More About Kilpatrick's Horses

Confederate Veteran
Volume, Number 10, Page 456
October 1905

W. G. Caruthers writes from Athens, Ga.:
References made to the Kilpatrick stampede near Fayetteville and the 'spotted horse' event by Comrade Scott, of South Carolina, and by Comrade Jenkins in the July VETERAN induce me to give my recollection of this event.

I was a member of Company D, 2d Georgia Cavalry, and had been sent by Gen. Wheeler from Aiken to Columbia, S. C., with a dispatch for Gen. Beauregard. When Gen. Wheeler reached Columbia, my regiment was on detached duty. Our brigade belonged to Gen. W. W. Allen's Division. I happened to be with Gens. Wheeler and Allen at the Kilpatrick stampede when the first gun was fired at the head of the Alabama Brigade, and we were the nearest Confederates to the Yankee camp. Other commands were moving at right angle with us.

Gens. Wheeler, Allen, and I were crossing a boggy place in the road when the first gun was fired. Gen. Wheeler's horse went in the bog, but he spurred him forward and went toward the point where the advancing column would cross the road. Gen. Allen crossed the swamp on the right of the road, and the Alabama Brigade, led by Gen. Alien, turned immediately to the right and charged on the house occupied by Gen. Kilpatrick. We passed the house on the right, and Gen, Allen told me his horse was shot. I turned toward the house and saw a large black horse, but before I reached him one of our boys unhitched the horse. As I came up and asked how he happened to be at the house he told me he had been a prisoner and that this horse was one of Gen. Kilpatrick's. About the same one of the boys brought the 'spotted horse' and gave it to Gen. Wheeler. Gen. Allen removed the bridle and I the saddle from the wounded horse and put them on the black horse, and I assisted Gen. Allen to mount, as he had been badly shot in the hand. I then mounted my own horse and, seeing another gray horse standing near with saddle and halter on, took charge of him and directly turned him over to one of our boys whose horse had been killed, with the request that if we got out safely he let me have the horse. I looked for this horse, but could not find him with our Western boys, so I guess that was the horse Comrade Scott's friends got possession of.

There is no question about Gen. Wheeler getting the 'spotted horse,' which was said to have been Kilpatrick's favorite saddle horse, and he rode him until the close of the war. I think he sent the horse to Gen. Kilpatrick from Athens, Ga., after the war. Gen. Wheeler was always at the right place at the right time."