Black Jack, the caparison horse at Arlington National Cemetery

Transcription

Arlington’s Ceremonial Horses
and Funerals at the White House
T
CLAIRE
A.
hough presidential personalities and policies can generate deep chasms during their term of service, the death of a president evokes a genuine sadness
that transcends partisan politics. Rarely are Americans
as united in emotion and sensibility as at such a time. In
a eulogy following President James A. Garfield’s death
in 1881, Henry Watterson, journalist, editor, and later
Pulitzer Prize winner, stated, “Today, the people of the
United States are one with one another, and stand hand
in hand and heart to heart.”1 There is an immediate synthesis of feeling surrounding news of the loss of a
national leader, especially one who resided in the White
House. American presidents have led their country
through economic hardship, world wars, and national
crises, and the simple fact that they have held the highest office in the land affords them a unique place in
American hearts.
Private funerals allow mourners to stand together to
remember a loved one with ritual and ceremony that
allay many of the tensions associated with the loss. State
funerals “lend a degree of order during the threatening,
chaotic experience” of losing a president or other highranking official.2 The strict timing, ritual, and protocol
inherent in state funerals reassure and comfort a grieving
nation through tradition. Presidential funerals are exceptional in their pageantry, pomp, and precision, and burial
Ceremonial horses entering Arlington National Cemetery,
part of the Third U.S. Infantry Regiment’s Caisson Platoon
(the Old Guard), which has served the presidency since
1948.
FAULKNER
with full military honors includes color-bearers, bodybearers (the official U.S. government name for pall
bearers), a caisson, an escort, a band, a firing party (the
official name for rifle honor corps), and a bugler. Gene
Gurney, author of a book on Arlington National
Cemetery, explains that “other elements of the funeral—
the slow, measured pace of the cortege, the somber
music and the muffled drums—exemplify the reversal
of the normal order of things” and serve to underscore
the nation’s loss.3
The primary responsibility for state funeral arrangements is borne by the commanding general of the
Military District of Washington. However, specific decisions regarding each presidential funeral are made with
family members, often well in advance of the actual
death. President Gerald Ford made specific mention of
this fact when eulogizing journalist and presidential historian Hugh Sidey in November 2005. In his opening
remarks Ford said to mourners, “Like most men my age,
I have given a thought or two to my funeral. As a former
president, I’m almost required to, since the military periodically updates its own plans, and each presidential
family is solicited for personal touches.”4
The Third United States Infantry, better known as the
Old Guard, is the military unit charged with overseeing
diplomatic arrivals and departures and maintaining the
perpetual guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns; however,
it may be more widely recognized for performing burials
in Arlington Cemetery with all the ceremonial accoutrements and for providing the caisson platoon and pall
bearers for state funerals. Members of the Old Guard
also serve as escort to the president for ceremonial
THE OLD GUARD MUSEUM, FORT. MYER, VIRGINIA. ILLUSTRATION BY PFC CHRIS M. ANDREWS
Illustration of limber and caisson
currently used by the Caisson
Platoon, Third Infantry.
4
WHITE HOUSE HISTORY (Number 19)
purposes. As the Old Guard is the oldest active infantry
regiment in the United States Army, it is fitting that this
unit should bear the responsibility for the supervision,
direction, and performance of ceremonial functions and
funerals; however, it is also appropriately tasked with
safeguarding the nation’s capital through the coordination and maintenance of situational awareness, the
employment of forces for homeland defense, and
military assistance to civil authorities.
Following the Revolutionary War, the Old Guard was
created on June 3, 1784, after the victorious Continental
Army had been disbanded. According to the provisions
of the 1783 Peace of Paris, Congress was required to
create an army. Only a small artillery detachment, posted
to West Point, had been retained, and this became the
Old Guard.5 Although the Third Infantry Regiment has
been stationed at numerous military facilities since its
inception, its home has been at Fort Myer, Virginia, just
across the Potomac from the nation’s capital since 1948.
