Lincoln the horseman

[STS Lincolnite]

I was re-reading a portion of Martin Johnson's fine book Writing the Gettysburg Address and the following passage (p. 172) captured my attention:

At some point, perhaps just as the procession was about to move, Liberty Hollinger remembered, "The band began to play and Mr. Lincoln's horse became excited and pranced around quite lively. It seemed to amuse the President, and then that sober, sad-faced man actually smiled." The noble, splendid charger turned out to be a "meddlesome steed," according to the Boston Journal, but luckily, another reporter added, Lincoln's "awkwardness, which is so often remarked does not extend to his horsemanship." The years riding the court circuit can attest to that.

I was wondering if anyone had read anything else related to Lincoln's skills as a horseman.

[RJNorton]

(02-14-2016 12:21 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  I was re-reading a portion of Martin Johnson's fine book Writing the Gettysburg Address and the following passage (p. 172) captured my attention:

At some point, perhaps just as the procession was about to move, Liberty Hollinger remembered, "The band began to play and Mr. Lincoln's horse became excited and pranced around quite lively. It seemed to amuse the President, and then that sober, sad-faced man actually smiled." The noble, splendid charger turned out to be a "meddlesome steed," according to the Boston Journal, but luckily, another reporter added, Lincoln's "awkwardness, which is so often remarked does not extend to his horsemanship." The years riding the court circuit can attest to that.

I was wondering if anyone had read anything else related to Lincoln's skills as a horseman.

Apparently there was eyewitness disagreement regarding the horse President Lincoln rode that day. Harold Holzer writes:

"People even disagreed about the President’s horse. One visitor gushed that Lincoln looked “like Saul of old” that day as he sat astride “the largest . . . Chestnut horse” in the county. Another testified that he rode “a diminutive pony.” And yet another thought the horse was so small that Lincoln’s long legs practically dragged along the ground—inspiring one old local farmer to exclaim at the sight of him: “Say Father Abraham, if she goes to run away with yer . . . just stand up and let her go!” People on the scene did not even agree on the color of the horse. Surviving recollections state with equal certainty that it was “a white horse,” a “chestnut bay,” a “brown charger,” and a “black steed."

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by...-revisited