From the Richmond Whig, 5/19/1865
THAT BIG BLACK DOG AGAIN. - We announced, some days since,
that Hero, the famous Russian bloodhound, that the did the duty of a sleepless
sentinel at Castle Thunder post, had evacuated with the Confederate Government
and struck the Trans-Mississippi trail. From a personal dog paragraph in a
Northern paper, we perceive that Hero has arrived in the vicinity of Washington,
and was quite a hero indeed. Mr. Munn, sutler of the 140th New York
regiment, captured him in Richmond, and sent him North, a prisoner of war.
Hero is a dog about seven feet in length from tip to top,
weighing nearly two hundred pounds. He is a splendid cross between a russian
bloodhound and a bull-dog, and combines the faithfulness of the one with the
ferocity of the other. We have seen him seize little dogs that came around his
heels, shake them and cast them twenty feet from him. The stoutest man he would
bring to the ground by one gripe on the throat, and it was always a difficult
matter to get him off if he had once tasted or smelled blood.
His dogship belonged originally to Joseph Mayo, late Mayor,
and by him was loaned to Capt. G. W. Alexander, at one time Commandant of the
Castle post.
Hero too, had a theatrical turn, and used to perform a
dog's part in the play of the “Virginia Cavalier,” at the New Theatre.
Abandoning the stage, Hero returned to his post as sentinel at the Castle, and
remained through the successive reigns of the several commandants up to the
evening of Monday, April 3, 1865.
Hero was a “rebel” dog during all the days of the
rebellion, but we learn he has taken a fancy to his captors, and is trying to be
a good, loyal, Union dog.
Hero in Richmond, was an official, stern-looking dog, and
he was as well known as any of the crabbed officials themselves, and was
respected accordingly. His old acquaintances will be glad to hear that his
dogship has the prospect of an engagement for exhibition. Some menagerie, or
Barnum will get him.
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