Lady de Ros, the last survivor of those who danced at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels on the evening before the battle of Waterloo, also the last among those who had mounted “Copenhagen,” published a little volume of recollections of Wellington which contained the following extract:
We often stayed with the duke at Abbaye, Mount St. Martin, Cambrai, and one morning he announced that there would be a sham battle, and that he had given orders to Sir George Scovell that the ladies riding should be taken prisoners, so he recommended our keeping close to him. I had no difficulty in doing so, as I was riding the duke’s Waterloo charger “Copenhagen,” and I found myself the only one within a square where they were firing. To the duke’s great amusement, he heard one of the soldiers saying to another: “Take care of that ’ere horse; he kicks out. We knew him well in Spain,” pointing to “Copenhagen.” He was a most unpleasant horse to ride, but always snorted and neighed with pleasure at the sight of troops. I was jumping with him when the stirrup broke, and I fell off. In the evening the duke had a dance, and said to me, “Here’s the heroine of the day—got kicked off, and didn’t mind it.”
LEE’S CELEBRATED CHARGER “TRAVELLER”
The first Duchess of Wellington, with whom “Copenhagen” was a great favorite, wore a bracelet of his hair, as did several of her friends. Her daughter-in-law, the second duchess, who died in August, 1894, and who was much admired by the great duke, accompanying him on his last visit to the field of Waterloo, showed the writer a bracelet and breastpin made of “Copenhagen’s” mane. On my last sojourn of several days at Strathfieldsaye in September, 1883, I received from the second duke as a parting gift a precious lock of the Waterloo hero’s hair and a sheaf of the charger’s tail. It may be mentioned en passant that Sir William Gomm’s redoubtable Waterloo charger “Old George,” once mounted by Wellington, which lived to the unusual age for war-horses of thirty-three years, is buried beneath a stone seat at Stoke Pogis, the pastoral scene of Gray’s familiar and beautiful elegy.
On the authority of his eldest son, who mentioned the circumstance to the writer, it may be stated in conclusion that the last time Wellington walked out of Walmer Castle, on the afternoon of the day previous to his death, it was to visit his stable and to give orders to the groom concerning his horses.
CHIEF among the most celebrated battle-chargers of the nineteenth century was “Marengo,” Napoleon’s favorite war-horse. He was named in honor of one of the most remarkable victories ever achieved by the illustrious soldier. The day was lost by the French, and then gained by the resistless charges of cavalry led by Desaix and Kellermann. Their success caused the beaten infantry to rally and, taking heart, to attack the Austrians with fury, and the field was finally won. In view of the several hundred biographies of Bonaparte, it is certainly surprising that so little should be known with any degree of certainty concerning the world-famous Arab which he rode for eight hours at Waterloo, and previously in scores of battles, as well as during the disastrous Russian campaign. To an American visitor to the Bonapartes at Chiselhurst in the summer of 1872, Louis Napoleon, in speaking of his own horses and those of his uncle, said: