The St. Johns herald., 1889-09-12
How Horses Act in Battle.
SOME REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF EQUINE
 INTELLIGENCE

itary service" said Capt. Cox to
 reporter, Every artiIlerymal
 knows that they learn the bugl
 calls and the evolutions quicke
 than the men as a rule. For on
 thing they soon acquire uniform
 gait, which is about the same al
 the route step or the usual march.
 ing step. If the horses did not ac
 quire the same gait as the infantry there would be varying distances between the different arms of the service-that is. between the infan. try and the cavalry, artillery and the commanders and their escorts
 ''In the drills in the artillery ser vice the horses will themselves pre- serve their alignment as we'll as the infantry. I shall always remember one illustration of this trait which I noticed at an exciting and critic al period of battle. In order to save some of our infantry from be- ing surrounded and captured 1 quickly mounted the cannoneers on the guns and put the whole battery at dead gallop across a stretch of meadow about half mile wide. I was quite accustomed to such sights, but when we were half way across the field 1 noticed the array, and for a moment was lost in ad- miratien of the magnificent picture. Every driver was plying whip and spur, the great guns were rocking and laundering over the ground, and every horse, reeking with foam and full of animation and excite ment, was straining every muscle as he gahoped forward; yet it seem cd to me that straight line drawn along in front would have touched the heads of the lead horses in front of the six guns. That was an artillery charge, one of the most thrilling sights in the evolutions of war.
 "It is surprising how quickly they learn the bugle calls. After we had been in the service some time my first sergeant once asked me what call that was, as the bugle blew some command. That's a pretty question for you to ask,' I said. How in thunder do you know how to march?' I don't know, he said, but my horse knows Let the first note of the feed or water call be blown and there will be terrible stamping, kicking and neighing. Once, in terrible storm, our horses and those of several other batteries broke loose, and there was wild rush | among the artillerymen to get hors- es in the morning. All was excite ment and the horsrs were hard to get, but when I ordered the buglcr to mount a stump and blow the feed call the horses all made such mad rush for our battery that the men could hardly get out of the way l quickly enough.
 "WEen it comes to battle a horse seems to know everything that is going on, but he does his duty mo- bly, and seems to be in his element. He enters into the spirit of the bat tie like a human being. He shows no fear of death and it is singular that if his mate is shot down he will turn to look at him and seem pleased. A horse in my battery vas once struck by a piece of shell, which split his skull so that one side was loose, but he walked up by the side of the gun and watched he firing, and when shot was fir { ed would look away in the direc- : ion of the enemy as if to see the effect of the shot. When a shot would burst near by he would calm y turn and look at it. When he , 'aw his own team going back for t he ran to his own ( place and galloped back to the cais- l son with the rest When the lieu S