Courtesy John Trowbridge
This is a tale of an unusual recruit who joined Kentucky militiamen on their way to fight the British and their Indian allies, in the Thames Campaign of the War of 1812. This story has been handed down generation after generation and retold in narratives, books, magazines and in newspapers as lately as 1965 in The Lexington Leader. The excerpt below is from Anderson Chenault Quisenberry's "Kentucky in the War of 1812".
"Another incident unparalleled in history, though of no historical interest whatever except for its singularity, should not be omitted in any account of the battle of the Thames - the story of the military pig.
So fierce was the military spirit in Kentucky that even some of her four-footed inhabitants seemed possessed with a strong desire to march against the British, and one of them did so. It is a well-attested fact that when the Harrodsburg company set out for the Thames campaign, the men saw two pigs fighting in the street, and delayed their march to watch the combat.
When the march was resumed the victorious pig followed the company; and it continued to follow them until they reached the Ohio River, at Newport. There the men crossed over to Cincinnati in a boat, and supposed that the pig's march was at an end; but they were mistaken in their pig, for he plunged into the river and swam across and joined them on the other side.
When the march to Lake Erie began the pig went along with the men. The troops could outmarch him, and when they encamped each night Mr. Pig was the last to arrive; and he would run through the camp squealing at the top of his voice, and take a position at the head of the line, so as to have a good start the next morning, as was supposed. He was a great favorite with the whole army, and as he ran squealing through the camp every night the men would arise, throw up their hats, and cheer him vociferously. The fed him on the leavings of their choicest rations.
At the portage the pig remained with the horse guard. The men would not take him across to Canada in any of the ships; and, stout-hearted pig though he undoubtedly was, he could not swim across Lake Erie. He seemed intuitively to recognize this fact, and did not try.
When the troops returned to the portage after defeating Proctor, and started homeward, the pig turned out on the right of the column, ready for the return march to Harrodsburg. After reaching home the men gave this military pig to Governor Shelby, at whose home it passed the remainder of his days in ease and plenty.
This curious story has been vouched for by men who we can not doubt; and it is published in General Robert B. McAfee's "History of the Late War" as an incident that came under his personal observation."