Farrier History: Negro Ellick Shod Horses for the Confederacy in the Civil War

Today is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of one of the darkest and most painful chapters in United States history: the Civil War. Where I live, every little village has a monument to its men who died in places like Gettysburg and Antietam. The names go on and on. It makes you wonder if anyone came back at all.

I can imagine that in the southern states, the lists could be longer and it would be possible that no one returned.

As much as I read and study about the Civil War, I keep learning new things. For me, the horses are the thing of interest, and the farriers who serviced them, and the foot problems that challenged both horses and farriers.

Farriers for the Union horses were often foreign immigrants. This group looks like new arrivals: their aprons are clean and their hammers shiny.

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that the Burden Horseshoe played a big role in turning the tide of the War in favor of the Union. Trainloads of horseshoes could leave the factory in Troy, New York and be bound for the huge remount stations or go directly to the front. Not just the cavalry but the entire artillery and the massive kitchens and quartermaster depots moved camp only the horses were shod. And those first machine-made shoes from Troy kept them all moving.

The Confederacy wasn't so lucky. They had a limited supply of iron, and it was needed for munitions as much as for horseshoes. There were no horseshoe factories in the South and orders were given for any raids on Union supply trains to go for two things: cash and horseshoes.

Until recently, I never thought much about who the farriers of the Confederacy were. I knew the Union recruiters met ships in New York and convinced farriers and blacksmiths from all nations to either enlist or to go to work as civilian government horseshoers in the remount stations.

But what about the Confederacy?

This is the enlistment paper for Ellick, an African-American who was brought into military service to work as a farrier for the Confederate States of America, even though it was not approved for white men to conscript blacks into service. This document is preserved in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

This week I learned that the laws of the Confederacy prohibited the conscription of slaves into military service. But African-Americans were there anyway, in fighting and non-fighting roles, and if authors Kevin M. Weeks and Ann DeWitt are correct, the care of the horses may have been one area where they could have been found. Just take Ellick's case.

Ellick was a farrier for the Confederacy, though he had no rank and drew no pay. It's impossible to know if he went willingly. It's quite likely that the Confederate army was desperate for farriers and experienced horsemen. Ellick may have played an important role.

Not only did the Union have new recruits with shiny hammers and unmarked aprons. They had mobile forges built on double wheel axles. In front of the forge you see here was a big bellows. The US Army designed and built these to get the farriers and the shoes to the front, where they were needed. (Library of Congress photo)

How amazing is it that the National Archives in Washington would have preserved the enlistment paper of a farrier after that war was over? This is just one example of the millions of bits of fascinating information that lies buried in those vaults of papers.

Who found Ellick? Kevin Weeks and Ann DeWitt are the authors of the new book, Entangled in Freedom: A Civil War Story. Last week their book graced the cover of Publishers Weekly's Special Independent Publishers Spring Announcement Issue. Entangled in Freedom is a young adult novel written as a first-person account of a young African-American serving with his slaveholder in the Confederate Army. The book has already won the Bonnie Blue Society Award. Ann DeWitt runs the web site www.blackconfederatesoldiers.com.

I'd like to thank them for bringing Ellick to my attention, for pulling him out of the piles of papers in the Archives, and for making him come to life. Maybe we'll never know much about Ellick but for today, he's the star farrier on the Hoof Blog and the Civil War is interesting all over again.

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 © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.
 

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Hoofcare @ Saratoga Presents Ada Gates: "The Blacksmith Was a Debutante"

Ada Gates Patton clowned around at Del Mar with some of her shoer pals before heading east. I guess there was no way this would be a serious photo; Ada climbed onto Ron McAnaly's stable pony and wielded a rasp. Why does this shot have a hint of Broadway to it? Can these guys shoe and sing and dance?

Hoofcare @ Saratoga is ready to do it again! We'll follow up last week's successful and hugely educational "Rood and Riddle" night with star farrier/veterinarian Raul Bras with something entirely different.

Ada Gates Patton is traveling east from California as I write this. She's aiming at Saratoga, where she will touch down at the Parting Glass Pub at 7 pm on Tuesday, August 24. She has an entertaining program plan, based on her retrospective journey through almost 40 years as a farrier, and particularly as the first woman to be licensed to shoe Thoroughbred racehorses in North America, and perhaps even in the entire world.

Some special guests are scheduled to stop in; among them Dr. Tom Carroll of the Burden Iron Works horseshoeing factory museum in nearby Troy and a host of local horseshoers, many of whom have heard of Ada, but never met her.

Please join us! The setting is informal, you can order food and a drink (or not), there should be plenty of free parking, and we're going to have some laughs and also do some serious talking about hoofcare.

Here's a re-post of one of our most popular articles ever: a "greatest hits" post about Ada Gates:

Where were you the night when farriers stayed up late to watch one of their own on the big stage in New York City? The night one of their own left the great David Letterman speechless? The night David Letterman lost control of his own show?


Ada Gates Patton is in a league of her own. The fact that she was the first woman licensed to shoe horses at a racetrack in the United States is only the beginning of the story. A few years ago, we were in Kentucky for a convention and she made a special trip to Three Chimneys Farm to visit Wild Again, one of the horses she shod back in the 1980s, when he won the Breeders Cup Classic. Ada was international horsemen's liaison for the Breeders Cup in California, and coordinated farrier services for the 1984 Olympics in California.

