By DIANE TENNANT
LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE

California may have Trigger and Kentucky Man O' War, but Virginia is for (horse) lovers.

Some of the biggest icons of equine history are here: Civil War heroes, children's pets, modern-day warriors. Fancy, for instance, and Jeff Davis.

Never heard of them? How about Blackjack? You're kidding. Better hoof it through the Old Dominion's dead horse tour.

COURTESY OF VMI MUSEUM

Little Sorrel was the favorite mount of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

LITTLE SORREL has been variously described as undersized, dumpy, homely, plebeian, stocky and a natural pacer with little action and no style. How mean.

The horse, aka Fancy, was the favorite mount of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Jackson, not exactly a great equestrian, was perfectly happy with the tireless amble of Little Sorrel.

The horse remained popular even after bearing Jackson to his death by friendly fire in May 1863. For the next 20 years, Little Sorrel traveled to fairs and reunions throughout the South. He retired to the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, where Jackson had been an instructor. The horse was allowed to graze on the parade ground where he reportedly would run up and down the line of cadets, snorting loudly, whenever they fired rifles or cannons.

After Little Sorrel's death in 1886, his hide was stretched over a plaster of Paris base, but his bones hung around until 1997, when they were cremated.

In a ceremony replete with mounted cavalry, a fife and drum corps, a bagpiper and ladies in Civil War dress, Little Sorrel's remains were buried on the VMI parade ground, at the base of his master's statue. The hide is still on display in the school's museum.

SOUVENIRS: Refrigerator magnets, postcards, wooden hobby horses. Although it's not in the gift shop, Breyer, the model horse company, also makes a Little Sorrel. It's really much prettier than the real thing.

WHERE: Virginia Military Institute Museum, Lexington. (540) 464-7334. www.vmi.edu/museum/

Real conversation at the grave of TRAVELLER, Robert E. Lee's favorite horse:

Man: Hmmmm.

Woman: Oh, sweet.

Man: Now, when I was a young boy, he was done the same way as Little Sorrel and he was set up in his stable.

Little boy: (Silence.)

Woman gives little boy two pennies to toss onto the headstone.

After their departure, the headstone gift count was three individually wrapped pink-and-white striped peppermints, two small Confederate flags and 69 pennies. Traveller receives many gifts, from oat wreaths to red delicious apples. Caretakers periodically gather the pennies and use their horse cents to take care of the Lee Chapel and Museum, which is the brick building next to Traveller's tastefully landscaped grave.

Traveller has a nicer grave than does his master, who was first buried under the floor of the chapel, then moved into the dark family crypt behind the metal gate in the chapel basement. No one ever leaves peppermints for Lee.

Museum director Patricia Hobbs displays the watch fob that was woven from Traveller's mane by an admirer and notes that Lee once remarked that his beloved horse was so popular with horsehair artists that he was starting to look like a plucked chicken.

Generally, he looked better than that. Gen. Lee wrote a letter in 1866 saying, "If I were an artist like you I would draw a true picture of Traveller ... such a picture would inspire a poet ... But I am no artist Markie, and can therefore only say he is a Confederate grey."

Traveller was born Jeff Davis near Blue Sulphur Springs, W.Va. After the Civil War, Lee became president of Washington College in Lexington, and Traveller was stabled in a building attached to Lee's house. The general died in 1870, and his horse died just a year later, of lockjaw, from stepping on a rusty nail.

Poor Traveller was buried in a ravine where animal carcasses, including other horses, were disposed of. History depends on who writes it, and there are differing versions of what happened next, but one thing is sure: In the 1870s some horse bones were dug up in the ravine and sent away to be mounted. By 1907, they were on display.

Students carved and inked their initials on the bones for good luck. In 1971, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Virginia Division, buried Traveller once more.

Thousands of visitors come to the grave each year, according to the university, and many of them take the short walk to the stable. Although it now houses the president's cars, tradition decrees that at least one door is always left open to allow Traveller's spirit to pass in and out.

