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Horses in History: Traveller

6/27/2021

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PictureThis Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
Horses served an important role in the Civil War, and suffered as greatly as the men beneath them. It has been estimated that 1.5 million horses and mules died in the Civil War. Five million pounds of dead horses was removed from the Gettysburg battlefield alone. But of all the horses that served in this period, none is as famous as Traveller.

Traveller, spelled as the British do, with two Ls, was an iron grey American Saddlebred with black points and a dark mane and tail. The 16-hand tall horse was sired by a race horse named Grey Eagle, who had won $20,000 in a Louisville, Kentucky stake race, and born in 1857 in Greenbrier County, in what is now West Virginia. His first owner named him “Jeff Davis,” after the Mississippi Senator and Mexican American War hero who eventually became the President of the Confederacy.
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In 1861 the son of the original owner took the horse with him when he joined the legion of former Virginia governor Brig. Gen. Henry Wise. He sold the horse to Captain Joseph M. Broun, a quartermaster of Wise’s Legion’s 3rd Infantry. Broun renamed the horse “Greenbriar.” When Robert E. Lee arrived to advise Wise in late August 1861, he saw Broun’s horse and was immediately taken with him, calling the horse ‘my colt’ and saying he would need it before the war was over. Aware of the difference in their ranks, Broun offered to give the horse to Lee, who declined the offer. Broun then offered to sell Greenbriar to Lee for the same price he had himself paid for the horse. Lee added an extra $15 to cover the depreciating value of the Confederate dollar. Lee bought the horse in February 1862 and renamed him Traveller because of his ability to walk at a fast pace.
 
Although Traveller was not the only horse Lee rode from that time on, it was the one he rode and most and the one that became linked to him in the public’s eye. He was known for great endurance during long marches, and being unflappable in battle. He was not perfect, though. Lee’s youngest son, Robert E. Lee Jr later wrote that the horse fretted a lot, especially when in crowds if he wasn’t regularly exercised. At the Second Battle of Manassas he shied at enemy movements, rearing and throwing the General, who broke bones in both his hands during the fall. 

After the war, Lee continued to keep the grey near him. He brought Traveller to Washington University when he became its president, and the pair were a common site on campus. Traveller became such a celebrity that his mane and tail thinned because students plucked the dark hairs as souvenirs. Locks of Lee’s hair and Traveller’s mane are still part of the collection at Arlington House, Lee’s former home on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

When Lee died in October of 1870, Traveller was draped in black crepe walked, riderless, behind the funeral hearse. Less than a year later, Traveller stepped on a nail and contracted tetanus. He died June of 1871 and was buried along a creek adjoining Washington University’s campus near Lee Chapel.
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But Traveller’s story didn’t end with his death. In 1875, Custis Lee, who had succeeded his father as President of the institution that was renamed Washington and Lee University after the General’s death, exhumed Traveller and sent his bones to Henry Augustus Ward, a University of Rochester faculty member who traveled the world acquiring a massive assortment of geological and zoological specimens and taxidermy samples for museums.
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CLIPPED FROM The Times-Picayune New Orleans, Louisiana 15 Dec 1875, Wed
PictureAn undated image of Traveller’s skeleton on display in Lexington.
The skeleton was returned to Washington and Lee in 1907, and later moved to the basement of Lee Chapel. By the time his bones were reburied in front of the chapel in 1960, the bones had deteriorated and were covered with the penned signatures of visitors. 


