"He was always able to come forward, despite wounds, despite illness, despite exhaustion. He was always ready to go," said Anthony Waskie, a Civil War historian, author, and Temple University professor who serves on the museum board.
"The men saw something in the horse, something we admire in people that face adversity and prevail. He became an icon."
Old Baldy was ridden by Gen. David Hunter at the first Bull Run, and sent to the Cavalry Depot in Washington to recuperate. There, Gen. George C. Meade bought him for $150, and Meade rode him faithfully through battle after battle.
"At Antietam," Waskie said, "he was shot, and seemed to be dead on the ground, flat . . . and the next day Meade sent his valet to go and get his saddle. And when the valet went into the field, the horse was up and grazing."
On July 2, 1863, the second day at Gettysburg, Meade, by then commander of all Union troops, was rallying his men on Cemetery Ridge when Old Baldy was shot out from under him.
On July 5, two days after the famous battle had ended, leaving 50,000 casualties, Meade included in a letter home, "Baldy was shot again, and I fear will not get over it."
Three days later he wrote: "I did not think he could live, but the old fellow has such a wonderful tenacity of life that I am in hopes he will."
Baldy survived the war, but saw no more combat.
After the war, Meade returned home to Philadelphia, where, among other duties, he became commissioner of Fairmount Park, and he often rode Old Baldy on the newly constructed trails that the general, trained as an engineer, helped design.
When Meade died on Nov. 11, 1872, Old Baldy marched in his funeral procession to Laurel Hill Cemetery.
