James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
June 25Miles Keoghs Horse
By John Hay (18381905)
O
At the close of a woful day,
Custer and his Three Hundred
In death and silence lay.
They had bravely fought and bled;
For such is the will of Congress
When the White man meets the Red.
The thriftiest under the sun;
The Reds are fifty thousand,
And warriors every one.
Lay under the evening skies,
Staring up at the tranquil heaven
With wide, accusing eyes.
In that fiery scorpion ring,
Miles Keogh’s horse at evening
Was the only living thing.
Where lay the three hundred slain,
The horse Comanche wandered,
With Keogh’s blood on his mane.
Which future times shall read,
While the love and honor of comrades
Are the soul of the soldier’s creed.
Let the horse Comanche
Henceforth till he shall die,
Be kindly cherished and cared for
By the Seventh Cavalry.
The touch of spur nor rein;
Nor shall his back be ever crossed
By living rider again.
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.
In his disastrous fall,
Flashed out a blaze that charmed the world
And glorified his pall,
That shrouds our army’s name,
When all foul beasts are free to rend
And tear its honest fame,
That the sense of a soldier’s worth,
That the love of comrades, the honor of arms,
Have not yet perished from earth.