The Kilpatrick Spotted Horse Affair

Confederate Veteran
Volume 14, Number 7, Page 309
July 1906

We have read an article in the February number of the CONFEDERATE VETERAN entitled "Kilpatrick's Spotted Horse." We were members of Company D, 3d Alabama Cavalry. Hogan's Brigade, and were with the whole brigade at the fight that occurred near Fayetteville, N. C., the morning that we surprised General Kilpatrick, of the Federal army.

Sim Lambrecht, of our company, captured the bay stallion, and Aleck McArthur, also of our company, captured the spotted stallion. The next day General Wheeler sent for McArthur, stating that he wanted to see the spotted horse, and he rode the horse to General Wheeler's headquarters. General Wheeler said to McArthur: "I want this horse." McArthur said: "General, you can have him." General Wheeler replied: "I don't want him as a gift. There is a roan horse that will answer your purpose as well. Go and see him, and if you like him, take him." Aleck McArthur was well pleased with the roan horse, and General Wheeler gave him a pair of pistols "in the bargain."

Signed: D. A. K. McDowell, J. W. Hawthorne, Sam D. Moore, J. O. Young, R. H. Bussey, A. J. Campbell.

It was the duty of D. A. K. McDowell to report to General Wheeler every day. Not seeing the spotted stallion, or horse, at Wheeler's headquarters, I asked one of General Wheeler's staff what had become of the horse. The staff officer stated that Wheeler and Kilpatrick were cadets at the West Point Military Academy. The staff officer told me that General Wheeler returned the horse under a flag of truce to General Kilpatrick, and wrote him that he expected to capture the horse soon again if he did not keep a sharp lookout. I refer the writer of the spotted horse article to Maj. William E. Wailes, of Selma, Ala., who was on General Wheeler's staff, to prove that General Wheeler never rode a spotted horse.

D. A. K. MCDOWELL.