For some, it is perhaps a stark reality that the famous
Third Infantry Regiment, most especially the Caisson
Platoon, spends five days a week practicing and performing burials (averaging six per day) at Arlington
National Cemetery. In 2005, the Caisson Platoon participated in 1,780 funerals. These troops are selected for
their soldierly appearance and superior discipline; similarly, the horses for the unit are chosen for their color,
height, and temperament. The solemn dignity that the
men and horses lend to each funeral service is “not simply accidental or instinctive,” explains the regiment’s
public information office. “Both men and horses train
constantly for this duty. Most of the soldiers come to
Fort Myer not as expert horsemen, but as trained
infantrymen. Many come from rural areas of the South
and West and bring with them a knowledge and love of
animals. In addition to caring for the horses, he or she
must learn to ride at the position of somber attention
with a military forward seat in a flat saddle.”6
The saddle used by the Caisson Platoon dates from
the Civil War and was designed by then Army Captain
George B. McClellan. Although it underwent multiple
alterations during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the same basic split-seat design remains. The field
artillery harness design dates to the 1890s. Old manuals
from the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, have allowed
soldiers to act as farriers and also to handcraft all the
saddles, bridles, and tack needed for their missions.
Specifically, Eugene Burks has served as saddlemaker
for the Caisson Platoon since 1981. He currently produces and maintains the tack for over forty head of
horses, including a large assortment of military saddles,
postillion harnesses for several teams of six horses,
strap goods, bridles, halters, saddlebags, and girths.
As in the leather shop, all facets of the unit are highly specialized, and the horses and riders train, drill, and
live together until they are deemed qualified to conduct
the ceremonial missions. Most horses undergo extensive
training to prepare them for the sights and sounds in
Arlington National Cemetery. They must be able to
maintain their composure around gunfire, cannon fire,
vehicular traffic, bands, flags, and low-flying aircraft.
Six horses pull each caisson through its specified route,
and the horses are matched and sent out in either lightor dark-colored teams. The website of the Military
District of Washington describes the arrangement: “Each
team is grouped into three pairs: the lead pair is in front,
the swing team follows and the nearest the caisson is the
wheel pair. Although all six animals are saddled, only
those on the left have mounted riders. This is a tradition
which began in the early horse-drawn artillery days
when one horse of each pair was mounted, while the
other carried provisions and feed.” Horses for the
Caisson Platoon come from ranch owners across the
United States. Currently there are about forty-seven
horses, most of which are stabled at Fort Myer; the rest
are at a training facility at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.7
The use of limbers and caissons (from the French for
“artillery wagon”) for the burial of military personnel
appears to have originated in the beginning of the era
of light mobile field artillery in the eighteenth century.
When a caisson was unloaded on the battlefield, presumably it would reload with wounded, dead, or dying soldiers of the battery it had just resupplied. This matter
of conveyance was later carried over and formalized
into the use of a caisson for the burial of a singular
fallen soldier in his coffin.
Tradition is highly valued by members of the Third
Infantry Regiment. Old customs and habits are studied,
practiced, and employed in the execution of their duties.
The practice of having the charger of a deceased military
officer led in the funeral procession, for example, is a
survival of the ancient custom of sacrificing a horse at
the burial of a warrior. The Mongols and Tatars in the
days of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane believed that the
spirit of a sacrificed horse went through the “gate of the
sky” to serve its master in the afterworld. According to
European folk belief, the spirit of a dead horse would
find its dead master if permitted to follow him into the
hereafter. Otherwise the dead master’s spirit would have
to walk. Some of the Plains Indians in America also
adopted the custom of sacrificing the horse at the burial
of a warrior after they came into possession of horses
following the Spanish discovery. In 1804, Meriwether
Lewis and William Clark visited the grave of Blackbird,
a great Omaha chief who had been buried sitting on his
favorite horse. Although horses are no longer sacrificed,
riderless horses are still led in funeral processions to
symbolize the custom.8
The riderless, or caparisoned (ornamentally covered),
horse is considered a symbolic representation that the
deceased was mounted in this life and will continue to
be mounted in the hereafter. In American state ceremonies, for a caparisoned horse to be included, the person honored must have, at one time, achieved the rank
of army or marine corps colonel or above. Because the
president of the United States is the commander in chief
of the armed forces, he is automatically entitled to the
Arlington’s Ceremonial Horses and Funerals at the White House
5
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Above: President James
Garfield’s funeral procession,
Cleveland, Ohio, 1881.
Right: Abraham Lincoln’s
caparisoned horse, Old Bob,
waits in front of the president’s mourning draped
residence in Springfield,
Illinois, 1865.
