Old Sam was born April 4th, 1849 at the Abraham C. Fisk Breeding Stables in Coldwater Michigan. Before the Civil War, Old Sam was used to pull a street car back and forth from the train depot to the Southern Michigan Hotel in Coldwater. This street car carried passengers who needed transportation to and from the hotel. Sam was stabled behind the hotel and well aquainted with Cyrus Orlando Loomis whose father managed the hotel.
Also, long before the Civil War, an artillery company, recognised as part of the state militia, existed in Coldwater. At the beginning of the war, its services were tendered to Governor Austin Blair. This became the first volunteer artillery of Michigan and would later become known as the famous “Loomis Battery”. Cyrus Orlando Loomis was soon selected as its commander. He was first commissioned as Captain and later, a General.
Since Old Sam was well-disciplined and used to the loud noises of the whistling, bell-ringing and chugging locomotive, Loomis had requested that he become part of his artillery. O.B. Clark honored the request and Old Sam was donated to be used as one of the 200 horses. It was, in fact, at this time that Old Sam acquired that nickname, given to him by Loomis who had become quite attached to him. Old Sam was twelve years old, whereas most war horses were aged three to five years old.
What a drastic change in Old Sam’s mode of living. The Loomis Battery was mustered in at Coldwater, Michigan on May 28th, 1861. Old Sam was assigned to the position of near wheel horse on Gun #1. The wheel horse’s job was to rein in the rest of the team when commanded by the driver of the caisson and the cannon. Sam served in this position almost without the loss of one day, until the end of the war. For the next four years Old Sam would be a valuable asset to the nationally famous Loomis First Light Artillery Battery.
After rigorous training at Fort Wayne in Detroit Michigan, the horses were sent to the battle fields of the Civil War. After much drill, many days of toilsome marching, and a few skirmishes, Old Sam recieved his first real baptism of fire at the Battle of Rich Mountain. However, this would be nothing compared to what he was to experience during the four long years that would follow.
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The Loomis Battery was involved in at least twelve battles,including those at Perryville, Kentucky and Stone River and Hoover’s Gap in Tennessee. At Perryville some thirty three of Old Sam’s mates had been left on the field, killed in action. Another forty of his comrades in harness had made their last stand at Stone River. These were followed by Chickamauga, the hottest and bloodiest battle their battery encountered. The battle of Chickamauga was almost total annihilation. More than fifty horses, five guns and many men were lost. Old Sam was the only horse to get his gun back to a position of safety.
From the first, Old Sam seemed to lead a charmed life. The hardships and fatigue of the marches, the diseases and the lack of foliage in the camps took an even greater toll on his comrades than the shock and shell of battle. In the grinding march to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where the battery covered the last four miles in an unbelieveable twenty minutes, Old Sam reached the crest of Baker’s Hill first and swung his gun into position.
As the war progressed, Sam became a favorite of the battery men. The hard tack and sow belly shared with him from their rations probably saved him from the fate of his team mates. When the Loomis Battery was mustered out of service on July 28th, 1865 at Jackson, Michigan, Sam was the only survivor of the 200 horses assigned the the Loomis Battery four years earlier. In fact Old Sam had been wounded several times and half starved most of the time, yet he endured to the end. Only Sam and what remained of the battery guns and caissons were presented to General Loomis at the end of the war.
Old Sam’s return to Coldwater while yet being quite sad was quite a happy and enthusiastic event. Thirty seven of Sam’s comrades and 199 horses did not make it. Old Sam arrived by rail and was met at the station by his old battery mates, reinforced by hundreds of citizens. After the train came to an abrupt halt and the box car door schreeched open, Sam trotted down the ramp amidst whistling and cheering.
An informal parade headed toward the business district. Bands blared, guns fired and people enthusiastically applauded as Old Sam walked proudly down the road to his beginnings.
According to newspaper accounts, Sam’s ears perked up as he seemed to recognize his surroundings. The crowd waited with bated breath wondering what Sam would do. As he approached Division and Chicago Streets, the old war veteran was turned loose to test his memory. He looked down Chicago Street as if to get his bearings and then turning the opposite direction, walked leisurely up the street until he cam opposite the hotel. Then with a nicker of pure delight, he whirled on his heels, whisked down the street and down the alley to the old barn and into his own stall. Old Sam was home again and he knew it. Tears of joy must have flowed down O. B. Clark’s face as he rocked on his front porch watching the parade led by his own Old Sam.
