It's been said by some that Little Sorrel was not a pretty horse. Who could say such a thing?

Don't you believe it!

I've seen him more than a few times in his state of taxidermy at the Virginia Military Institute Museum in Lexington, Virginia. He’s a site to behold!

He stands behind a wooden fence, an elegant and most gracious horse, gazing out into the past. Little Sorrel was no ordinary horse, and he became a celebrity in the southern states, as well as in the north. He was quite familiar around the grounds of VMI where his owner, General Stonewall Jackson taught.

The good General Jackson had four war-horses, but Little Sorrel was his favorite. Jackson bought the horse, a descendent of the original Justin Morgan horse, for his wife. Little Sorrel stood 15 hands high with a firm comely body and robust legs.

Jackson was riding the horse when wounded at Chancellorsville, and Little Sorrel ran in a state of spook until halted by soldiers. Later, the horse was captured by Yankee soldiers, and then retaken back by the Confederates. This pattern went back and forth until the horse was once and for all returned to the Confederacy.

After the death of Little Sorrel’s master, General Jackson, the famous horse went to live with Mrs.Jackson in Lincoln County, North Carolina. Later, Little Sorrel was returned to VMI in Lexington, Virginia.

The sweet horse rode a train back to the military academy, and all along the train tracks, crowds of southern enthusiasts came out to greet the train as it rode by with the celebrated horse. Women waved their lace handkerchiefs, and men their hats, as cheers and shouts blasted high into the air.

In October 1884, Mrs. Jackson allowed Little Sorrel to be exhibited at Hagerstown County Fair in Maryland. Little Sorrel traveled to reunions and fairs, even making it to the New Orleans World's Fair of 1885. When Little Sorrel came out into the ring, being led by a small boy on a pony—the crowd went wild! When the band started playing Dixie, the horse started dancing across the track, throwing his head this way, and that.

Little Sorrel was well known for his dancing to military music. Whenever possible, trophy hunters would pull hairs from the horse's tail and mane, leaving hardly enough to "shoo the flies away."

Time passed, and Little Sorrel grew old and tired. He spent the rest of his arthritic days at "Old Soldier's Home" in Richmond, Virginia. When the horse could no longer stand, he was equipped with a sling to hoist him up. On March 16, 1886, the sling broke, dropping the horse to the ground, breaking his back, and bringing on a much-needed death.

And oh . . . how the general would have cried, had he known.

Frederick Webster, a Pittsburgh taxidermist, preserved and mounted the horse's hide, and received the horse’s bones as payment for his services. The bones were sent to VMI in the late 1940s, and eventually found their way to a storeroom, where they rested in a state of deterioration.

The mounting of the horse’s hide became one of only two done by this particular process which included tanned hide stretched over a plaster framework. The final product was completed in time to be on display in Webster's Pennsylvania Avenue studio.

Union veterans visited the studio to see the celebrated horse that General Stonewall Jackson once rode upon. They stood among themselves recalling events of the war as they gazed upon the horse.

In 1997, the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and VMI, decided to bury the remains of the horse with full honors. The great General Jackson would have been truly grateful.

On July 20, 1997 the cremated bones of Little Sorrel were buried at VMI in Lexington near the life-size bronze statue of his master, General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. A narrow plot, three to four feet deep, had been dug for Little Sorrel.

A VMI cadet, Adam Pool, carried the walnut box holding the ashes of Little Sorrel’s bones. The cadet was escorted across the parade ground by a mounted escort, an honor guard, an infantry escort, and a unit of Confederate reenactors.

Today, the horse can still be viewed in a state of taxidermy. His brown hide is mounted over plaster of paris, and is on permanent display at the VMI Museum.

Once, Little Sorrel walked about freely on the glorious VMI grounds. Adults, as well as children, came to pet the famous horse, and offer him apples. Little Sorrel was allowed to eat grass from the parade grounds to his heart’s content. Now, at last, this celebrated southern horse, is buried next to his master.

Little Sorrel would have liked that.

©1999 jpinkerton