Opposite: The Old Guard
escorted the coffin of Former
President William Howard
Taft from the Taft residence
to the Capitol and from
the cemetery gate to his
PICTUREHISTORY.COM
gravesite, 1930.
6
use of the horse. Some historical records indicate that
Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have been
honored by the inclusion of the caparisoned horse in his
funeral cortege. When his coffin was being carried to his
grave in Springfield, Illinois, it was followed by his personal horse, Old Bob, with its master’s boots backward
in the stirrups to signify that the deceased would never
ride again. However, Tobias Lear, George Washington’s
personal secretary, recorded that Washington’s horse was
a part of Washington’s funeral: “The General’s horse,
with his saddle, holsters, and pistols, [was] led by two
grooms, Cyrus and Wilson, in black.”9 In addition,
Zachary Taylor’s personal horse, Old Whitey, was in
his funeral procession. The use of reversed boots in the
stirrups during a funeral is comparable to the infantry’s
custom of “slope arms,” a position in which the rifle is
reversed so that the muzzle is pointed to the ground
during burial ceremonies.
The equipment a caparisoned horse bears differs
according to its color: if black, the horse carries saddle
blanket, saddle, and bridle; if any other color, the horse
carries a folded hood and cape, along with a blanket,
saddle and bridle. All of the caparison is black. The hood,
saddle blanket, and cape are made of wool or serge—a
strong, twilled fabric with diagonal rib—and all brass
and leather is highly polished. Also, in the case of a presidential death, the Presidential Seal is placed on the rear
corners of the blanket, four inches from the bottom.
Perhaps the most famous caparisoned horse was
Black Jack, named after General John J. “Black Jack”
Pershing. Black Jack was foaled January 19, 1947, and
came to Fort Myer from Fort Reno, Oklahoma, on
November 22, 1952. He was the last of horses issued by
the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps and the last to be
branded with the army’s “US” on the left shoulder, with
his army serial number, “2V56,” on the left side of his
neck. Black Jack weighed 1,050 pounds and stood fifteen hands high. On Black Jack’s twenty-ninth birthday,
President Richard Nixon wrote, “Black Jack has been a
poignant symbol of our nation’s grief on many occasions
over the years. Citizens in mourning felt dignity and purpose conveyed, a simpler yet deeper tribute to the memory of those heroic ‘riders’ who have given so much for
our nation. Our people are grateful to Black Jack for
helping us bear the burden of sorrow during difficult
times.”10 Nixon’s penned words highlight the way in
7
BLACK JACK
Right: A birthday celebration
for Black Jack at Fort Myer,
in 1970. Nancy Shado, Black
Jack’s biggest fan, feeds him
butter pecan cake.
Opposite: Pfc. Arthur Carlson
President Kennedy’s coffin to
descend the Capitol steps,
November 25, 1963.
Below: Black Jack’s tomb-
stone. His gravesite is on the
parade grounds at Fort Myer
8
JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY
ROBERT LAUTMAN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
surrounded by a manicured
hedge in the shape of a
horseshoe.
THE OLD GUARD MUSEUM, FORT MYER, VIRGINIA
and Black Jack wait for
9
T H E C A I S S O N P L AT O O N AT F O R T M Y E R
Above and left: Scenes in and
around the stables at Fort Myer.
10
the Caisson Platoon since 1981.
Specialist Troy Call displays
cowhide tanned for use in the
leather shop.
Opposite, top: Eugene Burks
displays items made in the
leather shop at Fort Myer. He
has been the saddlemaker for
Right: Each leather item used
by the ceremonial horses is
made to specifications in the
manual, including a large
assortment of military saddles,
harnesses, strap goods, bridles,
halters, saddlebags, and girths.
11
U.S. ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
12
Above: Diagram of
the Kennedy processional
Opposite: Kennedy’s
coffin taken from the
of the White House to
Saint Matthew’s Cathedral,
Black Jack follows in
the background.
from the North Portico
November 25, 1963.
as they were taken from the battlefield on a caisson.
Today the flag-covered coffin is a symbol that a soldier’s
country assumes the solemn and sacred obligation of
burying its fallen.
