Traveller, the war-horse of Robert E. Lee, and Little Sorrel, Stonewall Jackson’s horse, were nearly as recognizable during the Civil War as their owners. Still held in reverence long after the war, both horses’ remains were preserved following their own deaths and placed on display for an admiring public. Their skeletal remains are now fittingly buried in Lexington, Virginia, not far from the graves of their famous owners.
“Little Sorrel” was a Morgan horse, fifteen hands tall, captured in Harper’s Ferry, (West) Virginia by Stonewall Jackson’s army in 1861. Originally intending to give the horse to his wife, Jackson paid the quartermaster $150 for the gelding, naming him “Fancy.” But after riding the horse, Jackson found the animal’s gait so pleasing he remarked, “A seat on him was like being rocked in a cradle.” Deciding to keep the horse for himself, it quickly became known as “Little Sorrel” once Jackson began using it as his regular mount.
Although not looking the part of the classic “war-horse,” Little Sorrel had the reputation of remaining calm in battle while also possessing remarkable stamina on long marches. “The endurance of the little animal was marvelous,” Henry Kyd Douglas wrote, “and the General was apt to forget it was exceptional.”
Jackson was riding Little Sorrel when wounded on May 2, 1863 at the battle of Chancellorsville. The horse remained on the battlefield after Jackson was removed to receive medical attention and was later found by two artillery soldiers, neither of whom recognized it as Jackson’s horse. One of the soldiers rode the horse for several days until it was discovered to be Little Sorrel, at which point the horse was turned over the Gen. J.E.B Stuart. He in turn gave the animal to Anna Jackson, who took Little Sorrel with her to North Carolina to live at her father’s farm.