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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pulp" data-source="post: 2114601" data-attributes="member: 14195">Part 2     The bugle sounded at 4:00A.M. On the second day and the activity began.  The Commanding Officer decided that it would be a good idea to rotate the horses by switching the draft horses out.  The single horses were paired into teams and hitched to the wagons and guns.  This proved to be a difficult task because many of the horses had never been in harness.  After several runaways, lots of bucking and balking, shouting and cussing, the Battery finally got moving.  There was no more switching of the animals after the second day.  The horse that I was riding was switched to a draft roll and began kicking and bucking.  He cut the tendons in one of his legs and was not ridden or harnessed for the rest of the trip.  He made it to Ft. Sill, but with a pronounced limp.     The march proceeded fairly smoothly for a few days.  Reveille sounded at 4:00A.M., and we were on the road at 7:00A.M.  The first three hours were taken up with feeding the men and animals, harnessing the teams, saddling up and then breaking camp and cleaning up our campsite.  In the evenings the grooming, feeding and watering usually took about two hours.  One night at about 10P.M. an armadillo panicked the horses.  The horses broke the picket lines and scattered into the night.  After several hours, they were all gathered up and returned to the picket lines.  One of the horses ran headlong into an artillery piece during the stampede and was so badly broken up that he had to be put down.  He was the only horse lost during the long ride.     Our next problem occurred when we reached the Brazos River.  The Commanding Officer decided to water the single mounts and lead teams at the river bank instead of crossing the bridge.  The sandy bottom of the river bed would wash out from under the horse’s hooves and they panicked.  The bucking horses were soon able to throw the majority of the riders into the river.  A bunch of wet and cold soldiers spent the next couple of hours gathering up the runaway horses.  From then on, we crossed the rivers using the bridges.     We passed through several small towns along the way.  It must have been quite a sight to see that many horses, artillery pieces, supply wagons, feed wagons and dirty, dusty soldiers riding down the main highway.  People sat on their porches and waved to us as we passed.  The children stopped whatever they were doing and waved and yelled as we rode by.  We detoured around Ft. Worth, Texas due to its size and we just skirted the edge of Wichita Falls, Texas.  We went right through the middle of every other town on the route.     On the 13th of December, 1938, we made camp at Ft. Sill Indian School.  We arrived at 2:00P.M., and spent the rest of the day preparing for our entry into Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.     December 14th, 1938 found us lined up and ready for our entry to Ft. Sill.  “Old 37” was hitched to the head of a six horse team pulling the lead gun.  He was wearing a white bridle and a white harness.  He acted like he knew what was expected of him.  As we entered Ft. Sill, troops lined both sides of the road, and “Old 37” pranced like a thoroughbred as he led us past the troops.  Our trip of 400 miles had taken 14 days.  The horses, guns and wagons were distributed throughout the 18th Field Artillery Regiment.  Private Sam McDaniel returned to Headquarters Battery, 18th Field Artillery Regiment with sore feet, a sore butt, chapped lips, and a windblown tan.  He would never mount a horse again during his twenty years of military service.     This ride from Ft. Sam Houston, Texas to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma is believed to be the last ride involving so many men and horses for the U.S. Army.SAWYER’S NOTE:     My father Sam McDaniel is still alive and in his 80’s.  He retired out of the Army in 1958.  I did not know this story until last year.  I am so fortunate to have a father that lived this long and shared this great memory with my brother, Pulp, SASS 28319, and I.  If you are as fortunate as we are, please ask your parents about their lives.  I think it would have been a great tragedy for my father to have died and I did not know this story.  I hope that my children and grand-children will enjoy hearing about the life of their grand-father and great grandfather as much as I did.Pulp’s note:Sawyer is the Single Action Shooter’s Society’s registered alias for Jerry McDaniel.  Pulp is the alias for Terry McDaniel.  Since this story was originally written for the “Cowboy Chronicle”, a publication of the Single Action Shooter’s Society, Jerry chose to use our aliases.</blockquote>

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