Although not every president has received a state
funeral with all of these trappings, each is entitled to the
honor. Over time, presidents and their families have
increasingly chosen to use one of the most poignant
aspects of a state funeral ceremony—horses in the funeral cortege. Following a service for Abraham Lincoln in
the East Room of the White House, the late president’s
coffin was drawn to the Capitol by six horses pulling a
“fourteen-foot long hearse that very much resembled
a draped and decorated wagon.”12 Less than two decades
had passed since President Lincoln’s death when
President Garfield was also struck down by an assassin’s
bullet. Although Garfield was buried in his home state of
Ohio, his funeral procession from the Capitol to the train
station included a horse-drawn caisson. According to
eyewitness reports, the hearse “was drawn by six irongray horses, each led by a colored groom.”13 There is no
White House in procession.
concludes a ceremonial funeral honoring the deceased’s
service to country. The music and words to “Taps” were
composed by General Dan Butterfield at Harrison’s
Landing in July 1862, to replace the earlier “Tattoo,” or
“Lights Out,” which he thought too formal. The call
became known as “Taps” because it was often tapped
out on a drum in the absence of a bugler. It was officially adopted by the U.S. Army in 1874 and later was used
as a figurative call to the sleep of death for soldiers.
Graveside military honors also include the firing of
three volleys each by seven service members. This practice also recalls old battlefield customs of ceasing hostilities while both sides cleared their dead from the battlefield. Once the dead had been properly cared for,
each side would fire three volleys to indicate they were
ready to resume the battle.
The death of a U.S. president involves other ceremo-
TIME LIFE PICTURES / GETTY IMAGES
which the use of a caparisoned horse was becoming
synonymous with laying a national hero to rest.
Although Black Jack garnered fame during the
funeral of President John F. Kennedy, he also took part
in the funerals of Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur,
Lyndon Johnson, and literally thousands of others in
Arlington Cemetery during his many years of service
with the Old Guard. Black Jack was retired to the Fort
Myer stables on June 1, 1973, and lived for three more
years in a stall decorated with red, white, and blue.
Until his death on February 6, 1976, Black Jack
received an average of fifty visitors a day. He also
received fan mail, Christmas cards from all over the
world, and “numerous requests for clippings from his
tail and horseshoes.”11 Clearly, he captured many hearts.
He is buried on the post parade ground at Fort Myer,
Summerall Field, near the post headquarters flagpole.
At the time of Black Jack’s retirement, a horse named
Raven assumed his duties. Currently, the most well recognized horse in the Fort Myer stables is Sergeant York,
the caparisoned horse that participated in President
Ronald Reagan’s funeral in 2004.
The incorporation of specialized music, gunfire, and
flags are other facets of a ceremonial state funeral. For
example, “Taps” is widely recognized as the music that
nial gun salutes and military traditions. On the day after
the death of the president, former president, or presidentelect (unless this day falls on a Sunday or holiday, in
which case the honor will be rendered the following
day), the commanders of army installations with the necessary personnel order that one gun be fired every half
hour, beginning at reveille and ending at retreat. On the
day of burial, these same installations fire a twenty-onegun salute starting at noon and a fifty-gun salute (one
round for each state) at five second intervals immediately following the lowering of the flag.
Yet perhaps the most recognizable trapping of a military or state funeral is the flag-draped coffin. The blue of
the flag is placed at the head of the coffin, over the left
shoulder of the deceased. In 1918 the U.S. Army, at the
suggestion of Major General George W. Cocheu, officially began the practice of placing a flag over the coffin
and presenting it to the next of kin at the conclusion of
the funeral service, though the custom dates to the
Napoleonic Wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when a flag was used to cover the dead
13
RECENT FUNERALS
Right: At the Capitol,
Black Jack waits for
President Kennedy’s
Below: Black Jack
and the caisson unit bearing
President Herbert Hoover’s
coffin to be removed
coffin arriving at
the Capitol, October 1964.
from the caisson.
Mrs. Kennedy, the
president’s children,
and President and Mrs.
Lyndon B. Johnson can
HERBERT HOOVER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
LYNDON B. JOHNSON LIBRARY AUSTIN
Below: Black Jack
marching in President
Lyndon B. Johnson’s
funeral, January 1973.
JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY
be seen in the distance.
