Notice to my fellow history nuts: there’s a great post at Lagniappe’s Lair about Comanche, a mustang/Morgan cross who was the sole survivor of the Battle of Little Bighorn. You can still see his preserved body at the University of Kansas.
Related posts:
Jeff Davis, Egypt, and Cincinnati: General Grant’s Favourite Horses
Bridlepath 
Wow! Comanche sure was a handsome horse with a great conformation.
I’m sure that’s the Morgan coming out. 😉 8)
No Kiddin’……..The pictures do him better justice than himself, stuffed. I would imagine he’s been stuffed now for quite some time.
What puzzles me is this. Archaeologists have gone over the battle site and identified places where there are fallen bullets and cartridges. The evidence suggests that the calvalry had dismounted and was fighting on foot, their horses left a short distance behind (with guards, I assume). That made sense in some ways because the Cavalry was on a hill, being attacked from below. They didn’t want to be silhoetted unnecessarily as that would have made them easier targets. Already they were disadvantaged because they had single-shot rifles, whilst the Native Americans had repeating weapons (and better tactics too in this battle).
So was Comanche actually “the only survivor”, or simply the only horse that the Native American forces didn’t capture and take for their own use (perhaps because he had been injured)?
Didn’t the US government’s remount project (the systematic killing of Spanish/Native American warpony stallions, for the purpose of replacing them with Morgan, or draft horse stallions) start after the Indian wars ( Fort Keogh circa 1912 )?
Would any “Government Morgan” (Morgan X Spanish Mustang) have been old enough at that time for the quartermasters to requisition?
Could Comanche have actually been a pure blooded descendant of Spanish Warhorses (the horse of the Conquistadors)?
Does history ever get rewritten by the victors?
Comanche was purchased in Illinois where Morgans are known to arrived in 1839. The Illinois Corps are known to have had a great deal of Morgan blood. Morgans were in every state except Florida about ten years before the Civil War. There are a large number of registered Morgan stalions in the Morgan Registry that are listed all over Illinois before the Civil War
Please, defrostindoors , WHY are you “sure that’s the Morgan coming out”?
(followed by smirks!!!!?)
Have you ever seen a Spanish Mustang?
Have you ever owned one?
Have you ever ridden one?
Do you plan to find out?
Did you intentionally intend to insult hundreds of horse owners?
Was your statement made in innocent ignorance?
Will you visit their web site, before you answer?
http://www.spanishmustang.org
“… and in that one generation, the buffalo will come back from where they have hidden, and the ponies will rise up from that very dust where their blood was spilled. …”
As will the truth.
Actually, it was just a tongue-in-cheek comment from someone (me) who loves Morgans. I’m sorry if you felt insulted by it; that was not my intent. I wasn’t aware that killing the mustangs/Indian ponies was part of the remount project’s mandate.
I was also sent a link to spanishmustang.org by someone who suggested I blog about it. Are you representative of the people at that site?
I knew that the comment was a tongue in cheek one coming from a Morgan lover … lol
Apparently, this other person “coyote teacher” has some kind of agenda. He or she seems unable to articulate what that agenda is and what it has to do with this particular horse.
FFS, the horse has been dead over a hundred years. I suggest you get over it, coyote teacher.
I have seen a Spanish Mustang. I have ridden a Spanish Mustang. And I know some people really need to get over their racist agendas, even if they’ve managed to transfer them to horses instead of humans.
defrost was making a joke: you can google that. “joke”.
[…] see it develop. (Please send your comments to Juli’s post, not Bridlepath; I’m leery of those mustang people […]