THE TREATMENT t'F THE U. S. ARMY HORSE IN THE LATE WAR. 591 
artillery horses and 21,090 draught-mules. These 38,239 public animals 
were designated to different camps. The writer has seen several thou¬ 
sand of these animals at the camps, on Tong Island, arid in his opinion a 
great majority of the horses at least were unfit for military service in 
war and a number of them were noticed to be unsound at first glance. 
The slip-shod manner in which these horses must have been purchased 
was demonstrated at the auction sale of the horses of the Rough Riders 
held at Fiss, Doerr & Carroll, New York It had been announced that 
these horses were carefully selected by government-inspectors and they 
drew a big crowd of purchasers. But when great numbers of under¬ 
sized, unshapely formed horses were produced who showed plainly the 
broncho type or the lowest kind of trotting formation, the astonishment 
and disgust of the crowd knew no bounds and many hard jokes were 
cracked at the expense of the government. It was stated that the pur¬ 
chasing agents of the Quartermaster Department had paid $65 a head 
for these horses, yet without ever having been to war and being in fairly 
good condition they could not sell for more than $8 to 1^15. One tiny little 
horse only was bought in for $85 for mere curiosity’s sake, by a riding 
school amid plenty of cheering, because he was the only animal that 
had been at the Santiago battle and had a bullet hole in one ear to prove 
it. 
The above concise reports contain enough evidence to show 
that the purchase of public animals for war 'purposes, the mode 
of transporting them to their destination, and the methods of 
their sanitary supervision at camp have been inefficient and fun¬ 
damentally wrong. The Quartermaster Department, to whose 
sphere of work and direction these matters belong, has thus 
shown itself incapable to cope with them intelligently in the 
emergency arising out of the war, and—it was never prepared to 
fully do so in peace. Whenever and wherever special knowl¬ 
edge and training have been required, the army and navy have 
been alert and prompt to secure the services of men so educated. 
This is simply the common result of modern civilization. But 
the Quartermaster Department has not been progressive enough 
to learn that the intelligent execution and administration of vet¬ 
erinary matters calls for expert knowledge and skill of a higher 
order, and that such accomplishments can only be possessed by 
properly educated graduates of veterinary medicine. Instead of 
accepting the opportunities for the institution of an efficient 
veterinary service in the United States arm^q so frequently 
offered by the Military Committee of Congress, the Quartermas¬ 
ter-General has persistently refused such offer, and has frittered 