14
15
evidence of a caparisoned horse being used. Similarly,
upon the death of former President William Howard
Taft in 1930, the Old Guard supplied the caisson and
caisson detachment for the escort from the Taft residence to the Capitol and from the cemetery gate to the
grave. Taft was the first of two presidents to be buried
at Arlington National Cemetery. Again, there is no
reference to a caparisoned horse being employed.
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in 1963, Mrs. Kennedy was desirous that her husband’s
funeral rites be memorable and historic, and his ceremo16
Above: Stereopticon slide
showing the body of
President Warren G.
Harding leaving the
White House,
August 8, 1923.
Right: President Harry
Truman presenting the
Presidential Baton to
Colonel William W. Jenna,
commanding officer of the
Third Infantry, in the Rose
Garden, April 10, 1952.
U.S. ARMY AND THE OLD GUARD MUSEUM, FORT MYER, VIRGINIA
WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
nial processions be given dramatic impact for the world
to see. The first cortege bore his body on a flag-draped
caisson from the White House to the Capitol on
November 24, 1963. Three pairs of matched gray horses
pulled the caisson. Behind the caisson, a member of the
Coast Guard carried the presidential flag, and behind the
flag walked Black Jack. The biographer of this horse
observed, “Black Jack’s vitality was impressive. Every
step of the way his head bobbed up and down as he
energetically tugged on his walker’s line.”14 Black Jack
was later a part of the processional that carried
Kennedy’s coffin from the Capitol to a brief stop at the
White House and on to the church service at Saint
Matthew’s Cathedral. Following the service, the caisson
and caparisoned horse took the final walk with the president’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery. Just as
the Old Guard followed decades-old protocol in carrying
out a funeral, Mrs. Kennedy, together with the designer
of the Kennedy gravesite, architect John Carl Warnecke,
worked to make the gravesite “combine the ideas and
feelings of the present with the traditions of the past,”14
and the idea for the eternal flame was born.
The death of President Kennedy introduced military
tradition and state ceremonies to a new generation of
Americans, and Robert Hazel, novelist and poet, composed a poem entitled “Riderless Horse” that crystallized the haunting images surrounding the funeral for
the late president:
Riderless Horse
From Andrews Field you ride into the Capital.
A guard of honor escorts your sudden corpse
down an aluminum ladder.
Your widow stalks your body through an avenue
of bare sycamores, and one answering bell,
leading heads of state to altar and precipice.
On the birthday of your son, your widow
walks bars of a dirge on the pavement
towards fountain and abyss.
Among swords of sunlight drawn by the spokes
of the caisson
and the white manes of horses, she walks
into noon and midnight.
Above the muffled drums,
the high voice of a young soldier
tells the white horses how slow to go
before your widow and children, walking
behind the flag-anchored coffin—
and one riderless black horse dancing!16
Although the death of President Kennedy brought the
Old Guard and its military traditions into the national
spotlight, the activities surrounding the funeral also
brought tragedy to the members of the Third Infantry
Regiment. Captain Michael D. Groves, the officer
responsible for the military arrangements at the funeral
of the president, died of a heart attack the next month,
on December 3, 1963, at home while dining with his
family, at the age of twenty seven. He was responsible
for the training and supervision of the body-bearers,
deathwatch, rifle firing party, and caisson escort for the
services at the White House, the Capitol, and Arlington
Cemetery. According to a speech on the floor of the
House of Representatives by Congressman James G.
Fulton of Pennsylvania, “Captain Groves worked day
and night to handle the arrangements . . . and overtaxed
himself.”17
17
President Herbert Hoover’s death the following
year once more triggered the Old Guard into action,
and the Caisson Platoon and caparisoned horse were
again deployed. Early funeral plans had indicated that
President Hoover would be buried in West Branch,
Iowa, and, at the time of his death, the caisson unit
and horses should be transported by air to Iowa for
the services. On a veterinarian’s recommendation the
Old Guard had “rehearsed the logistics of the transfer
by trucking the horses to Andrews Air Force Base,
loading them onto a transport plane, and flying over
the Chesapeake Bay for about twenty minutes” to
make sure the process would be smooth and seamless
when the inevitable time came.18 However, when
Hoover died, his original funeral plans were changed,
and a caisson unit was not required to travel to Iowa.
