outlives Napoleon by
eight years as a trophy horse essentially, and dies at
(10:48):
thirty eight. A lot of these horses also die at
very old ages. It's kind of a common theme. Uh.
But Marengo skeleton is mounted in Whitehall, and another common theme.
None of them I mounted, and a snuff box is
made out of one of his hoofs has a silver
lid on it. As far as the horses on the
other side go, we have the Duke of Wellington's horse, Copenhagen,
(11:12):
who was the Iron Duke's very best charger. Copenhagen was
a difficult horse even after Waterloo. When Wellington is dismounted
to give Copenhagen a congratulatory pat on the on the rump,
the horse almost kicks him. So I just think of
Wellington having dodged death all day long. Almost he was
(11:33):
kicked by his own horse. But as difficult as Copenhagen
may have been. He was very good at what he did,
known for being unflinching and gunfire and cannon fire. And
he was also a surprise full Um Copenhagen's mother, Lady Catherine,
which is a little confusing when you see it in print.
(11:53):
Reading this outline, I just kept reading that the Duke
of Wellington's mother was in full. It didn't really understand.
So Copenhag Haagan's mother Um had been sent on a
British military expedition to Denmark in eighteen o seven, and
Um she would They didn't know that she was in
full and the Duke of Wellington was in charge of
a division in the Fourth at the time, but the
(12:14):
mayor ended up producing her full when she got home,
and it was named Copenhagen in honor of the siege.
And even after the battles were over, the Iron Duke
and Copenhagen stuck together. And when Wellington became prime minister,
he rode Copenhagen up Downing Street to number ten, which
of course is the Prime Minister's residence. Yeah, and he
(12:35):
must have mellowed a little bit with age Copenhagen, that
is Um. He was regularly ridden by children and friends
at the Duke's country house, and I liked this detail.
To the Duchess regularly gave him treats of bread. So
Copenhagen seemed to think that he might have a chance
with all ladies getting a little bread snack, and would
(12:57):
come up to them very friendly. I would kept Cope
and Hickins and Brown. He died at again a very
old age, and the War Museum was interested in displaying
his bones with those of Marengo, but the Duke preferred
to keep his horse at home and buried under an oak,
which is nice. So moving on to some famous American
horses Traveler who I think we both agree it is
(13:22):
probably the most best known famous American horse um Traveler
is General Roberty Lee's horse, and he's a Confederate gray
cultum who was born Jeff Davis and was a show
horse apparently a very good one too, right, But then
he became part of the Confederate cavalry and eventually caught
Lee's I and his owner, Major Thomas Brown offered the
(13:45):
horse to Lee as a gift, but Lee said he
was far too valuable for him to accept without payment,
so he buys him from Brown and renames him Traveler.
And Traveler has amazing stamina, and he's very brave, and
he even saves Lee's life on occasion. At one point
he dodges a Union cannon ball by rearing up on
his hind legs um and they're together everywhere, all the
(14:08):
way up until the end. At Lee's surrender at Appomattics,
as one of the terms of surrender, Lee asked Grant
that the Confederate soldiers be allowed to take to home
their own horses, and Grant, considering his own horse Cincinnati,
agreed to the terms. Lee and Traveler also share their
retirement together, and Travelers Lee's companion at Washington and Lee Um.
(14:33):
When Lee dies, Traveler actually walks immediately behind his hearse
in this position of honor, and Traveler was buried on
Washington and Lee grounds, but because he was so popular,
he was exhumed. Are occurring podcast theme even applies to force.
His skeleton was mounted and displayed at the school, but
(14:54):
after you know, sixty years on display, his bones began
to crumble, so the horse was reburied outside the Lee
Chapel at the University, near the Lee family crypt and
a random note. Just looking over w n l's website,
it looks like they're safe ride program might be called Traveler,
which I really liked. We called our watchdogs. We didn't
have a horse. We had a bulldog. We had a bulldog. Um.
(15:16):
Another famous Confederate horse was Little Sorrel, who was Stonewall
Jackson's horse, and he was captured by the Confederates and
chosen as a as a horse for Mrs Jackson, but
Stonewall takes him on after his horse Big Sorrel doesn't
do very well in battle, but Stonewall was wounded accidentally
by his own men while he was riding Little Sorrel
(15:38):
and died shortly thereafter. UM so, maybe not our most
successful of horses. But Little Sorrel later became a mascot
of the Virginia Military Institute, and he dies at the
Confederate Soldiers Home, which I also thought was interesting. And
another horse on display. He's at v m i As
Museum in Lexington if you want to go see him.
(15:58):
So our next hour. Comanche is known not as a
um not for his victories, but for being a survivor
at the Battle of a Little Bighorn, and he's frequently
thought to have been um Clusters horse, but that's not true.
Command She was actually owned by Captain Miles Walter Ko. Yeah,
(16:20):
and he's famous for being the sole survivor of the
Battle of Little Big Horn. And I see this in
almost every account that command she is the only survivor.
But I did notice Kenneth Davis mentioned that uh a
scout was allowed to escape by the Native American So
I don't know, do you know anything more about that?
(16:41):
Email us at History podcast at how Stuff Works dot
com and tell us. But commanches of Mustang lineage and
he's captured in a wild horse round up in the
eighteen sixties and he's sold to the U. S. Cavalry
after he's guelded. And we liked this one little detail
about him. Not the gelding um, but he had a
all white star on his forehead. So he's the favorite
(17:04):
horse of the seventh Cavalies Captain Miles Kio, as we mentioned,
and he sustains twelve wounds in his service for the
seventh Cavalry. UM. But after Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn, Um,
when everyone has been killed, a burial party goes scoping
out the site of the battle, and they find one
(17:25):
severely wounded horse, and that's Commande, of course, and transport
him to Fort Lincoln to recover. And he stayed in
the seventh Cavalry, but he was excused from all duties,
although he did appear at formal regimental functions wearing black
with backward facing boots in this trip leading the seventh Cavalry, right.
(17:46):
And he died at about the age of twenty nine
and is mounted for a fee and on the condition
that the taxidermist would be able to show him at
the Chicago Exposition, and he's still on display. You can
see him at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History.
And that brings us to what we were referring to
as our bonus horse, because he's not technically a military horse.
(18:08):
But you'll see why why we had to include. He's
pretty cool. This is Caligula's horse in Catatas, and there
is an old tale about Caligula's love for his horse.
And if you'll remember the last time you mentioned Caligula,
it was when he was busy having Jubitu murdered, which
I really hold against him. Oh, of course, so the
Roman historian Setonius relates the story without thoroughly looking into
(18:32):
whether it's true or not. So this also fits in
with a kind of mythological quality of a lot of
these horse tails. Um but he notes that in Catatas
had a stall of marble, a manger of ivory purple blankets,
and a collar of precious stones. And Caligula even gave
this horse a house, and it's also said that he
(18:54):
intended to make him a consul. I also read that
he was fed gold dusted barley, and this is again
probably just some ridiculousness, but it was just so entertaining
I had to add it. But this fact about all
of the trappings that in Catatas is entitled to under
Caligula is passed on his fact between historians. In the
(19:14):
second century, we have Dio Cassius recounting basically the same thing,
saying Caligula even promised to appoint his horse console, a
promise that he would certainly have carried out if he
had lived longer. So check your facts, historians. So this
makes us tempted to talk about Caligula more on a
later podcast. I think you guys can expect that The
Monsters of History could be a series we're thinking about
(19:35):
it so all week pretty much, I've been sending Katie
pictures of horses and these famous horses on most of
my emails, but I have not been posting them to
our brand new Twitter account. I've been restraining myself from
too many horse facts that you should check us out.
It's called Missed in History and we're on Twitter. I
(19:56):
did put the gold flaked barley thing on there, so
and you would have known that before now if you
were one of our followers. So, if you'd like to
learn more about animal domestication, we have a wonderful article
written by former Stuff you Missed in History host Jane McGrath,
and you can come to our web page and search
for it at www dot how stuff works dot com.
(20:18):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com and be sure to check
out the Stuff you Missed in History class blog on
the how stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dality And Katie, I
received an email from Caitlin who noticed that our podcasts
were keeping pace with her a POS history lessons and
(00:24):
Caitlin I also learned about the canning of Charles Sumner
in a push, so it must be a standard part
of the course. But she also suggested that we look
into a little equine history. So consider it done, Caitlin,
that's our subject for today. Yeah, we're gonna be talking
about all horses today. And when Katie and I were
initially planning out this podcast, we were like, Okay, well
(00:45):
we can talk about all race horses or miss the
biscuit and fatigue or something. But um our research on
Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalus for the Battle of the
Hydaspes made us curious about the great battle horses and
stead whether they're mythological or very real. But first, we're
going to give you a little bit of horse history,
(01:07):
starting with somewhat distressing a fact, which is that we
probably hunted horses for food in prehistoric times. But once
they were domesticated, well after dogs and cattle, they became
our companions and helpers. Yeah, and according to George Louis
le Clerk, who was the Comte de Baufant, a French zoologists,
(01:28):
the horse was the proudest conquest of man, which I
kind of like that quote. I do too a lot.
They were probably first domesticated by a tribe of Indo
European origin that lived in the mountains near the Black
and Caspian seas, and ever since then we've used them
for transportation, checking herds, exploring new lands, carrying us into battle,
(01:49):
but also for fun so riding and tournaments and jousts,
and we have words like chivalry and cavalier coming from horse.
And plus they're just special and honored above most other animals.
Greeks built up entire myths around them. Think of centaurs, Pegasus,
the hippocamp um, a sea horse, which made sense since
(02:11):
Poseidon was god of the sea and a horsons and
great men have their horses buried next to them. So
we have horses that have been found in the tombs
of the Scythian kings or the Egyptian pharaohs, and even
the legend of Camelot is completed and rounded out by
a horse. Um lambre, who is King Arthur's horse? That's Welsh.
I'm not totally share and pronouncing her probably wrong, honest.
(02:35):
But onto our list. Um, so why did we pick
battle horses? Well, they're obviously really important. Sarah has a
good quote for this one from Shakespeare's Richard the Third
A horse, A horse, my kingdom for a horse. And yeah,
you know that as Richard the Third's line after he's unhorsed,
And uh, I'm sure he wasn't really quite so eloquent.
(02:57):
But Richard really does go down in the Battle of
bossworth Field when he's unhorsed and cut down in the bog.
So a good battle horse is important. That's the end
of the war the roses. And I guess Richard the
Third's horse probably won't make our list just for that reason. Um,
we don't know much about it, but we do know
about Roan Barbary, who was the steed of Richard the Second,
(03:20):
who also gets a reference in Shakespeare. But think about
all the attributes a battle horse might be called to have. Um,
in the time of armor, you'd have to have a
huge horse to be able to support a full grown
man wearing just plates and plates of chain mail and
armor and armor. And the horse a battle horse might
(03:40):
need to be fast, have good stamina, um, and probably
the most important aspect is its temperament. You couldn't be
too sensitive if you're in the middle of battle with
all that noise, I can imagine. Yeah, so time to
profile our individual horses. We're going to start with the
one that got us started on this topic in the
first place, Alexander the Great be Cephalus and the story
(04:04):
or perhaps the legend A lot of these are just stories,
only very loosely based in historical fact, we should say that.
But the idea is that Philinnikis brings a wild horse
to Philip the Second of Macedonia, who is Alexander's father,
But no one can handle this horse, and Philip the
Second has no idea why he's been brought angry about it. Yeah,
(04:27):
he's got this unruly horse on his hands, and what
is he supposed to do with it? But Alexander defies
his father and says that he can handle it, and
so the father and son make a bet together if
Alexander can ride the horse, Philip will buy it. If
he can't, Alexander will have to buy the horse. And
because Alexander is just a boy at the time, this
is going to be a pretty hefty purchase for him
(04:48):
to make if he loses the bet. But he's smart
and he's noticed that the horse shies away from its
own shadow, so Alexander leads it into the sun so
that its shadow is behind it. And if truly the horse,
lets Alexander mount and ride him, and he names him
be Cephalis, which means ox head, and rides it on
all his campaigns. And we've already talked a bit about
(05:10):
Bucephalus's life in the military, but um, when he dies
at the Battle of the Hydaspes, Alexander names the city
in honor of him. So that brings us to our
next horse, which is Elsin's horse, bobby Aca. And there
are again several folk tales about how Babieca came to
be the favorite steed of el Sid, who, by the way,
(05:31):
is the leader of the Reconquista, the rebellion that threw
over the moors, and he's the here here saying yeah.
