Major: “Three years of war life marked his nature”

John Hartwell

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[A letter to the Omaha World Herald, May 20, 1898]


There used to be a big dog around our neighborhood which had quite a history. It was given, when a pup, to an Ohio regiment as it was marching from Camp Chase, near Columbus, to the south. It became a pet with the soldiers, and they would take turns carrying it on their knapsacks when on the march. After a time it grew too big to be carried, and then it would march along in the rear. Before the regiment returned it had its place in the ranks where it was always to be found.

The dog went through Georgia, and was with Sherman when he marched to the sea. When the war was over nearly everyone in the regiment wanted the dog, but it was given to the one man who didn’t want it. Of course, a war dog with the record Major had must be given a good berth, and the men decided to vote upon the officer who should take it home with him. No one under the rank of captain was considered, but the captain to whom the dog was voted did not care for it. Still, it would have been out of the question to refuse even a dog when the majority of the men th a whole regiment wanted him to have it.

The new owner took Major with him to Texas, and afterward brought him to Omaha, where he lived several years, but there was always trouble about keeping him. Major would follow every blue coat he saw, and a gun or a brass band were temptations too strong for his war dog nature. He would follow them anywhere. When the guns were fired at Fort Omaha he would nearly go crazy, and the officers said that when he was up there at sundown he would crowd up as close to the gun as possible when it was to be fired. But he never got in front of it. He knew better. Three years of war life effectively marked his nature, and he never was anything afterward but a war dog. Major was a cross between a Newfoundland and a Saint Bernard.

It seems rather thoughtless to give the care of poor Major to the one man who didn't want it. But, the officer in question seems to have taken his obligation seriously. Still, Major would surely have been happier in the company of a willing private who would cherish his companionship.

Reading that last paragraph, I wonder about the effects of ptsd on war dogs and horses.
 
That's an amazing story! I'm glad the officer did take care of the dog even if he didn't like it, since his men had sort of saddled him with it. Newfoundland and St Bernard - he must have been big enough to ride to town!

I think animals do get PTSD, sometimes in odd ways. Back after WWII, there was a guy who rehabilitated army dogs who had been trained to find Japanese soldiers in the Pacific. He kept one dog for himself, and one day he was walking it and a blond white man came past him. The dog bristled up and growled, startling the man. "You must be Japanese," said the dog's trainer. The man was astonished - his great-grandmother was Japanese!
 
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