War horses when hit in battle, tremble in every muscle, and groan deeply, while their eyes show deep astonishment. During the battle of Waterloo, some of the horses, as they lay upon the ground, having recovered from the first agony of their wounds, fell to eating the grass about them, thus surrounding themselves with a circle of bare ground, the limited extent of which showed their weakness. Others were observed quietly grazing on the field between the two hostile lines, their riders having been shot off their backs; and the balls flying over their heads, and the tumult behind, before, and around them, caused no interruption to the usual instinct of their nature. It was observed that when a charge of  cavalry went past near to any of the stray horses already mentioned they would start off for themselves in the rear of their mounted companions, and though without riders, gallop strenuously along with the rest, not stopping or flinching, when the fatal shock with the enemy took place.
    At the battle of Kirk, in 1745, Major Macdonald, having unhorsed an English officer, took possession of his horse which was very beautiful, and immediately mounted it. When the English cavalry fled the horse ran away with his captor, notwithstanding all his efforts to restrain him, nor did stop until it was at the head of the regiment of which, apparently, its master was the commander. The melancholy, and at the same time ludicrous figure which Macdonald presented when he thus saw himself the victim of his ambition to possess a fine horse, which ultimately cost him his life upon the scaffold, may be easily conceived.
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