July 2010 Cover Image Submission

[joey12thga]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

Does anyone have proper PEC directions on the best way to beat a dead horse? I don't care how we do it, how would THEY do it?

[Old Reb]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

I feel that the dead horse photo should be the permanent cover photo and we could dispense with having to vote each month.

[TexCavly]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

I feel that the dead horse photo should be the permanent cover photo and we could dispense with having to vote each month.

Hey now, that would step on the toes of us cavalry folks! We like our horses. Poor thing he wasn't a soldier he was just carrying one. ;)

[csabugler]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

I do not think that horse is dead. he is not bloated, there is no carrion fowl about, his head is off the ground, and he has no saddle on. Of course that is just an opinion, I hope the moderators don't chastise me for not having documentation.
I vote for Jeff on "the Rock of Resaca"
Pete
The Autonomous Collective mess

[PetePaolillo]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

Perceiving that misuse and abuse of their mounts by the cavalry was the primary cause of horses and mules lost in service prompted Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs to write this letter to Major General William S. Rosecrans of the Army of the Cumberland:

Compel your cavalry officers to see that their horses are properly groomed. Put them in some place where they can get forage near the railroad or send them to your rear for grass and ear corn. When in good order start them 1,000 at a time, for the rebel communications, with orders never to move off a walk unless they see enemy before or between them; to travel only so far in a day as not to fatigue their horse; never to camp in the place in which sunset finds them; and to rest in a good pasture during the heat of the day. [Also] to keep some of their eyes open night and day, and never to pass a bridge without burning it, a horse without stealing or shooting it, a guerilla without capturing him, or a negro without explaining the President's proclamation.

Operate on their communications. Strike every detached post. Rely more upon infantry than upon cavalry, which in the whole war has not decided the fate of a single battle rising above a skirmish, which taxes the Treasury and exhausts the resouces of the country, and of which we now have afoot a larger nominal strength than any nation on earth. We have over 125 regiments of cavalry, and they have killed ten times as many horses for us as for the enemy.

Monument to the 1.5 million horses and mules that died during the Civil War erected outside the Virginia History Society in Richmond.

[Hank Trent]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

I do not think that horse is dead. he is not bloated, there is no carrion fowl about, his head is off the ground, and he has no saddle on.

It's a fairly famous picture. I've seen it before. There's even apparently an eye-witness description:

The number of dead horses was high. They lay, like the men, in all attitudes. One beautiful milk-white animal had died in so graceful a position that I wished for its photograph. Its legs were doubled under and its arched neck gracefully turned to one side, as if looking back to the ball-hole in its side. Until you got to it, it was hard to believe the horse was dead.
Alpheus Williams
September 22, 1862

Which is why I think it would be more educational and thought-provoking to make the cover about them (the real people or animals) rather than us, but that's just me.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Silas]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

The horse photograph was identified when initially posted :

The horse of Col. Henry Strong, commander of the 6th Louisiana. Both he and his horse were killed at Sharpsburg/Antietam.

It's an Alexander Gardner photo which you can find in the Time/Life Series book, The Bloodiest Day, at page 146. That's the best copy of that particular photo which I have found online.

- Silas Tackitt

[Spinster]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

Which is why I think it would be more educational and thought-provoking to make the cover about them (the real people or animals) rather than us, but that's just me.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

I just thought that posting ought to be in bigger font.

[Diochra]

Re: July 2010 Cover Image Submission

Thank you, everyone. On the subject of The Original Cast gracing the cover page, I'll talk that over and see what happens. I know many of us would prefer to look at those any day.