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I know that you have a love for horses, so I thought that you might enjoy this site...the pictures speak for themselves! I ride with a group that does weekend campovers from April to November and we picket our horses much like the soldiers did during the Civil War.
Dawna
"There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." Winston Churchill
Thank you for sharing. I do love horese. Have ever since I was a child. At the WI State Fair, my dad and I would sit for hours and watch the juding of the big work horses. I love Clydes and Percherons. Love Arabs as well. Best ride I ever had was on an arab. A fellow re-enactor, down here, portrays Grant. I can never remember his name but I alwasy remember his horses, Duke. He's hald Morgan, half Arab. Fine looking horse. Unfortunately they had Duke fixed before they even thought of breeding him, but his owner regrets that. Beauty!
DO you live in Minnesota? Saw that those pics came from there.
I don't live in Minnesota butI've been looking for cavalry reenactors and I just happened to find this site and thought of you. I love draft horses too but have never worked with the larger breeds. My current horse is a paint from Kansas that I purchased two years ago, and I just lost my beloved quarter horse of 22 years...
I rode the Adirondacks for a week last June and next spring I hope to haul Jesse to Gettysburg and tour the battlefields for a week...a dream for a very long time.
I know it sounds crazy, but I have never owned horses. Crazy hey? I can talk pretty good horse talk with people because I have been in love with horses since I was a child. And have been riding since I was 4 or so. Basic trail riding, so I wouldn't say that I am an expert by any means, but I am not saying I am a novis either. But I do love them.
Dawna: Thought of you right away when I found this. I got such a kick out of it!!! I laughed out loud, because I can just hear all of this!!
I hope the rest of you enjoy it too. It is a very funny story.
Enjoy,
Jenna
We had an amusing entertainment one night at Syracuse [Mo.], and an entertainment of an original character. I am passionately fond of music; could listen to sweet sounds, I think, until my hair turned gray. I have heard all the great vocalists and artistes that have visited this country; but never, until the night in question, had my melody-longing ears been greeted with so unique a performance as a mule concert. It was irresistibly droll to hear, though it can not be described, and would have made Hera****us laugh.
My army-correspondent companions and myself were talking about the prospects of the campaign, while rolled in our blankets in the tent, when our voices were drowned by the loudest and shrillest and most space-penetrating bray I remember to have heard. A moment passed, and the bray was repeated in a baser key; then another, and another, and another, each with a different modulation. All the mules in camp volunteered for the operatic role, and the atmosphere quivered with the cacophonous notes.
Sometimes all the mules but one would cease; and he would execute a solo part, the rest coming in most energetically by way of chorus. All voices were represented to the extent of a mule's capacity. We had the soprano, mezzo and pure; the first and second tenore; the baritone, the basso profundo and secondo; the alto and falsetto.
One mule would attempt a florid passage, and in the midst of a roulade would break; when the others, either in applause or ridicule, would indulge in a species of mule music that was positively infernal.
Ten thousand tomcats, a million screaming babies, a billion of rusty saws carelessly filed, with four trillions of intoxicated Teutons, endeavoring to play “Hail Columbia” with the wrong end of a cornet, might give a faint idea of the sound.
If we could obtain that noise in a concentrated liquid form, and pour it out on the battlefield, it would frighten the Rebels out of their senses, and make the moon blink with terrified amazement. Indeed it would. For at least four hours the mules kept up their infernal noise.
The soldiers started from their slumbers; the sentinels turned pale; those of the Catholic faith crossed themselves, and said an “Ave Maria”; the horses neighed wildly; and the general impression seemed to be that Hades had broken loose, and emptied itself into Camp McKinstry.
I thought I had heard unpleasant noises, but I confess I was in error. No man can justly declare he knows what perfect discord is, until he has listened to a mule concert of the high art style. I have often been told mules were vicious, but now I am convinced they are totally depraved; that they are possessed of a devil, and that they let him out through their mouths on the night of the ever-to-be-remembered jackassical entertainment.
--Junius Henri Browne, correspondent for the New York Tribune, from Four Years in Secessia
hmmm... ladies, have you ever heard the story of the Charge of the Mule Brigade? When Lincoln heard the story he laughed so hard he cried. In one of the numerous engagements prior to Missionary Ridge Confederate troops made an attack that effectively arrived at dusk... their actions caused the mules in the Union baggage train to stampede through the middle of the CS ranks. In the darkness and confusion the CS troops believed they were being attacked by a mass of Union Cav and routed from the field. The deed has been imortalized in a poem set to the rythm of the Charge of the Light Brigade... it was a poem often chanted across the lines at Atlanta... often replied to w/ cannon.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
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Oh Shane that is too funny!!!! Do you have the poem? I would love to read it!! But I can just see that happening! 
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