Hero Horse

THE LEGEND OF A HERO HORSE

OF ALL THE STIRRING STORIES of bravery to come out of Arizona's Indian wars, few can match that of the hero horse named Two Bits. But the tale of this remarkable animal has fallen into legend, giving doubters license to air their skepticism. And why not? Who'd believe that an old racehorse, rescued from destruction at Prescott's Fort Whipple, could find new life, thanks to a kindly soldier, then return the favor by saving that soldier's life after an Indian ambush?

But Sharlot Hall, a respected writer, poet and early Arizona historian, insisted that accounts of Two Bits' heroism-which even played to national audiences on the famous "Death Valley Days" radio and television programs of the 1930s, '40s and '50s-were absolutely true.

The horse belonged to Charles A. Curtis, a lieutenant of the 5th Infantry who arrived in Prescott in August 1864. Born in Hallowell, Maine, the blue-eyed, genial Curtis went on to graduate from Bowdoin College, then volunteered to fight in the Civil War.

Near Falls Church, Virginia, in September 1861, while on reconnaissance with troops under Yankee Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, Curtis suffered a Confederate gunshot through his left knee, leaving him with a pronounced limp for the remainder of his life.

As assistant quartermaster at Fort Whipple, Lieutenant Curtis oversaw construction of the fort, a log stockade on Granite Creek about a mile east of downtown Prescott.

'... Like a stern commander the old horse turned, As the troop filed out, and straight at the head, He guided them back on that weary trail, Till he fell by his fallen rider, dead.' The town in those years was a lonely outpost. With the Southern rebellion raging, most Army units had been pulled out of Arizona and sent east to fight. But the government needed to keep some military presence in the capital of its new Territory, set in the homeland of the Yavapai Indians. Members of the tribe roamed freely in the nearby hills, often harassing the settlement's inhabitants and soldiers. The "Death Valley Days" TV shows made Apaches the villains, a practice also common in Territorial times when even military reports failed to distinguish between tribes.

The show's scripts said that the Apaches went on the warpath, forcing Whipple's commander to send a rider east to New Mexico's Fort Wingate to sound the alarm. The soldier who volunteered to undertake the dangerous 250-mile ride - Curtis' orderly, identified only as Sam-did so with faith in the speed of Two Bits.

The horse had arrived at Fort Whipple months before, one of a string of packhorses from Texas. They were in decrepit condition, and the post commander, a captain unnamed in the script, ordered six of them destroyed.

But Sam recognized one of the mounts as a former racehorse that had once belonged to an officer of the 7th Cavalry, and had served in various Indian campaigns. He begged Curtis to intercede with the captain, and Curtis did so. He paid the captain the insulting sum of 25 cents for the horse and promptly turned its care over to Sam. The captain cracked, "He'll make a mighty nice hat rack for you, Sam."

But the horse responded to food and rest, according to Sharlot Hall, who gave the story national airing in a poem published in Out West magazine in June 1902. She reprinted it in her 1910 book Cactus and Pine, accompanied by a brief essay in which she credited Curtis with first telling the Two Bits story "expanded into considerable length in prose many years ago."

Hall wrote in her essay, "As his sores healed and his gaunt sides filled out, his legs showed all their old-time speed." She added that Curtis once wrote to her saying that he rode Two Bits in informal Prescott races and "cleaned up a hat-full of Mexican dollars" with the animal's renewed swiftness.

"But it was as a scouting horse that old Two Bits-named in derision when he was a skeleton from abuse and starvation showed his remarkable intelligence," Hall explained.

The "Death Valley Days" radio broadcast aired nationally on January 22, 1942. The Prescott Evening Courier reported that Arizonans awaited the story "with keen interest," and quoted Ruth Woodman of Rye, New York, the scriptwriter, as predicting the spot "will make an exceptionally beautiful story."

It began with an announcer extolling the virtues of its sponsor, the household cleaning products of the Pacific Coast Borax Co., including 20 Mule Team Borax. Then the narrator, the Old Ranger, introduced this "famous story of early Arizona... I've heard it scores of times, an' it still never fails to send a tingle up an' down my spine."