Jennifer Bohnhoff is a writer who lives in the mountains of central New Mexico. You can read about her on her website. You can read another story about a horse from history,  Sergeant Reckless, an Army horse during the Korean war, here.
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The Mighty DUKWs

6/6/2021

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PictureTwo DUKWs carrying a P-38. (Photo: Worldwarphotos.info)
fter World War II had ended, General Dwight Eisenhower wrote that while most of his senior officers considered the bulldozer, the Jeep, the 2,5-ton truck, and the C-47 airplane the four most vital pieces of military equipment to the Allies’ success, he thought that the DUKW was “one of the most valuable pieces of equipment produced by the United States during the war.” (Philip Handleman, and Walter J. Boyne, editors: Brassey’s Air Combat Reader, pg. 255). Not everyone shared Ike’s enthusiasm for the amphibious vehicles commonly called ‘ducks.” Their less than stellar performance during the D-Day invasion made many suspicious of them.
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DUKW, which comes from the model-naming terminology used by GMC, is an acronym for the fact that it was “D,” designed in 1942, “U,” a utility vehicle that was “K,” all-wheel drive, with “W,” two rear axles. Soldiers, who had nicknames for everything, first called them Ducks. The vehicle was developed in only 38 days through a collaboration between yacht designers Sparkman & Stephens and General Motors. It had a 104 horsepower Chevy engine which was able to reach 50 mph on land and 6 mph on water. They were 31 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 7 feet high. A quarter of the 21,000+ DUKWs that were manufactured between 1942 and 1945 had .50 caliber Browning machine guns ring-mounted to them. 

PictureA DUKW at Utah Beach. In front, a soldier inspects a German Goliath tracked mine. (Photo: world-war-2.wikia.org)
DUKWs, which were able to carry a payload of 2.5 tons, or around 20 troops with all their equipment, were originally designed to allow the military to drop cargo off where there were no ports at which to dock supply ships. It was the first vehicle to come equipped with a Speir's Device, a central tire inflation system which allowed drivers to vary the tire pressure to adapt to different surfaces. Fully inflated tires were good for hard surfaces such as roads, while softer tires gave better grip on beach sand.

The Army was not impressed with its design at first, and rejected them. However, when a Coast Guard patrol craft ran aground on a sand bar during a storm near Provincetown, Massachusetts, a prototype DUKW that was being tested nearby was able to save the patrol craft’s crew. The Army, now aware of the craft’s versatility, changed its mind. By March 1943, they were successfully being used in Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. They were also used to great effect in Operation Husky, the 1943 invasion of Sicily. In addition to their normal transport duties, DUKWs were used as naval ambulances and for providing fire support to landing troops. 
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Opinions on DUKWs changed after their failure during the D-Day Invasion, where all but one of the vehicles being used to haul howitzers to Omaha Beach sank shortly after debarking from their carriers. This wasn’t a failure of the vehicle so much as a failure of command to understand the DUKW’s limitations. In good weather, DUKWs perform well. In bad weather, especially in high waves and when loaded with heavy cargo such as howitzers, they are not seaworthy. 

PictureThe specially modified DUKW with an extension ladder used at Pointe du Hoc (Photo: Mikesresearch.com)
Not all DUKWs performed badly, even on the choppy waters of the Norman Coast. U.S. Rangers used specially modified DUKWs with 100foot extension ladders to climb the steep cliffs of Pointe du Hoc to take out the German gun emplacements there.
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Most DUKWs were decommissioned after World War II. A few hundred went to the Korean War and to Vietnam, while others were distributed to police and civilian search-and-rescue units, where they continue to serve. 


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Jennifer Bohnhoff's historical novel Code: Elephants on the Moon tells the story of a young French woman who becomes involved in the Resistance movement in preparation for the Allied Invasion on D-Day. You can see pictures of the village where the action takes place here. 

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    ABout Jennifer Bohnhoff

    I am a former middle school teacher who loves travel and history, so it should come as no surprise that many of my books are middle grade historical novels set in beautiful or interesting places.  But not all of them.  I hope there's one title here that will speak to you personally and deeply.

    What I love most: that "ah hah" moment when a reader suddenly understands the connections between himself, the past, and the world around him.  Those moments are rarified, mountain-top experiences.



    Can't get enough of Jennifer Bohnhoff's blogs?  She's also on Mad About MG History.  

    ​
    Looking for more books for middle grade readers? Greg Pattridge hosts MMGM, where you can find loads of recommendations.

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