Ada is originally from New York; she is a descendant of Henry Burden, a Scottish immigrant who invented the first machine to manufacture horseshoes. His machines are credited with helping the North win the Civil War; his factories stretched forever along the banks of the Hudson River in Troy, New York and Burden horseshoes supplied the US cavalry for decades. 

Today, Ada owns and runs Harry Patton Horseshoeing Supplies near Santa Anita, and serves farriers all over California. The business was started by her late husband, the famous racetrack mentor and long time Santa Anita paddock shoer Harry Patton.

Ada stares up at the derelict but grand church built by her great-great-grandfather in Troy so that horseshoe factory workers had a place to worship. She saved the church from demolition through a loophole in the deed that made a provision for a descendant of the founder to lay claim. What would Henry Burden think of one of his descendants owning a store that sold horseshoes?

Ada is originally from New York, and she is the great great grand-daughter of Henry Burden, the inventor of the horseshoe-making machine. We reconnected her with her roots a few years ago by explaining that her family's church would be torn down if she didn't claim the deed and save it--which she did, and subsequently opened the beautiful old church and invited our Hoofcare@Saratoga tour group of farriers in for lunch as part of one of our tours of the Burden Iron Works.

Last year Ada was honored in her family's church by the Burden Iron Works Museum and its preservation efforts. The image at right is the outline of the Burden horseshoe company's office building, which now houses the museum. The museum and Ada found each other through Hoofcare & Lameness Journal and our Hoofcare@Saratoga program and tour of the museum. The museum is dedicated to preserving the history of horseshoe manufacturing in Troy, New York.

Today, Ada is busy selling shoes. But she recently "joined up" with one of her old shoeing clients, California horseman Monty Roberts, and the two made a DVD together on hoofcare and horsemanship for hard-to-shoe horses. Ada also teaches simple hoof balance principles at horse owner events and markets a hoof ruler to help them keep track of changes in their horses' hooves' dimensions. 

Horse Illustrated profiled Ada's pioneering career spirit in this tribute article. They named her one of the 20 most influential women in the horse world in the previous 20 years.

Ada is one person who never forgot where she came from, and is not done getting to where she's going. She's still giving us all a lot of laughs along the way, and digging the Letterman video up out of the 1990s will insure that more people around the world join in.

Join us Tuesday, August 23rd, 7 p.m. in the back room at the Parting Glass Pub, 40 Lake Avenue, Saratoga Springs, New York. The pub is one block off Broadway. Lake Avenue is also Route 50.

There is never a charge for the presentations. It is just something that Hoofcare Publishing likes to do. The horse industry needs the kind of information that our top-shelf speakers can provide and it is our mission to keep the best information in front of the people who want to hear it.

Hoofcare Publishing thanks the Parting Glass Pub, Frieda and Cliff Garrison, Jim Santore, Skidmore College, and every horse in town for welcoming Hoofcare back to Saratoga. 
 

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Disclosure of Material Connection: Hoofcare Publishing has not received any direct compensation for writing this post. Hoofcare Publishing has no material connection to third party brands, products, or services mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

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It's Saratoga Time!

My fingers are itching to flip the calendar over to August, because that will mean it is time to head to Saratoga, where Hoofcare & Lameness will have a satellite office this summer.

Be sure to let me know if you will be in Saratoga, and let's get together.

Plans are for a series of Tuesday night gatherings in the out-back function room at The Parting, a favorite traditional Irish restaurant and pub on Lake Avenue, just a block off Broadway.

Here's the schedule:
8 August--"New Product Night"--lots of samples and information on new products from our advertisers, or just come and say hello! We'll have plenty to talk about!

15 August--Come by after the dedication of the farriers memorial at the Oklahoma track; later in the evening, a wonderful presentation on new laminitis research for prevention, causes and treatment by Dr Don Walsh of Pacific Equine Hospital and the Animal Health Foundation. He raises the funds for Dr Chris Pollitt, Katy Watts, Phil Johnson and other leading researchers.

22 August--"Make history, not horseshoes". This is a marathon event; daytime events a few miles away at the Burden Iron Works in Troy, site of the world's largest horseshoe factory back at the turn of the century. I will post more about that event. In the evening, come by the office at the Parting Glass and meet Ada Gates, the first woman to be licensed as a farrier on a USA racetrack. She now owns Harry Patton Horseshoeing Supplies in Los Angeles and guess what! Her great grandfather was Henry Burden, of Burden Iron Works fame. This evening fun is sponsored by Life Data Labs, who helped us launch the Tuesday evening sessions last year.

What to expect: This is one Saratoga night out where you won't need a black tie, a designer dress, or big wads of cash. You can help me post to this blog, maybe, or show me photos of your boat or your horse or your latest work project. Meet some other people, see some new things, maybe have a laugh. I travel a lot in the winter and see people at trade shows and events, but these Tuesday nights are a chance to slow down and just enjoy your company!

The phone number for the satellite office in Saratoga is . Look for me in the morning on the backside or check our ad in The Saratoga Special. I'll be the one taking photos of feet. I will also post updates on this blog.

Congratulations to Farrier Lee Liles

The once-grand water wheel that powered the Burden Water Works in Troy, New York and made the horseshoes often credited with powering the Union to victory during the Civil War.

In August, I saw something I thought I would never see. A group of us--about 70, including guests--were visiting the Burden Iron Works in Troy, New York--the first subscriber group tour for Hoofcare & Lameness in more than 10 years! (The last one was a group trip to England, and I think it took ten years to recover.)