If horses could talk. In 1868, a horse was bought by the U.S. Army and assigned to Fort Leavenworth for the famous 7th Cavalry. Capt. Myles Keogh picked the horse as his battle horse. In one of his first encounters with Native Americans in Kansas, he took an arrow to his rear, but he carried Keogh to safety. The would be more skirmishes with the Comanche Indians and since Keogh admired his foes, he named the horse “Comanche”. He would receive other wounds before the fateful day of June 25, 1876. On that day, he was part of Custer’s attack on the village along the Little Big Horn. Keogh died in a last stand separate from Custer. He would have died on foot, surrounded by his men. Comanche would have been held with three other horses by a trooper during the fighting. When the horse-holder was killed, Comanche probably wandered off, in pain from numerous wounds. Two days later, he was discovered by a cavalryman searching the battle site. He was transported to Fort Abraham Lincoln and nursed back to health. He was retired and became a celebrity as “the sole survivor of Custer’s Last Stand” (which was technically not true because undoubtedly the Indians got all the other cavalry horses that had survived). Comanche left a cushy life in retirement. He led parades and drank beer. He lived another 15 years. When he died, he was given the first military funeral for a horse. He was then stuffed and you can still see him in the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_(horse)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_(horse)
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