Surgeon's Horse Stolen at Rome, Ga

lelliott19

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Surgeon in chg Pim Hospital Rome Horse stolen.JPG

Rome Tri-Weekly Courier, Sep. 24, 1863, page 2.

"Old Charley" must have been pretty well-liked and extremely well cared for.
"He was fat when stolen......was shod all around with new shoes. His hoofs are very brittle, and without shoes cannot travel."

Seems a $400 reward was, at the time, a pretty hefty prize to offer for the return of a horse requiring such careful attention.

I hope Surgeon L C Pynchon was reunited with Old Charley. Sounds like the two were good friends.
 
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Rome Tri-Weekly Courier, Sep. 24, 1863, page 2.

"Old Charley" must have been pretty well-liked and extremely well cared for.
"He was fat when stolen......was shod all around with new shoes. His hoofs are very brittle, and without shoes cannot travel."

Seems a $400 reward was, at the time, a pretty hefty prize to offer for the return of a horse requiring such careful attention.

I hope Surgeon L C Pynchon was reunited with Old Charley. Sounds like the two were good friends.
He was offering $200 for the horse, $200 for the thief -- I imagine that would have been 400 devalued Confederate dollars. Still, clearly a treasured horse. Let's hope Dr. Hale and Old Charley were reunited, and that the latter also escaped Sherman's (and Wheeler's) "recruiters" the next year.

It was a perilous time to be a horse, or a horse owner, in Georgia.
 
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Hope the horse came back. I did think it interesting that the horse only had two gaits. Walk and Trot. No canter or gallop are mentioned. And 15 hands (4 inches in a hand, measured from the withers..or shoulder..for you non-horsey folks) is a small horse. Which means you can’t be too tall, or heavy, otherwise your horse won’t be able to carry you. I think you would call the horses color “dun”. I really like that coat color!
 
I did think it interesting that the horse only had two gaits. Walk and Trot. No canter or gallop are mentioned. I think you would call the horses color “dun”. I really like that coat color!
I believe "Old Charley" must have been (mostly) a carriage horse. The ad says, "He was about ten years old, works well in single or double harness." If that were the case, carriage horses are not usually asked or allowed to do much cantering or galloping.
And I agree about the color being dun. But I really like the description of the color in the ad, "clay-bank with black mane and tail." I wonder when people stopped using that terminology and switched to dun or buckskin to describe horses colored up like "old Charley."
 
Poor man! If Charlie was found to be useless for distance and at least some speed, they might not have brought him back but he could have been as close as the next town? Only saying so because soldiers attempting to make off with draft animals, in PA, during the 1863 invasion gave up on the poor things. High in flesh. like Charlie, certainly no gallop and not made for distance.

Who knows? Since Charlie and his good friend were probably a well known pair, may have been reunited.
 
This piece is written by a doctor, and as did Luke of the Gospel, he describes living things from a physical/clinical perspective, and yes, he clearly loves his horse. The description makes it sound like a Morgan, except those typically held their heads high, proudly. Thanks for sharing!
 
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