“Pluto was own cousin to Master Magrath, the famous hound. He was a
gentler nature every way than Thor, who was grand, dignified, without
attachments or associates except in his (our) own family; reserved, and
withdrawing himself from all attentions--even those of our friends.
Yet he had intense devotion to the General, to both my sons, and to
my daughter, and was very fond of me too, but in an indulgent sort of
way, because I belonged with the rest. He had sense and a faithful
heart. The latter gave him great pain; for to a dog you cannot explain
that a parting is not necessarily final; and it was saddening to see
his distress when the General would go away in Arizona. And when
after weeks or months he returned, there was always a general rush to
move small tables, etc., out of range, for Thor would go wild over
him, leaping up to lick his face, jumping wildly about him, putting
his great paws on the General’s shoulders, and rubbing his grizzled
muzzle against the General’s face, with cries almost human, and
painful, hysterical joy. Everything had to give way to him. He had
to be petted and quieted down like an excited baby; but even in his
sleep, afterwards, he would cry out and quiver all over, and the waking
would be a subdued repetition of the first joy. Thor’s name is never
carelessly mentioned even now, six years after his death.”
Mrs. Frémont has also commemorated, in her “Story of the Guard,” a
little terrier named Corporal, which belonged to the band of gallant
young men known as General Frémont’s Body-Guard. He was not pure-bred,
but that did not matter--sense and fidelity being happily independent
of birth. He had joined the Guards while they were in camp at St.
Louis, became a general favorite, and when they made their splendid
charge at Springfield, Mo., charged with them. The wild dash over, he
remained on the field all night with a wounded soldier, sped away for
help when morning dawned, coaxed and pulled until he persuaded a man to
follow, and thus succeeded in saving his friend’s life. In memory of
this brave deed the men bought him a collar, bright as red leather and
silver could make it, with the inscription:
CORPORAL,
THE BODY-GUARD’S DOG.
Springfield, Oct., 1861.
But although dogs are such good soldiers, they are no braver than
horses; while Pussy, their hereditary rival, keeps fairly abreast with
them in war as in peace. The Grenadiers’ Cat was contemporary with
Bobby, a courageous sharer in several hard-fought battles, and one
of the lamented slain at Balaklava. Another regimental cat was found
by Colonel Stuart Wortley, after the storming of the Malakoff, with
one foot pinned to the earth by a bayonet. He took her to a surgeon,
who dressed the wounded paw; and after her recovery, adopting her
preserver, she used to follow the colonel “all over the camp, with her
tail carried stiff in the air.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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