History states that from then on Sam’s time was his own. O. B. Clark did not have the heart to have Sam returned to pulling heavy carriages or wagons. Old Sam deserved to be set free back in his lush green pasture at the Fisk Stables.
Old Sam remained in spirit a war horse. For several years he attended the annual reunions of the surviving members of the Loomis Battery. He would be led to the Courthouse Square where he would be greeted by the booming salute of his old pal, Gun #1. Gun #1 and the caisson are located in the Loomis Park in Coldwater, and a bronze plaque telling Old Sam’s story has been mounted on the seven foot granite monument.
In addition to these, three bronze plaques next to the cannon exhibit the names of the Loomis Battery men who served in the Civil War.
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The battery survivors never tired of watching Old Sam prepare for the annual Memorial Day parades. At their commands, he would prance through the manual of drills with all the old-time spirit of the battle front with his nostrils blazing. Throughout the post-war years ,Old Sam was accorded all the honors of war veterans. With each recurring Memorial Day he was given his place in line in the parade while the boys in blue marched in honor of their comrades who did not make it home from the war.
Sadly,on November 8th,1876, Old Sam died. This miracle horse was twenty seven years old. When news of his death reached the ears of his Battery mates they quickly gathered at the home of Henry and Lucia Clark on Division Street. The men were dismayed to learn that they couldn’t bury Old Sam with his fallen mates in Oak Grove Cemetery. The sexton of the cemetery had told them this; however, he also conveniently let it drop that he would be out of town for a while. Lucia Clark later told how she had overheard the companions of Old Sam plotting how they might maneuver Sam’s burial in an unmarked grave in the place he deserved.
Much later that same night, the exhausted, yet triumphant men again assembled at the Clark home and Lucia discovered how they carried out their secret plan under the cover of darkness. While several of the Battery men hurridly dug an illegal grave, a diversion was created by a volunteer who let farmer Floyd Brown’s cows loose. The night watchman had then been notified, and with Sheriff Culp out of town on business, the night watchman had to rouse fellow farmers to assist in the roundup.
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With the many menfolk of the area busily rounding up cows, the Loomis Battery men loaded Old Sam onto a stone boat drawn by two handsome draft horses… They then slowly threaded their way along the gas-lit Chicago Road and finally achieved the two-mile trek from the Fisk farm to the hillside Oak Grove Cemetery where Old Sam’s fallen comrades lay. With the moon in its first quarter providing adequate light, and the ground not yet completely frozen, the diggers had their part in the plot ready by the time the others arrived with Old Sam at his final destination.
Carefully, they gently rolled Old Sam into his place of rest, covered him with warm blankets, and filled the empty space with dirt, tamping it down lightly. Then they leveled out the remaining soil and covered it with the fallen oak leaves. The men then stood with bowed heads beside the leaf-blanketed grave and presented the Old Sam full military honors. Tears welled up in the men’s eyes as they recalled the firing of the final salutes and the playing of the taps. Sam’s comrades in arms felt that Sam was entitled to lie there among the men he had so faithfully served during the four long years of the “War Between the Sates”.
After 143 years,a tribute to Old Sam and the three and one half million horses and mules that died in the Civil War has been completed. Old Sam is but a symbol of all those that had contributed to the beginning of the end of the cancer of slavery. Today, there is no longer an unmarked grave in the old section of the Oak Grove Cemetary where, according to legend, this hero of the Civil War is laid to rest. A flag flutters over the grave. A monument stands on this spot. The memory of Old Sam will not die. Truly, Old Sam was one of the Great war horses of the Civil War…
Let us bow our heads and our hearts and give thanks for their sacrifice..
Sources :
Flickr Photograph of Old Sam Monument, Coldwater, Michigan
Martha M. Boltz, “Man Chronicles Old Civil War Horse’s Life”, Washington Times, February 6, 2009.
Terry and Charles L. Tucker, Old Sam Hero of the Civil War Facebook entry
Old Sam – Hero of the Civil War
Loomis’ Battery : First Michigan Light Artillery, 1859-1865 / by Matthew C. Switlik. Wayen State University Master’s Thesis (1975)