Among the many troublesome and unbroken horses ridden by Washington, he was never thrown, and he was perhaps the strongest man of his time. Mounted on “Buckskin,” I occasionally accompanied the general when making his daily morning rounds at Mount Vernon, riding “Yorktown,” the youngest of his war-horses, and the last mounted by him, only a few days before his death. On one of those occasions Washington saw with displeasure two stalwart negroes vainly endeavoring to raise a heavy stone to the top of a wall. Throwing “Yorktown’s” bridle to me, he sprang from his saddle, strode forward, pushed the slaves aside, leaned over, and, grasping the huge stone with his large, strong hands, slowly but surely raised it to its place, and remounted without any remark.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S FAVORITE WHITE CHARGER “LEXINGTON,” AT THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH
At four o’clock on a June morning ninety-eight years ago, when Napoleon was defeated by Wellington in one of the sixteen decisive battles of the world, the illustrious English soldier mounted his celebrated charger “Copenhagen,” remaining in the saddle for eighteen hours. “Copenhagen” was a powerful chestnut, grandson of the famous war-horse “Eclipse,” and the son of “Lady Catherine,” the charger ridden by Field-Marshal Lord Grosvenor at the siege of Copenhagen, when she was in foal with the colt which afterward carried Wellington at Waterloo. The war-horse cost him, in 1813, four hundred guineas. Two years later, when the famous victory was won, and Wellington had held his historic interview with Blücher, the duke dismounted at ten o’clock. As “Copenhagen” was led away by the groom, he playfully threw out his heels as a “good-night” salutation to his successful master. It was Wellington’s last act before leaving Strathfieldsaye for London on public or private business, to walk out to the adjacent paddock to pat his favorite charger, and to feed him with chocolate or other confectionery, of which he was inordinately fond.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON’S FAMOUS WAR-HORSE “MARENGO”
For more than a dozen years before his death “Copenhagen,” leading the easy, comfortable career of a well-pensioned veteran who had retired from all the activities of life, was only twice surreptitiously saddled and ridden by the duke’s eldest son, the Marquis of Douro. The second Duke of Wellington, who died in 1884, erected two monuments on the grounds of Strathfieldsaye, that fine estate of nearly seven thousand acres on which is situated Silchester, the site of a Roman station, presented to the “Iron Duke” by the British government for a day’s work at Waterloo. One of these, a superb and lofty marble column, is to the memory of his illustrious father, the other to that of “Copenhagen.” The former stands just outside the park at the point where, immediately in front of one of the lodges, the London road meets at right angles that which connects Reading with Basingstoke. A simple marble tombstone standing under the shadow of a spreading Turkish oak marks the spot where the brave steed was buried with military honors, and bears the following inscription from the pen of the second duke: