A Brevet Hoss: Molly the Cow and the Grand Review

When the veterans of General Sherman’s army marched along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington in that memorable parade that marked the close of the war, a placid old cow tied to the rear of an ambulance became burdened under a constantly increasing weight of garlands and flowers piled upon her by the enthusiastic spectators along the line of march. She bore her honors meekly for she had won them by a steady devotion to the Union cause through the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns and in Sherman’s March to the Sea.

          She belonged to that class upon whom greatness is thrust for she was drafted into the army for no nobler purpose than to be transformed into beef, but fate reserved her for three years of campaigning and a soldier’s burial at the end. Early in 1862, she was picked up in some quiet pasture of the North and sent with many of her kind to the Army of Tennessee which then operated in western Tennessee. As the commissary of subsistence surveyed his herd, he discovered one new milch cow among them that even to his official eye was unfit for beef. He reported the matter to General Mortimer D. Leggett who was in command and asked him what to do. “Weigh her out to me and I will pay you her value for beef,” said the general who had been reared in the dairy region of northeastern Ohio where the cow is the chief purveyor of the household. The transaction was officially completed and Molly was henceforth a member of the general’s military family.

Molly the Cow accompanied General Mortimer D. Leggett's headquarters from the summer of 1862 through the end of the war. The teetotaling Leggett scrupulously only kept two of the three horses he was allowed, reserving the third spot for Molly. Molly only saw action once and that during the Battle of Atlanta where the sudden Confederate attack on the Union rear sent her into a panic. She eventually recovered, but bellowed for days afterwards and refused to eat. 


          Uncle Joe, an African-American cook attached to Leggett’s headquarters, took her in personal charge and the comradeship thus formed was severed only by the dramatic fortunes of war. She was tied to the cook’s wagon and so easily adapted herself to soldier life that in a few days the rope was cast off. Yet she held her station and seldom allowed the wagon out of sight. She was generous in her yield, a portion of which was always reserved for the sick or wounded of the command. This arrangement secured her immunity from the fate that befell nearly all army cows as her milk was never stolen, and no effort was every made to confiscate her for beef even when the men were in the worst stages of beef hunger.

          She became so popular with the soldiers that when forage was scarce the boys would glean for her whatever could be found along the line of march and bestow it upon her when settled into camp. General Leggett always kept one horse less than regulations allowed and the extra ration was drawn daily and turned over to the cow. Much traveling made Molly footsore and she was taken to the blacksmith who fitted her with as neat a set of shoes as were worn by any horse in the army.

"General Leggett was as well known in Sherman's army for his temperance and his religious scruples as was O.O. Howard. He didn't swear, but he was as gruff and violent in speech as many of the hard swearers. His men liked him, but they never joked about him or with him as they did with Sherman. They knew he could not take a joke." ~Chicago Inter-Ocean

          Molly’s one personal adventure with the enemy was brief and dramatic and made a deep impression upon her memory. As she was always with the headquarters effects at the rear of the command and usually out of range of danger, she seemed to look upon army life as a long-drawn excursion and enjoyed it only as a true soldier could. But in the Battle of Atlanta, the first assault of the enemy was in the rear, running entirely over Union headquarters. Both Molly and her guardian Uncle Joe were completely demoralized and nearly scared to death. The cook never recovered and General Leggett was compelled to send him back home to Ohio, but the cow was of sterner stuff and gradually recovered. However, for nearly a week she refused her rations and bellowed for hours at a time. For a month afterward, the sight of a squad of men on a run would throw her into a panic.

Molly accompanied Leggett's headquarters all through the Atlanta campaign, then marched through the Carolinas and eventually in the Grand Review. An army blacksmith fitted her with a set of iron "horseshoes" when the Molly became footsore but like any good veteran, she barreled right through to the end of the war. 


          When peace came and the army that Sherman led on his famous march was ordered to Washington to take part in the magnificent parade, the old campaigner that had in turn ministered to the comfort of so many including guests at Leggett’s table such as Generals Grant and Sherman down to the sick drummer boy was taken along. She walked behind the headquarters ambulance as a marked and conspicuous part of the procession. The people along the line loaded her with bouquets and wreaths until she became a walking monument of flowers.

General Mortimer D. Leggett

          General Leggett felt that Molly had earned her ease for the remainder of her days and determined to take her home to Ohio. His command was mustered out of service at Louisville, Kentucky in July 1865 and he was ordered to proceed to his home at Zanesville to await further orders. Transportation was furnished him for three horses. His servant Tim went to the steamboat landing with the general’s effects, Molly among them. Tom led two horses up the gangplank and then advanced with the cow. The officer of the boat looked at the order and cried out, “Hold on! There’s no transportation here for a cow.”

          “Yes, sir,” Tom replied, “it calls for so many horses.”

          “But that isn’t a horse.”

          “A brevet hoss,” Tom quickly responded repeating the standing joke of the army as to the multiplicity of brevet honors that were flying about in those days.

          Molly lived through many years of peace and quiet upon the best the land would afford and when she died of old age, a squad of veterans in blue followed her to the grave and saw that she was laid away with proper military honors.

 

Source:

“Gen. Leggett’s Cow,” Western Veteran (Kansas), May 21, 1890, pg. 5

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