December 2006 Page 9

> PORTRAIT OF "TRAVELLER"

CSA General Robert E. Lee's personal and affectionate relationships with his horses (Richmond, Brown Roan, Ajax, Lucy Long and Traveller) is legendary. Following the war, an artist approached his daughter, Agnes, desiring to paint a portrait of "Traveller", the General's best-known cavalry mount.

Here is a portion of Lee's written description of Traveller (from a book by Ben Wynne, Florida State University), intended to assist the artist in rendering a portrait:

"If I were an artist like you I would draw a true picture of Traveller - representing his fine proportions, muscular figure, deep chest and short back, strong haunches, flat legs, small head, broad forehead, delicate ears, quick eye, small feet, and black mane and tail. Such a picture would inspire a poet, whose genius could then depict his worth and describe his endurance of toil, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and the dangers and sufferings through which he passed... But I am no artist; I can only say he is a Confederate gray. I purchased him in the mountains of Virginia in the autumn of 1861, and he has been my patient follower ever since... You must know the comfort he is to me in my present retirement... You can, I am sure, from what I have said, paint his portrait."