The military riders of every civilized country, where enlistments are long enough, and where proper care is given to the instruction in equestrianism, are excellent. It would be curious indeed if men who devote their lives to the art should not be so. Some of our old army cavalry officers rode gloriously. Our volunteer cavalry, late in the war, rode strongly, though not always handsomely. During the past twenty years the severe work and long marches of our regular mounted troops have militated greatly against equestrianism as an art. Some of the most accomplished riders I have ever known have been in the United States Army. Philip Kearny, that preux chevalier, the "one-armed devil," was in every sense a superb rider. I have seen him with his cap in one hand, his empty sleeve blowing outward with his speed, and his sword dangling from his wrist, ride over a Virginia snake fence such as most of us would want to knock at least the top rail off.
"How he strode his brown steed! How we saw his blade brighten
In the one hand still left,—and the reins in his teeth!
He laughed like a boy when the holidays heighten,
But a soldier's glance shot from his visor beneath!"
And a man who could not follow him did not long remain upon his staff.
One of my lost opportunities occurred for such a reason during Pope's campaign, when General Kearny, who had dispatched right and left all his aides, beckoned to me at dusk one evening to ride out and draw the fire of some of the enemy's troops supposed to be on the edge of a wood, some half a mile or so distant. My own horse had been shot, and my equipments lost. I had captured an old farm-horse without a saddle, and had extemporized a rope bridle. The course lay athwart some open fields, with a number of fences still standing. My desire to do this work stood in inverse ratio to my steed's ability to second me. And no sooner had I ridden up and touched my cap for orders, than the general had gauged the poverty of my beast and rig, and speedily selected a better mounted messenger.
During the war, among the volunteer troops, we used in some of the divisions to organize steeple-chases during a long term of inactive operations, and good ones we frequently had; the old style steeple-chase over an unknown course being the fashion, and the steeple generally a prominent tree, at a distance of a couple of miles. Often the course was round a less distant tree and back again. Not a few good riders and horses were forthcoming to enter for such an event, and I have rarely seen better riding than there. An unknown course over Virginia fences, and through patches of Virginia second growth, especially after heavy rains, when mere gutters became rivers for a number of hours, and the ground was much like hasty-pudding, could be a test to try the best of horses and horsemen.
These are but isolated examples, instanced only as showing that every species of hard saddle work is very naturally apt to be cultivated among men whose duty keeps them in the saddle the better part of every day. And it is well known that English army officers are among the very best cross-country riders, and not a few have occupied the dignity of M. F. H., and done it credit. Surely such a rider, trained in the niceties of the manège, as well as experienced in riding to hounds, may fitly be placed at the head of the equestrian roll of honor.