Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1898 — NOSTALGIA ATTACKS BOTH. [ARTICLE]

NOSTALGIA ATTACKS BOTH.

War Hone* Get Ja»t m Homesick as the Soldier Boys. "And those volunteers,” remarked the man with the ponderous diamond horseshoe embedded In his bosom, “are not the only warriors that pine away and die from nostalgia. Horses are far more susceptible to the disease than men—that is, they were so in the civil war, and I don’t see any reason to suppose that their temperaments have changed since then. “Of course, when a poor, four-legged brute, with no shoulder straps, comes down with nostalgia the doctors don’t dignify it with such a dude diagnosis. They simply report that such and such horses in such and such a troop are ‘off their feed,' and let it go at that But it Is precisely the same thing, the disorder develops in precisely the same manner and the equine victims of It manifest identically the same symptoms, and, what is more, the chances of their dying from it are infinitely greater than are those of a soldier, simply because it is impossible to bolster up their courage by telling them they are going home soon. That is the only medicine that will keep the disease in check, and, of course, you can’t administer it to a horse unless you speak its language. “And when you come to think about it,” the man with the ponderous diamond horseshoe continued, “the prevalence of the disease among army horses Is the most reasonable thing in the world. As is the case with the volunteers, a great majority of the war horses come from the country. They were bred and raised in the country, and until they were drafted into the service they spest all their days in the restful quiet of the farm. The government prefers to buy country horses both for political reasons and because the animals are more likely to be free from the pavement soreness and other disorders which afflict city horses. It also has its buyers select animals pretty well along in years—any where from five to nine years old. "When these rustic beasts are torn suddenly from their rural homes and plunged into the bustle and confusion of camp life it affects them just as it does their masters who have enlisted. Most natural thing in the world it should, because both have been brought up the same way. You take a city bred man or a city bred horse, and they would go through a thlrtyyear war with never a touch of nostalgia. “Loss of appetite is the first symptom of equine homesickness. Horses that at home were the most hearty feeders become dainty and particular, and refuse to look at anything offered to them. Then they become restless and nervous, pound their feet to pieces, if you don’t watch them, and from sweet-tempered, honest workers they become ornery and sulky rogues, unfit for everything. It doesn’t take long to kill them off—less time than it does to ‘do for* a soldier. Two weeks will fix them generally. Working without nourishment is as disastrous as fighting on an empty stomach, and the beasts soon contract a cold or a fever, and either die or are killed. “Out of a consignment of 200 horses sent to the army corps with which I was stationed in Tennessee, more than one-third of them became absolutely useless from sheer homesickness in less than a month. Twenty or thirty died and the rest we disposed of as best we could. “Another circumstance which produces equine nostalgia among army horses is the faet that a great majority of them have been separated from a mate, with whom they have been accustomed to work for years. The moment they realize their partner is missing they go into the most abject mourning, and refuse to be reconciled. Time and time again I have seen horses literally grieve themselves to death in an army camp because their farmmate was separated from them. “There may be such a thing as mule nostalgia, but I never saw any army mule that did not have sand enough to keep It to himself.”—New York Press.