Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw Lowell, August 24, 1864 – 5 A. M.

Near Halltown, Aug. 24, 5 A. M.

We have had the rear-guard nearly every mile of the way down, — have had no real heavy fighting, but a great deal of firing; have got off very well, losing in the whole brigade not over seventy-five. I have had my usual bad luck with horses — Ruksh was wounded on Friday in the nigh fore leg, pastern joint; the ball went in, and came out apparently about one third of the way round, but I have got him along to this point and may save him. Monday morning I was on Will's “Dick,” and his off hind leg was broken and we left him, and yesterday I tried Billy,and a bullet went through his neck, — it will not hurt him at all, however, — will add to his value in Mr. Forbes's eyes at least a thousand dollars.¹ Berold is so foolish about bullets and shell now (feels so splendidly well in fact) that I really can't ride him under fire, so it's probable you '11 see him again. I'm training the gray and shall try to use him habitually, — as I mustn't risk Billy again. Please don't speak of my bad luck with horses, it seems foolish, — of course I shall have to write Mr. Forbes. I think I shall write Charley Perkins to sell that farm, — I don't see how we shall keep ourselves in horses otherwise.²

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¹ Ruksh and Berold were fine horses, both of a bright sorrel, Ruksh very tall and with a look of distinction.

“And Ruksh, his horse,

Followed him like a faithful hound at heel.

Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the earth,

The horse which Rustum, in a foray once,

Did in Bokhara by the river find,

A colt beneath his dam, and drove him home

And reared him; a bright bay with lofty crest,

Dight with a saddle-cloth of broidered green

Crusted with gold.”

“Sohrab and Rustum,” Matthew Arnold.

Mrs. Lowell, during her life in camp, rode Berold, and kept him, later, in peaceful fields, until his death many years after the war.

Billy was the favourite horse of Colonel Lowell's friend and most trusted major, William H. Forbes, then in prison at Columbia. Dick also belonged to him, but his father had given Colonel Lowell permission to use them if necessary.

The unnamed action, so destructive to the colonel's mounts, — risks to the rider, who ignores them, can be imagined, — was on August 22.

General Torbert, in his report, says that on that day a rapid advance of the enemy, with strong infantry skirmishers, was held in check by General Duffie's West Virginian Cavalry and Lowell's brigade of the First Division and part of Wilson's Second Division, until the First Division could withdraw towards Shepherdstown, and the trains get to the rear.

² Just before Lowell was called to take charge of the Mt. Savage iron-works, he had bought a farm in Dixon, Illinois. His wife later gave it to that town.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 325-6, 458-9