So one story is that el Sid got the horse
from his godfather, who was a priest Um pare Pringoes
or fat Pete, that's his nickname. Um. The priest offers
said whichever horse he wants from the monastery, and the
monastery has all these beautifully bred horses, and said picks
(05:56):
this awkward little cult and his godfather is upset at
him and thinks it's an awful choice and shouts babby Aca,
which means stupid. And it's unclear if he's shouting at
the horse or Elsaid, but I'm going to guess it
was at Elsaid. And the second story is that perhaps
I'll said won the horse in a battle. The king
(06:17):
of Saville rode to meet, I'll said, on this beautiful
white horse, which was adorned with purple and gold and
silver bells, a jeweled bridle, and Elsaid says his opponent
looks more like he's going to a tournament than a battle,
so he issues a challenge that whoever wins will get
not only Valencia but also the pretty horse, and said
(06:38):
routs the moors, and although the king escapes, he leaves
behind his horse. So whatever the story is, Babbyaca carries
all said for thirty years, even when Elsid is dead.
This is in caps in the Atlines's very important, so
Elsaid orders his men to array him in his armor
and have him ride out on his old horse should
(07:01):
he be killed in battle. He does die in his
final fight with the Moors, and his men follow his wishes,
put him in his armor, prop him up on his horse,
and have him ride out promptly at midnight to fight
the enemy, backed up by white robe knights. And yeah,
it obviously terrifies the men who have seen him mortally
(07:23):
wounded the day before, and they're all, oh, Elsid has risen,
and I just have to note it's a little bit
like it's weekend at Elsa'd the screenplay we're working on together,
Babby Aca outlives his master and dies two years after
he did, unridden. And an interesting note on breeds here.
(07:45):
Babby Eca was an end illusion which is considered by
many to be the epitome of a Spanish horse. And
another famous and illusion was William the Conqueror's horse, who
he rode in the Battle of Hastings. We could talk
about him if we knew his name, but we don't,
so that horse's name did not go down in history,
unlike Elmore Ceo, who was the pride and joy of
(08:08):
one of our most famous conquistadors, Cortez. Elmo SiO was
a black Spanish barbed stallion and his name means black
with a reddish luster. And the story goes on the
way to Honduras, Elmo Cio gets a large splinter in
his hoof and he's really debilitated by this, and he's
ferried across the river. You know, they're trying to help
(08:30):
him out, but he's not well. He's got bad water,
low rations, and vampire bats keep on attacking him and
sucking his blood at night. Um. And it's gone to
the point where Cortez has to press on and leave
behind his horse, but he wants to make sure he's
taken care of, so he leaves him with the Indians
near like Patain, and you know, says, please take good
(08:52):
care of my horse. And the Indians take this very
seriously and treat Elmsio like a god, feeding him tropical ours,
fruits and chicken. And I don't know if you know
much about horses, but they don't eat chicken that so
the poor horse starves. Yeah, And so the Aztecs are
obviously concerned about the potential wrath of Cortez, and they
(09:15):
carve a stone statue of the deceased horse sitting on
his haunches, which is an odd position for a horse
to be in, and they call the effigy Ziminchak, possibly,
which is the god of thunder and lightning. But later
Spanish missionaries destroy the statue, so you cannot go and
see it for yourself. So skipping ahead a bit in time,
(09:39):
we get to Napoleon's famous horse, Marengo. He had three
white horses. Although you were telling me, one historian was
saying that right. She wrote a book on Morango, an
entire book just on him, and she said that his
white chargers that are so famous in paintings were actually gray,
and they were just neted white in the pictures, you know,
(10:03):
just to show off Napoleon. But Napoleon's favorite horse was Marango,
who was an Arabian and he's a small, high spirited charger,
much like Napoleon. When Napoleon was exiled, he took some
of his horses with him, but he left Marango in Paris.
He was of course planning to return, which he did.
He even rode Marango in Waterloo, and we know how
(10:25):
that went, and that's where the horse was injured for
Mango No, And on his retreat Marango lags behind somehow
and he's captured by another general, General J. J Engerstein,
who tried to use him as a stud but also
that apparently didn't go well. So Marango outlives Napoleon by
eight years as a trophy horse essentially, and dies at
(10:48):
thirty eight. A lot of these horses also die at
very old ages. It's kind of a common theme. Uh.
But Marengo skeleton is mounted in Whitehall, and another common theme.
None of them I mounted, and a snuff box is
made out of one of his hoofs has a silver
lid on it. As far as the horses on the
other side go, we have the Duke of Wellington's horse, Copenhagen,
(11:12):
who was the Iron Duke's very best charger. Copenhagen was
a difficult horse even after Waterloo. When Wellington is dismounted
to give Copenhagen a congratulatory pat on the on the rump,
the horse almost kicks him. So I just think of
Wellington having dodged death all day long. Almost he was
(11:33):
kicked by his own horse. But as difficult as Copenhagen
may have been. He was very good at what he did,
known for being unflinching and gunfire and cannon fire. And
he was also a surprise full Um Copenhagen's mother, Lady Catherine,
which is a little confusing when you see it in print.
(11:53):
Reading this outline, I just kept reading that the Duke
of Wellington's mother was in full. It didn't really understand.
So Copenhag Haagan's mother Um had been sent on a
British military expedition to Denmark in eighteen o seven, and
Um she would They didn't know that she was in
full and the Duke of Wellington was in charge of
a division in the Fourth at the time, but the
(12:14):
mayor ended up producing her full when she got home,
and it was named Copenhagen in honor of the siege.
And even after the battles were over, the Iron Duke
and Copenhagen stuck together. And when Wellington became prime minister,
he rode Copenhagen up Downing Street to number ten, which
of course is the Prime Minister's residence. Yeah, and he
(12:35):
must have mellowed a little bit with age Copenhagen, that
is Um. He was regularly ridden by children and friends
at the Duke's country house, and I liked this detail.
To the Duchess regularly gave him treats of bread. So
Copenhagen seemed to think that he might have a chance
with all ladies getting a little bread snack, and would
(12:57):
come up to them very friendly. I would kept Cope
and Hickins and Brown. He died at again a very
old age, and the War Museum was interested in displaying
his bones with those of Marengo, but the Duke preferred
to keep his horse at home and buried under an oak,
which is nice. So moving on to some famous American
horses Traveler who I think we both agree it is
(13:22):
probably the most best known famous American horse um Traveler
is General Roberty Lee's horse, and he's a Confederate gray
cultum who was born Jeff Davis and was a show
horse apparently a very good one too, right, But then
he became part of the Confederate cavalry and eventually caught
Lee's I and his owner, Major Thomas Brown offered the
(13:45):
horse to Lee as a gift, but Lee said he
was far too valuable for him to accept without payment,
so he buys him from Brown and renames him Traveler.
And Traveler has amazing stamina, and he's very brave, and
he even saves Lee's life on occasion. At one point
he dodges a Union cannon ball by rearing up on
his hind legs um and they're together everywhere, all the
(14:08):
way up until the end. At Lee's surrender at Appomattics,
as one of the terms of surrender, Lee asked Grant
that the Confederate soldiers be allowed to take to home
their own horses, and Grant, considering his own horse Cincinnati,
agreed to the terms. Lee and Traveler also share their
retirement together, and Travelers Lee's companion at Washington and Lee Um.
(14:33):
When Lee dies, Traveler actually walks immediately behind his hearse
in this position of honor, and Traveler was buried on
Washington and Lee grounds, but because he was so popular,
he was exhumed. Are occurring podcast theme even applies to force.
His skeleton was mounted and displayed at the school, but
(14:54):
after you know, sixty years on display, his bones began
to crumble, so the horse was reburied outside the Lee
Chapel at the University, near the Lee family crypt and
a random note. Just looking over w n l's website,
it looks like they're safe ride program might be called Traveler,
which I really liked. We called our watchdogs. We didn't
have a horse. We had a bulldog. We had a bulldog. Um.
