Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

June 25

Miles Keogh’s Horse

By John Hay (1838–1905)

Colonel Miles Keogh was a young Irishman who was with General Custer in the fight on the Little Big Horn. In this fight, June 25th, 1876, every man of the United States force was killed, Col. Keogh’s horse being the only thing left alive on the battlefield.

ON the bluff of the Little Big-Horn,

At the close of a woful day,

Custer and his Three Hundred

In death and silence lay.

Three Hundred to three Thousand!

They had bravely fought and bled;

For such is the will of Congress

When the White man meets the Red.

The White men are ten millions,

The thriftiest under the sun;

The Reds are fifty thousand,

And warriors every one.

So Custer and all his fighting men

Lay under the evening skies,

Staring up at the tranquil heaven

With wide, accusing eyes.

And of all that stood at noonday

In that fiery scorpion ring,

Miles Keogh’s horse at evening

Was the only living thing.

Alone from that field of slaughter,

Where lay the three hundred slain,

The horse Comanche wandered,

With Keogh’s blood on his mane.

And Sturgis issued this order,

Which future times shall read,

While the love and honor of comrades

Are the soul of the soldier’s creed.

He said—

Let the horse Comanche

Henceforth till he shall die,

Be kindly cherished and cared for

By the Seventh Cavalry.

He shall do no labor; he never shall know

The touch of spur nor rein;

Nor shall his back be ever crossed

By living rider again.

And at regimental formation

Of the Seventh Cavalry,

Comanche draped in mourning and led

By a trooper of Company I,

Shall parade with the regiment!

Thus it was

Commanded and thus done,

By order of General Sturgis, signed

By Adjutant Garlington.

Even as the sword of Custer,

In his disastrous fall,

Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world

And glorified his pall,

This order, issued amid the gloom

That shrouds our army’s name,

When all foul beasts are free to rend

And tear its honest fame,

Shall prove to a callous people

That the sense of a soldier’s worth,

That the love of comrades, the honor of arms,

Have not yet perished from earth.