Reign Of The Cavalry At VMI Explored In New ‘Epilogue’ Article, Photographs

For 29 years beginning in 1919, Virginia Military Institute was host to a formal cavalry that at one point exceeded 200 horses and involved every cadet, culminating a tradition that began before the Civil War, according to two local scholars writing in the newest “Rockbridge Epilogue.”

Anne Drake McClung and Lisa Tracy both grew up in Lexington and were themselves part of the horse culture, though of course neither attended VMI. Their article, “The Horse at VMI: In War, In Peace and In Memory,” opens with the melancholy farewell parade of the VMI horses in 1948, as the unit disbanded, giving way to mechanized artillery.

The horse tradition had begun in 1858, in fact, when founding Superintendent Francis Henney Smith wrote to cadet parents, asking them to send their sons’ horses, if they had them, to post with the boys.

In 1920, a year after the cavalry was established, VMI bought White’s Farm, north of Lexington for cavalry and artillery exercises — now the site of the Virginia Horse Center. Cadets formed a polo team and hunt club, and in 1939, stables were built on North Mian Street —today’s Cormack Hall, home to the institute’s physical education department.

“The Horse At VMI” recalls the drama and romance of the cavalry: regular garrison reviews on the Parade Ground; “privileged riding” on Sundays, sometimes with a civilian guest (“think girls from nearby schools”); trick riding; an Irish drinking song called “Gerry Owen” that became VMI’s riding anthem.

Anne McClung is a prolific Rockbridge author whose locally themed books include “Among These Ancient Mountains.” Co-author Lisa Tracy spent most of her career as an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and has written several non-fiction books.

Their “Epilogue” article is abundantly illustrated with photographs highlighting the VMI horse era, many from the family collection of a collaborator, Suzanne Barksdale Rice, whose father, the late Flournoy H. Barksdale, a 1940 VMI graduate, was an often-photographed cadet equestrian.

“The Horse At VMI” is available free at www.HistoricRockbridge. org. “Rockbridge Epilogues” is an eight-year-old online journal that publishes articles of local historical importance. It is endorsed by Historic Lexington Foundation and the Rockbridge Historical Society. “Horse” is the series’ 54th article.