SOUVENIRS: T-shirts, postcards, stationery, books. A white metal Traveller carries a white metal Lee. Books include "Traveller: A Novel," which the museum can't keep in stock. Best item: a pen with a water-filled handle in which Traveller floats back and forth in front of the university.

WHERE: Lee Chapel and Museum, Washington and Lee University, Lexington. (540) 463-8768. http://leechapel.wlu.edu

COURTESY OF OLD GUARD MUSEUM

Blackjack, the riderless horse at JFK's funeral, was the last horse issued by the Army. Blackjack had a butter pecan birthday cake every Jan. 19.

Remember the riderless horse at JFK's funeral? That was BLACKJACK.

He was the last horse issued by the Army, branded with his own serial number: 2V56. Foaled at an Oklahoma fort in 1947, Blackjack arrived at Fort Myer in 1952, where he joined the Old Guard, the Army's official ceremonial unit.

Blackjack's job was to be led in funeral corteges, bearing a saddle with a pair of empty boots turned backward in the stirrups, symbolic of a fallen warrior. He did this for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Herbert Hoover and Lyndon Johnson, but he is remembered for JFK.

"He was noticed because he was acting up that day and had to be kept under tight rein by his handler," said Alan Bogan, curator of the Old Guard museum.

Blackjack became so famous that he received fan mail, Christmas cards and birthday cards. He had a butter pecan birthday cake every Jan. 19. And in 1975 he received a batch of hand-drawn cards from an elementary school class in Fairmont, W.Va. One of them is signed, "Love, Mary Lou Retton."

One hundred years after Traveller's death, Blackjack passed away. He was buried on the Fort Myer parade ground, inside a horseshoe-shaped hedge. His picture is on the headstone.

SOUVENIRS: Well, none specifically dealing with Blackjack, but the stables do provide manure to local gardeners.

WHERE: Fort Myer, near Arlington National Cemetery. Old Guard Museum: (703) 696-6670.

Bonus package here: Two ponies for the price of one. Both MISTY and her famous foal, STORMY, are stuffed and displayed at the Beebe Ranch on Chincoteague Island.

The book "Misty of Chincoteague" was published in 1947, drawing thousands of people each year to see the famous Pony Penning. Author Marguerite Henry followed up with "Stormy, Misty's Foal," about the Ash Wednesday storm that washed across barrier islands, prompting the Beebe family to bring a pregnant Misty into their kitchen for protection.

The house has been turned into a small museum, with both ponies in the back room. Bonnie and Billy King Beebe, first cousin to Paul and Maureen, the heroes of the book, open the Beebe Ranch to tourists each summer.

"I've had people cry," Bonnie Beebe said. "We had one lady who said the 'Misty of Chincoteague' story was the first book she ever read cover to cover. She brought the book with her."

SOUVENIRS: Trading cards, horseshoes, caps, T-shirts, books.

WHERE:Beebe Ranch, 3062 Ridge Road, Chincoteague Island. Check with Chamber of Commerce next summer on opening dates: (757) 336-6161.

LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE

Big Red is mounted on the wall of an Ace Hardware store in Lawrenceville, which used to be surrounded by two-mule farms.

In the E.E. Vaughan and Sons Ace Hardware Store in Lawrenceville is the head of a mule.

This is not a famous mule, although it has achieved some notoriety thanks to the Internet. This mule just sort of happened.

Charles Vaughan, grandson of E.E., had his eye on a white mule. He wanted to mount it as a tribute to the old-timey way of life in Lawrenceville, when tobacco farms were the norm and every tobacco farm had two mules to do the plowing.

But BIG RED died first.

Vaughan had the mule mounted by a taxidermist who used a zebra frame, but she had to extend the nose a little bit because Big Red had a big nose.

"It was a big mule," Vaughan said. "And it was red."

Big Red used to be in the store proper, but as the business moved more into hardware and home supply, the decor changed, too. