My next recollection of my father is in Baltimore, while we were on a visit to his sister, Mrs. Marshall, the wife of Judge Marshall.  I remember being down on the wharves, where my father had taken me to see the landing of a mustang pony which he had gotten for me in Mexico, and which had been shipped from Vera Cruz to Baltimore in a sailing vessel.  I was all eyes for the pony, and a very miserable, sad-looking object he was.  From his long voyage, cramped quarters, and unavoidable lack of grooming, he was rather a disappointment to me, but I soon got over all that.  As I grew older, and was able to ride and appreciate him, he became the joy and pride of my life.  I was taught to ride on him by Jim Connally, the faithful Irish servant of my father, who had been with him in Mexico.  Jim used often to tell me, in his quizzical way, that he and “Santa Anna” (the pony’s name) were the first men on the walls of Chepultepec.  This pony was pure white, five years old, and about fourteen hands high.  For his inches, he was as good a horse as I ever have seen.  While we lived in Baltimore, he and “Grace Darling,” my father’s favorite mare, were members of our family.

Grace Darling was a chestnut of fine size and of great power, which he had bought in Texas on his way out to Mexico, her owner having died on the march out.  She was with him during the entire campaign, and was shot seven times; at least, as a little fellow I used to brag about that number of bullets being in her, and since I could point out the scars of each one, I presume it was so.  My father was very much attached to and proud of her, always petting her and talking to her in a loving way, when he rode her or went to see her in her stall.  Of her he wrote on his return home: 

“I only arrived yesterday, after a long journey up the Mississippi, which route I was induced to take, for the better accommodation of my horse, as I wished to spare her as much annoyance and fatigue as possible, she already having undergone so much suffering in my service.  I landed her at Wheeling and left her to come over with Jim.”

Santa Anna was found lying cold and dead in the park of Arlington one morning in the winter of ’60-’61.  Grace Darling was taken in the spring of ’62 from the White House [Footnote:  My brother’s place on the Pamtmkey River, where the mare had been sent for safe keeping.] by some Federal quartermaster, when McClellan occupied that place as his base of supplies during his attack on Richmond.  When we lived in Baltimore, I was greatly struck one day by hearing two ladies who were visiting us saying: 

“Everybody and everything—­his family, his friends, his horse, and his dog—­loves Colonel Lee.”