fectually (?) concealed their grey
uniforms and propounded a similar question. Hoping by his
protestations of loyalty to recover his lost property he told them
he was a 'Union man', whereupon they too took such horses as they
could find.

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE HORSEMEN SCOUTING BETWEEN ANANDALE AND
FAIRFAX.--Sketched by A. R. Waud.]

Finally a party came along dressed partly in blue and partly in
grey, and asked the same question. Eyeing them critically for a
moment and remembering his past unfortunate experience, he replied:

'Well, gentlemen, to tell you the truth, I am nothing at all and
d----d little of that.'"

The fact that the Yankees had an abundance of horses is illustrated
by the following article found in the Pictorial War Record (March
18, 1882).

"Some people will no doubt be astonished to learn that large
fortunes had been made every year from the commencement of the war
out of the dead horses of the Army of the Potomac. The popular idea
is that when Rosinante yields up the ghost he is buried in some
field, or left to moulder into mother earth in the woods somewhere.
Not so. He has made his last charge, and gnawed his last fence rail,
but there is from $20.00 to $40.00 in the old fellow yet.

A contract for the purchase of dead horses in the Army of the
Potomac in the year 1864 was let for that year to the highest
bidder, at $1.67 per head, delivered at the factory of the
contractor. During 1863, $60,000.00 was cleared on the contract, and
that year it is thought $100,000.00 was made on it. The animals die
at the rate of about fifty per day at the lowest calculation.

At the contractor's establishment they are thoroughly dissected.
First the shoes are pulled off; they are usually worth fifty cents a
set. Then the hoofs are cut off; they bring two dollars a set. Then
comes the caudal appendage, worth half a dollar. Then the hide--I
don't know what that sells for. Then the tallow, if it is possible
to extract tallow from the army horse, which I think extremely
doubtful, unless he die immediately after entering the service. And
last, but not least, the shinbones are valuable, being convertible
into a variety of articles that many believe to be composed of pure
ivory, such as candle-heads, knife-handles, etc. By this time the
contractor gets through the "late-lamented" steed, there is hardly
enough of him left to feed a bull-pup on.

Hereafter, kind reader, when you see a dead "hoss", don't tur