SUPERSTITION IN SOLDIERS.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2927, 3 July 1878, Page 2

SUPERSTITION IN SOLDIERS.

A writer in a home paper says: —Two weeks'ago I cut from a local paper here this paragraph: " Skobeloff is a fatalist, and what brilliant soldiers are not? He rides grey horses in battle, and has had as many as four killed under him in one day." This paragraph at once brought to my mind a similar superstition on the part of General J. Shelby, of Missouri, under whom I serred throughout the entire war. His color was sorrel. He firmly believed, and often used to say, that he could never bo killed in a fight while he rode a sorrel horse. And the fact seemed to bear him out in this. He was wounded three times during the war, but never once while riding a sorrel horse. He had twenty-four horses killed under him in the various engagements where he was not hit, and in every em^gf"^ instance where the horse was hit and the

rider escaped the horse was a sorrel. Once, at Springfield, «a ball struck Shelby fair in the middle of the .forehead. It knocked him clean from'his stirrups, something difficult to do, for he was a splen--1 did rider—and back over his horse and: heavily upon the ground. Those about him thought him killed, but he was on his feet in a second, and on his*, horse in another, saying in the cool tones of an ordinary conversation: "I cannot be killed to-day, for I am riding a sorrel horse." Sure enough, the brim of his, large felt hat had caught the ball and broke its force. It knocked him from the saddle and drew blood, but beyond this no other harm was done. Indeed, I have watched SkobelofF's career during the Russo-Turkish war, and, according to my idea of things, there is much in common between this dashing soldier and General Shelby. Both had the same power over men. Both were supremely in--different in battle. Both were superstitious. Both loved hard fighting, desperate charges, and enterprises that were" considered impossible. Both were military dandies—that is to say, both were fond of gold lace, showy uniforms, silver spurs, floating plumes, splendid, saddle strappings, and thoroughbred horses. Both always said to their men, " Come on," never "Go on! " Both were idolised by their soldiers, and both had the same fatalistic ideas of the kind of colour their horses had to bo to make the riders safe.