“But the worst was yet to come. Just as I landed I heard a buggy turn a sharp bend in the road, drive up to where the Southerner and his horse were pulling me out and—great Caesar!—there sat in the buggy old Major Blank and the angel of my dreams. The girl shrieked and ducked her head under the lap robe, while I jumped back in that slough to hide the southern half of me, and tried to commit suicide by drowning, but my youthful head was so corky I couldn’t keep it under water long enough. The old Major drove off and started to his home by another route, the kind gentleman fished me out again, more dead than alive and I went home, with my new friend just in time to have a hard chill. I was sick two weeks, during which time I got it pretty straight that my clerking friend had been courting my blue-eyed beauty for six months himself, and I will always believe that he loaned me that horse just to get me out of the way. Anyway, three days afterwards he went down to the Major’s to get the old horse, stayed all night and fixed the wedding day, while I was swimming imaginary sloughs with my pulse at 105½.
“I got back home as quickly as I could, and now, when I go to buy a horse, I never ask, ‘How fast can he go?’ but ‘How far can he swim?’”
And my bachelor friend struck up a whistle which sounded like “After the Ball” and walked off.
“Very few people”, said Capt. Robert D. Smith, of Columbia, Tenn., “know that the late Gen. Wm. B. Bate, who died United States Senator from Tennessee, told one of the most pathetic horse stories of the war. General Bate was here before his death, attending the Confederate reunion, and I reminded him of the incident and got him to relate it again as it happened. I never saw him so much touched as when he told again of the attachment of his horse, Black Hawk, for him, and the animal’s pathetic death at Shiloh. General Bate is very modest and no braver man ever lived; but I was there and saw the incident and can tell you how it was. At the battle of Shiloh General Bate was then colonel of the Second Tennessee. He had two horses which he used; one, an ordinary, everyday horse which he rode on the march and other rough service; the other was a magnificent black stallion—a thoroughbred and Hal horse—black as a crow and as beautiful as you ever saw. He was a very stout horse, not leggy as some thoroughbreds are, but symmetrical and shapely, and as the General always took a lively interest in horses, this one had been selected for him with great care and at a good deal of expense. By the way, General Bate says he has since heard of a number of Black Hawk’s sons and other descendants making most creditable races. This horse was splendidly equipped and used by Colonel Bate only for parades, long marches where stamina was needed and for battle. The night before the battle of Shiloh the commoner horse was stolen, and the next morning at daylight I remember what a superb looking object our colonel presented on this magnificent animal, who looked fit to race for a kingdom or charge over the guns of Balaklava.
“Men may talk about Gettysburg, Franklin and other battles of the war, but I want to see no stubborner or bloodier fight than we had down there amid the woods, around that little church and on the banks of the Tennessee. You may know what kind of company we had to entertain us, when I say that we struck Sherman’s line first. Time and again we drove them back and as often they reformed and stubbornly contested every foot of the way. The usual position of a colonel is thirty feet to the rear of his regiment, and it was in that position that Colonel Bate first went into the fight. The enemy gave way after the first hard fight—in fact, I will always think we took them a little unawares, though I know that both Generals Sherman and Grant did not think so, probably owing to the fact that they were not at the front when we began the fight, not having anticipated it to begin so soon—but arriving soon after they heard the guns. At the next stand they gave it to us hot, and it was here our lines were nearly broken and it was here that Colonel Bate had to put himself in front of his regiment before they would charge with enough determination to drive the boys in blue again. All this time the battle was raging everywhere. We had driven the Federal army past Shiloh church, and towards the river, where they finally made the desperate stand that stopped us the next day after Buell’s arrival.
“Time and again Colonel Bate led us against Sherman’s brave boys—that thoroughbred horse and rider always in front. Once he made us a short speech just before we had to charge again, having been repulsed at the first attempt. He said he wanted us only to follow him and he would not take us where he would not go himself. This last fight was terrible. Before we struck the enemy Colonel Bate was shot out of the saddle, the men fell around us right and left and we charged on leaving all as they fell.
“Now the remarkable thing was that horse. When Colonel Bate fell the horse seemed to be at a loss what to do. But as the regiment swept on, he quickly fell into his place just in the rear of the regiment and followed us on into battle. We must have fought on for a half mile after that, and it was a strange sight to see that horse following the regiment as stately as if on dress parade, and it touched every man to see him riderless.
“At the first opportunity an ambulance was sent back to find the colonel and take him to the field hospital, some three miles in the rear. In the confusion no one had thought of Black Hawk, but it seemed he had not forgotten his brave rider, for he actually followed the path made by his colonel, or rather those who carried him to the hospital—almost tracking him by his blood—straight up to the hospital tent, and to the surprise of Colonel Bate, who had been badly but not seriously wounded in two places, one ball going through his shoulder, he poked his head in the tent door and affectionately whinnied to his master while the surgeon was dressing his wound. The next instant he walked a few paces in the weeds, staggered and fell down dead. An examination showed what no one had noticed: he had been badly wounded in several places, one of which proved fatal. General Bate says he can still see that almost human look Black Hawk gave him and that last pathetic whinny as he walked off to fall down and die.”
[Trotwood has heard Senator Bate relate this incident himself and the last time he met the old warrior at dinner at the Maxwell House, Nashville, Senator Bate related the above incident and discussed very fondly the pedigree and value of the Southern breed of horses that could produce such intelligent animals as Black Hawk.]