Black Jack and a caisson team simply participated in
the escort of the coffin from Union Station to the
Capitol.
It is especially fitting that a caisson unit and
caparisoned horse functioned in President Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s funeral, because he had a direct impact
on the continuation of the program at Fort Myer.
During his presidency, controversy rose over the considerable cost of horse-drawn funerals when it was
found that the government could save funds by substituting motorized hearses in place of the caissons. The
army vice chief of staff issued an order to abolish all
future horse-drawn units. President Eisenhower immediately interceded and ordered horse-drawn funerals
to continue.
Upon President Ronald Reagan’s death in
California in 2004, his body was transported to
Washington for the state funeral. At 16th Street and
Constitution Avenue, NW, on June 9, 2004, President
Reagan’s coffin was transferred to an Old Guard
horse-drawn caisson from a hearse for the journey to
the Capitol. This was the same location in which
President Lyndon Johnson’s coffin had been transferred to a caisson in 1973. Reagan had been an avid
horseman, and the boots that were reversed in
Sergeant York’s stirrups were the president’s own
brown riding boots provided by Mrs. Reagan, who
asked that they not be altered in any way. This
arrangement was unusual; under most circumstances,
the boots used with the caparisoned horse are ceremonial pairs maintained and stored by the Old Guard.
18
Members of the Old Guard have furnished their
services to their commanders in chief on numerous
mournful occasions, and presidents have elected to
highlight their singular service in various ways. On
the bicentennial of the Third Infantry Regiment in
1984, President Ronald Reagan sent a letter to the unit
espousing its “unparalleled reputation for discipline,
precision, and dedication”19 to each distinctive mission. President Harry Truman, on the other hand,
chose to present a
trophy baton to representatives of the Third Infantry
Regiment in commemoration of its long and embattled service in the army as well as the years spent in
the Washington area as the escort to the president at
official and ceremonial functions. Named the
“Presidential Baton” by members of the regiment, it
was presented on April 10, 1952, by President Truman
to Colonel William W. Jenna, commanding officer of
the regiment. The baton was fashioned from 136-yearold white pine used in the reconstruction of the White
House after the British burned the residence in 1814.
It is just over 3H feet long, weighing about 1H
pounds, with silver ferrules. The wood was turned by
a member of the U.S. Army Band, and the silver was
donated by jewelers in the Washington, D.C., area.
The baton is decorated with red, white, and blue
braided cords and tassels. It is marked by a gold band
just below the head with twelve stars,
the Presidential Seal, and the inscription, “Original
White House Material / Removed in 1950.”20 Oddly
enough, during the historic Truman renovation of the
White House between 1948 and 1952, much of the
wood, paneling, and bricks were stored in warehouses
and buried on the grounds of Fort Myer, the home of
the famed regiment.
With the dedication and assistance of members of
the Old Guard stationed at Fort Myer, national
farewells inexorably intertwine their horses and our
presidents who speak to us, metaphorically, one last
time through the rhythmic cadence of the horses’
hooves on the Washington pavement, slowly drawing
them toward their final resting place. In a distinctive
way, horses help us say our last good-byes. Whether a
president is taken from his nation through old age,
disease, or an assassin’s bullet, the nation sustains a
sharp and biting wound. Following the assassination
of President Garfield, the Reverend Henry Ward
Beecher said, “We are all under a cloud. . . . We are
gathered together to-night as a household would be gathered where the father had been stricken down.”21 The
loss of a president temporarily cloaks the nation in darkness, and Reverend Beecher aptly speaks for all
Americans.
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
Quoted in Gen. Garfield from the Log Cabin to the White House:
Including His Early History, War Record, Public Speeches,
Nomination, Inauguration, Assassination, Death and Burial, ed. J. B.
McClure (Chicago: Rhodes & McClure, 1881), 8.
In Children and the Death of a President: Multi-Disciplinary Studies,
ed. Martha Wofenstein and Gilbert Kliman (Gloucester, Mass.: P.
Smith, 1969), 197.
Gene Gurney, Arlington National Cemetery: A Picture Story of
America’s Most Famous Burial Grounds from the Civil War to
President John F. Kennedy’s Burial (New York: Crown Publishers,
1965), 19.
Former President Gerald R. Ford, eulogy for Hugh Sidey, Washington
Post, November 30, 2005.
A Short History of the Old Guard (Fort Myer, Va.: Old Guard
Museum, April 2005), 2.
“The Army’s Last Horses,” press release from the Public Information
Office, Third United States Infantry, The Old Guard, November 11,
1977.
See the home page of the Military District of Washington,
www.mdw.army.mil.
The historical information is taken from George Stimpson, A Book
About a Thousand Things (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946), 76.
Tobias Lear, quoted in The Writings of George Washington, ed.
Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893),
14:254–55.
President Richard Nixon on Black Jack’s 29th birthday.
Pentagram News, January 29, 1976, 15.
Robert Knuckle, Black Jack: America’s Famous Riderless Horse
(Burnstown, Ont.: General Store Publishing House, 2002), 3.
Russell Conwell, The Life, Speeches and Public Services of James A.
Garfield, (Portland, Maine; George Stenson and Co.,. 366.)
Knuckle, Black Jack, 9.
Gurney, Arlington National Cemetery, 135.
Robert Hazel, “Riderless Horse,” in Of Poetry and Power: Poems
Occasioned by the Presidency and by the Death of John F. Kennedy
ed. Erwin A. Glikes and Paul Schwaber, (New York: Basic Books,
1964) 65.
Congressional Record—House, December 4, 1963, 23272.
Knuckle, Black Jack, 116.
President Ronald Reagan to the Third Infantry Regiment, May 30,
1984, Old Guard Museum, Fort Myer, Virginia.
Information regarding the Presidential Baton is from the Old Guard
Museum Historical Property Catalog, no. OG1952.001.
Quoted in Gen. Garfield from the Log Cabin to the White House, ed.
McClure, 69.
19
A Presidential
Funeral
MILITARY DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
Flags lowered. A flag-draped coffin. A stoic first
lady on the arm of a military aide. The fly over of twenty one fighter aircraft. Gunfire salutes at military installations across the country. These are the familiar sights
and sounds of a state funeral for a modern day American
president. With the ceremonies attendant to the passing
of President Ford fresh in mind, it is timely to reexamine
the funeral proceedings that sear the final images of a
president into the consciousness of the American public.
The nation has witnessed the deaths of just four
presidents over the past three decades, and only three of
those chose to have state funerals—Lyndon B. Johnson
(1973), Ronald Reagan (2004), and Gerald R. Ford
(2007). Although Richard Nixon’s family had the option
of a state funeral, they decided instead to hold a simple
service at the Nixon Library and Birthplace in
California, where in 1974 President Nixon, the first
president to resign from office, was buried beside his
wife, Patricia Nixon, who predeceased him.
Traditionally five days in length, presidential state
funerals are meticulously choreographed. Coordination
for the events is conducted by the army’s Military
District of Washington and begins early in each presidential term, when a new president is asked to attend to
the strange task of imagining his own funeral service. It
is a cold realization that greets a new president at the
White House door.
By helping plan their own funeral, presidents are
able to incorporate personal touches that can elucidate
their character and legacy on a national stage for the last
time. In many ways, funeral services are final conversation with the nation, and illustrate something about the
man and the way in which he wishes to be remembered.
We recently observed this following the death in the
funeral of President Ford. Tailored to fit his particular
20
persona, the services and events surrounding the five
days of remembrance departed from tradition and provided Americans a glimpse at the complexion of the
man who served the nation in multiple capacities,
including the presidency, over his lengthy career.
In both what he elected to include in his services
and what he chose to leave out, President Ford painted
in symbols the portrait of his public life. For example,
he determined to lie in state in front of both the House
and Senate chambers in the Capitol to honor and highlight his service in each. “I know personally how much
those two tributes themselves meant to President Ford,”
remarked Gregory D. Willard, a Ford family representative during a news conference at the time. In contrast,
President Ford did not want his body to be borne along
Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol by the horse-drawn
caisson, traditional in so many presidential funerals.
Above: President Gerald R. Ford’s portrait was draped in
black at the White House while the country mourned his
death. Opposite: President Ford’s flag draped coffin was
placed in the rotunda of the Capitol on the bier originally
constructed for President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin.
