ing together on
red-headed clover in the green fields of Eden.

[Illustration: BISHOP ALPHEUS W. WILSON,

Who trained Rover.]

How many horses were in Lee's army from beginning to end and how many
perished has never been told. Some idea can be formed from the
following statement:

Such an army as Lee's, of 100,000 men, required 15,000 draft horses,
10,000 for cavalry, and perhaps 1500 to 2000 for the officers, their
staffs and couriers, making a total of 27,000 horses. Perhaps a fair
estimate of the number of horses employed in the army of Northern
Virginia, commanded by Gen. Lee in person, from 1861 to 1865, would be
75,000. Of these, 30,000 may have survived the war, the remaining 45,000
perished. Add to these, say, 120,000 for the Union army, and we have the
sum total of 195,000 horses that took part in that great drama, where
the soil of Virginia was the stage.

My first horse was named Rover. She and I were colts together on the
farm, I nine years her senior. I loved her, but there are doubts about
her love for me. When young, she could run faster, jump higher and cut
more "monkey shines" than any colt in the neighborhood. More than once
she landed me on my back in the middle of the road. This was before she
entered the military service of the Confederacy.

Once my father was on her back crossing a stream. He loosened the rein
to let her drink. A leaf came floating down the stream as peacefully as
a summer zephyr. This gave Rover an opportunity for playing one of her
pet tricks. When the leaf came in view she pretended to be terribly
frightened, made a leap forward, and landed my father on his back in the
middle of the stream. The water furnished so soft a bed that he was
unhurt. There was a carriage just behind in which Bishop Alpheus W.
Wilson of the M.E. Church South, now living in Baltimore, was riding. I
heard him tell the story a short time ago, and from the pleasure with
which he related it, I am satisfied that he greatly enjoyed the episode
at the time, and the remembrance still affords him amusement. The good
bishop was then a circuit rider on Loudoun Circuit, and Rover carried
him on her back around the circuit. He tried hard to make her a good
saddle-horse, and succeeded. He also tried to improve her manners, and
while she may have behaved herself when under his eye, it is doubtful
whether she ever experienced a change of heart.

I was always suspicious of her, and I had a right to be. Sometimes