re: Traveller

from Stratford Hall Plantation, Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, Inc.:

Traveller was used by General Robert E. Lee thoughout most of the Civil War. The iron gray horse was born in 1857 in Greenbrier County, which is now in West Virginia. He was first called Jeff Davis by Andrew Johnston, who raised him. He was renamed Greenbrier by his next owner, Captain Joseph M. Broun. Lee bought the horse from Capt. Broun for $200 during his late 1861 stay in South Carolina. Lee renamed his new mount Traveller. Traveller, who weighed about eleven hundred pounds and stood nearly sixteen hands high, served his master well. He outlived General Lee, and upon his death he was buried next to the Lee Chapel. In 1907 his remains were disinterred and displayed at the Chapel for a period of time before reburied on the front campus outside the Lee Chapel.
The best description of Traveller was Lee's own, which he wrote in response to Mrs. Lee's cousin Markie Williams, who wished to paint a portrait of Traveller:

"If I was an artist like you, I would draw a true picture of Traveller; representing his fine proportions, muscular figure, deep chest, short back, strong haunches, flat legs, small head, broad forehead, delicate ears, quick eye, small feet, and black mane and tail. Such a picture would inspire a poet, whose genius could then depict his worth, and describe his endurance of toil, hunger, thirst, heat and cold; and the dangers and suffering through which he has passed. He could dilate upon his sagacity and affection, and his invarible response to every wish of his rider. He might even imagine his thoughts through the long night-marches and days of the battle through which he has passed. But I am no artist Markie, and can therefore only say he is a Confederate grey."

Chancellorsville: Robert E. Lee, astride Traveller

Chancellorsville, May 1863, according to a staff officer:

"The fierce soldiers with their faces blackened with the smoke of battle, the wounded crawling with feeble limbs from the fury of the devouring flames, all seemed possessed with a common impulse. One long, unbroken cheer, in which the feeble cry of those who lay helpless on the earth blended with the strong voices of those who still fought, rose high above the roar of battle, and hailed the presence of the victorious chief. He sat in the full realization of all that soldiers dream of—triumph; and as I looked upon him in the complete fruition of the success which his genius, courage, and confidence in his army had won, I thought that it must have been from such a scene that men in ancient days rose to the dignity of gods.”