Thursday, November 14, 2013

Civil War Oddities #114


Before donning a gray uniform, Robert E. Lee once described himself as being “very solitary.” His only companions, he said in a letter to his wife, were “my dog and cats.” According to the lonely cavalry officer, his dog went with him to his office every morning and lay down “from eight to four without moving.”

During his U.S. Army days, Lieutenant Colonel Lee once crossed the “Narrows” between Fort Hamilton and Staten Island, New York. Halfway over the body of water, he spied a female dog with its head barely above the waves. He rescued the animal, named her Dart, and took her home with him.

One of her pups, Spec, was an alert and especially affectionate black and tan terrier who once jumped out of a high window to join the family at church. Lee was so impressed by the valor of the animal that he permitted Spec to “go into the church afterwards, whenever he wished.”