Arlington’s Ceremonial Horses and Funerals at the White House: Addendum
OFFICE OF THE CURATOR, THE WHITE HOUSE
Addendum
21
The Presidential Salute Gun Platoon, 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment performs a twenty one gun salute to pay respect to President Ford as his
body arrives at Andrews Air Force Base.
To honor President Ford’s
service in the Navy during
World War II, the hearse
bearing the coffin of
President Ford pauses in
front of the World War II
Memorial in Washington,
D.C., on December 30,
2006, on its way to the U.S.
Capitol.
22
Instead he requested a motorcade that passed through
Alexandria, Virginia, hometown while he was in public
service and went by the World War II Memorial on the
National Mall, to pay tribute to his military service and
an entire generation of fellow Americans who brought
victory in that conflict.
An unassuming President Ford had to be persuaded
to include many of the ceremonial formalities attached
to state funerals. “The folks that handle protocol for the
country worked with him to help him understand that
the service was for the nation as well as for his family,
and he agreed reluctantly to certain elements,” said the
Reverend Robert Certain of St. Margaret’s Episcopal
Church in Palm Desert, California, where President and
Mrs. Ford worshipped. During his last symbolic journey
to Washington, Ford’s body lay in state in the Capitol
rotunda and this may remain as one of the most memorable and poignant images. In a proclamation announcing his death, President Bush characterized Ford as “a
true gentleman who reflected the best in America’s character.” In an unprecedented and extraordinary act, Ford’s
children greeted mourners and well-wishers personally
as thousands streamed through the Capitol, paying their
respects to the late president.
Upon arrival at the rotunda, President Ford’s flagdraped coffin was placed on the same bier originally
constructed for Abraham Lincoln 142 years ago by government carpenters and used in the funerals of ten subsequent presidents. This connection to the past underscores the importance of tradition in honoring a president as one in a distinguished line. In the nineteenth
century, while news of a presidential death carried the
same significance it does today, information traveled by
telegraph, not twenty-four hour cable news, and there
was no pre-set form for official mourning.
Traditions for presidential funerals found models
in royal funerals and Washington merchants Alexander
Hunter and Darius Clagett staged the first, that of
William Henry Harrison, in 1841. This funeral was held
in the East Room at the White House, the mirrors and
chandeliers elaborately draped in black crape. Following
the service the lead-lined mahogany coffin was mounted
on a splendid “funeral car” or float, and drawn by black
draped horses to the Congressional Cemetery for temporary burial until winter ice melted and it would be taken
to Ohio for burial. Great numbers of pallbearers and
dignitaries marched in the procession to dirges played
by the Marine Band, punctuated by artillery salutes.
Nineteenth century presidential funerals followed this
pattern somewhat, Lincoln’s being even more elaborate
and including a funeral train and “viewings” in city halls
and state capitols from the East Coast to the final resting
place in Springfield, Illinois.
Sorrowful grandeur of this sort faded with the
twentieth century, still the flavor of presidential mourning remained highly ceremonial. The first president to
die in the twentieth century was William McKinley,
assassinated in September 1901. Decorations of mourning for him were greatly simplified from what had taken
place for President Garfield twenty years before. His
body lay in state in the Capitol. Likewise Warren G.
Harding’s funeral ornaments were even simpler. First he
lay in state in the East Room, but his official funeral
service took place in the Capitol rotunda, where the
public was admitted to view the coffin adorned with a
flag and eagle made of flowers in red, white and blue,
designed by his widow Florence Harding, hence a
personal touch.
Funerals of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and
John F. Kennedy continued the trend for subtle, yet distinct mourning decorations. Both, like Harding, having
died in office, they first lay in state in the East Room,
where trim black drapery dimmed the festive sparkle of
the chandeliers. The coffins stood on the Lincoln bier,
flag-draped with a limited surrounding of flowers. After
a day, usually, the procession began to the Capitol for
the public lying in state prior to the religious service.
The general pattern of the presidential funerals have
thus been established for the better part of a century.
Upon President Ford’s passing, his official
portrait hanging in the White House was draped simply
in black, with white roses placed on a table beneath it.
Immediately the mechanisms established long in
advance were put into operation and the five day
obsequies unfolded.
Arlington’s Ceremonial Horses and Funerals at the White House: Addendum
23

Black Jack, the caparison horse at Arlington National Cemetery

Transcription

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