On the General’s first day as MFH of the Cobbler Hunt, they “ran for twenty minutes over some big fences and ran to earth on the hill west of James Gibson’s.” In another account, he writes “Ben took the best jump I have ever seen out of a lane with a marsh in front of the fence from a walk. He cleared a clean four feet. Dr. Horgamm, the next man, took it all down…”
In 1932, while stationed at Fort Meyer near Washington, D. C., General Patton became MFH of the Cobbler Hunt, hunting territory on and around Cobbler Mountain near Delaplane, Fauquier County, Virginia. According to Bea Britten, the General’s granddaughter, family legend has it that the General accepted the Mastership of the Cobbler Hunt with the stipulation that he be allowed to invite young lieutenants from Fort Meyer to hunt. In those days, all officers were deemed to be gentlemen. (Indeed, West Point graduates, having been trained in those diverse arts required of gentlemen, such as fencing and carving roasted fowl, were automatically gentlemen by act of Congress!) As an extension of this philosophy, General Patton believed that young lieutenants being groomed for service as aides-de-camp should be exposed to the gentlemen’s sport of foxhunting.
Excerpt from an article written by Alexander Mackay-Smith.
