Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1878 — Death of Sheridan’s Famous Steed. [ARTICLE]

Death of Sheridan’s Famous Steed.

The famous charger that carried Gen. Sheridan to Winchester, “twenty miles away,” died in his master’s stable, on Michigan avenue, at an early hour on yesterday morning. The part played by this animal in one of the bloodiest battles of the Rebellion has been respectfully recognized in books of history and patriotic verse. Read, the poet, by a few strokes of his pen, lifted the beast into a fame Illinois t US enduring no tliat which has been earned by its rider. “Winchester,” the cognomen by which the horse has been known since the war, was jet black in color, with a small white star almost in the center of the forehead—a sort of “lucky star.” He stood sixteen and a half hands high, and was trim built and active, and proud-spirited. When Sheridan took command of the Second Michigan regiment in 1862, Capt. Campbell presented him with the animal, which was then spoken of as a 3-year-old colt. His owner dubbed him ■ Rienza, after the Mississippi town of that name. History describes the ride to Win- ' Chester as a furious and headlong race. The General said that the actual distance ridden was sixteen miles, the poet, Read, having used about four miles of “poetical license.” He spoke feelingly of his old black steed, saying he had been unexcelled in speed, courage, docility, and nobleness of nature. The General said he had not been upon “Winchester’s” back since the war closed. He has required his hostler to give him the tenderest attention. i The skin of old “Winchester” is to be prepared and preserved in the best art of the taxidermist. Prof. Ward of Rochester, N. Y., will set him up.— Chicago Times.