(15:16):
Another famous Confederate horse was Little Sorrel, who was Stonewall
Jackson's horse, and he was captured by the Confederates and
chosen as a as a horse for Mrs Jackson, but
Stonewall takes him on after his horse Big Sorrel doesn't
do very well in battle, but Stonewall was wounded accidentally
by his own men while he was riding Little Sorrel
(15:38):
and died shortly thereafter. UM so, maybe not our most
successful of horses. But Little Sorrel later became a mascot
of the Virginia Military Institute, and he dies at the
Confederate Soldiers Home, which I also thought was interesting. And
another horse on display. He's at v m i As
Museum in Lexington if you want to go see him.
(15:58):
So our next hour. Comanche is known not as a
um not for his victories, but for being a survivor
at the Battle of a Little Bighorn, and he's frequently
thought to have been um Clusters horse, but that's not true.
Command She was actually owned by Captain Miles Walter Ko. Yeah,
(16:20):
and he's famous for being the sole survivor of the
Battle of Little Big Horn. And I see this in
almost every account that command she is the only survivor.
But I did notice Kenneth Davis mentioned that uh a
scout was allowed to escape by the Native American So
I don't know, do you know anything more about that?
(16:41):
Email us at History podcast at how Stuff Works dot
com and tell us. But commanches of Mustang lineage and
he's captured in a wild horse round up in the
eighteen sixties and he's sold to the U. S. Cavalry
after he's guelded. And we liked this one little detail
about him. Not the gelding um, but he had a
all white star on his forehead. So he's the favorite
(17:04):
horse of the seventh Cavalies Captain Miles Kio, as we mentioned,
and he sustains twelve wounds in his service for the
seventh Cavalry. UM. But after Custer's defeat at Little Big Horn, Um,
when everyone has been killed, a burial party goes scoping
out the site of the battle, and they find one
(17:25):
severely wounded horse, and that's Commande, of course, and transport
him to Fort Lincoln to recover. And he stayed in
the seventh Cavalry, but he was excused from all duties,
although he did appear at formal regimental functions wearing black
with backward facing boots in this trip leading the seventh Cavalry, right.
(17:46):
And he died at about the age of twenty nine
and is mounted for a fee and on the condition
that the taxidermist would be able to show him at
the Chicago Exposition, and he's still on display. You can
see him at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History.
And that brings us to what we were referring to
as our bonus horse, because he's not technically a military horse.
(18:08):
But you'll see why why we had to include. He's
pretty cool. This is Caligula's horse in Catatas, and there
is an old tale about Caligula's love for his horse.
And if you'll remember the last time you mentioned Caligula,
it was when he was busy having Jubitu murdered, which
I really hold against him. Oh, of course, so the
Roman historian Setonius relates the story without thoroughly looking into
(18:32):
whether it's true or not. So this also fits in
with a kind of mythological quality of a lot of
these horse tails. Um but he notes that in Catatas
had a stall of marble, a manger of ivory purple blankets,
and a collar of precious stones. And Caligula even gave
this horse a house, and it's also said that he
(18:54):
intended to make him a consul. I also read that
he was fed gold dusted barley, and this is again
probably just some ridiculousness, but it was just so entertaining
I had to add it. But this fact about all
of the trappings that in Catatas is entitled to under
Caligula is passed on his fact between historians. In the
(19:14):
second century, we have Dio Cassius recounting basically the same thing,
saying Caligula even promised to appoint his horse console, a
promise that he would certainly have carried out if he
had lived longer. So check your facts, historians. So this
makes us tempted to talk about Caligula more on a
later podcast. I think you guys can expect that The
Monsters of History could be a series we're thinking about
(19:35):
it so all week pretty much, I've been sending Katie
pictures of horses and these famous horses on most of
my emails, but I have not been posting them to
our brand new Twitter account. I've been restraining myself from
too many horse facts that you should check us out.
It's called Missed in History and we're on Twitter. I
(19:56):
did put the gold flaked barley thing on there, so
and you would have known that before now if you
were one of our followers. So, if you'd like to
learn more about animal domestication, we have a wonderful article
written by former Stuff you Missed in History host Jane McGrath,
and you can come to our web page and search
for it at www dot how stuff works dot com.
(20:18):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com and be sure to check
out the Stuff you Missed in History class blog on
the how stuff works dot com home page
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