According to the script, Sam rode three days and four nights before encountering an Indian ambush outside Wingate. Shot through the shoulder, he struggled to hang on as the blood loss sapped his strength. Nearing unconsciousness, he leaned forward and spoke into his beloved horse's ear: "Listen, Two Bits! . . . No matter what happens... Keep going! . . . You savvy? . . . Keep goin'!"

Sam collapsed and hid in the brush. Two Bits did as instructed and galloped on to Wingate, arriving just after reveille. But the horse had been shot, too, its breast torn open by the slug. Blood covered Sam's saddle, which the troopers recognized as Army-issue. "Poor fellow!" said Wingate's colonel as he examined Two Bits. "Take him and do what you can for him, corporal." But the badly injured horse trotted to the gate and began whinnying wildly. Stunned, the colonel said, "Look! At the gate! The old horse! He's waiting to guide us back along the trail!"

At this point in the broadcast, the Old Ranger broke in to say that Two Bits then followed the trail of his own blood to lead the rescue party back to the wounded orderly. The dialogue concluded: SAM: "They got us both . . . a few miles back . . . I . . . hung on, as long as I could . . . an' then . . . I fainted, I guess."

COLONEL: "The horse came on alone."

SAM: "I knowed he would. Good old Two Bits!"

COLONEL: "It was him who led us back here to you."

SAM: (murmurs) "The greatest horse in Arizona!"

COLONEL: "Bind this man's wounds up, captain, and get him to the fort as quickly as possible."

CAPTAIN: "Yes, sir."

COLONEL: "Make a stretcher, if necessary."

SAM: (speaks up) "I can ride. Just put me on Two Bits, and I'll be all right."

The men are silent. . . . One soldier clears his throat.

SAM: ". . . Where is Two Bits?"

COLONEL: (gently) "Two Bits has carried his last rider, my friend. He's run his last race. Two Bits . . . is dead."

Hall's poem in Out West ended this way: Like a stern commander the old horse turned, As the troop filed out, and straight at the head, He guided them back on that weary trail, Till he fell by his fallen rider, dead. But the man and the message saved! And he, Whose brave heart carried the double load, With his last trust kept and his last race won, They buried him there on the Wingate Road.

The public reacted overwhelmingly to the broadcast. In a letter to Woodman, Grace Sparkes of Yavapai Associates, a Prescott civic group, said they'd "heard so many favorable comments we don't know where to begin to tell you."

Wrote Sparkes, "We heard of one Britisher who served during World War I, now living in Arizona, who broke down and cried. Another group from Chino Valley reported that during the ambush scene, 'You'd have thought the Indians were right up on you."

Thirteen years later, in 1955, Woodman dusted off the Two Bits story and told it again on the TV version of "Death Valley Days," with some changes.

This time Sam had a last name - Loomis - and Two Bits did not accompany the rescue party back to the wounded man, staying at Wingate instead.

But if the incident actually happened, and the details were commonly known, why change them in a subsequent broadcast, unless for some narrative purpose known only to the producers? And who was Sam Loomis?

Muster rolls for Fort Whipple do not show a Loomis serving there in 1864 or 1865. The name might well have been invented simply to fill out the character.

The script's reference to the 7th Cavalry proves more troubling. It has the whiff of fiction. No unit better evokes the sound of bugles and dreams of glory-but the 7th didn't achieve its heavenly status until Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his men died at the Battle of Little Big Horn, in 1876.

The best argument for the truth of the story might be Lieutenant Curtis' character. He retired from a distinguished military career in 1870. Prior to his death in 1907, and burial at Arlington National Cemetery, he taught military science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, commanding the largest corps of cadets in the country.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Curtis enjoyed a second career as a novelist and magazine writer. For material, he relied heavily on his Arizona adventures, including the heroism of Two Bits.

Interestingly, Curtis' service records show that he fought Indians in several engagements during his time at Fort Whipple, which ended in the fall of 1865. One of these fights might well have been the uprising that triggered the Two Bits incident.

As for Sharlot Hall, she never wavered in believing Curtis' story.

"The episode is true, even to the old horse leading the soldiers back to his fallen rider," she wrote. "The man lived, but Two Bits died of his wounds, and is buried under a heap of stones beside the overland road, a few miles west of Fort Wingate." Al

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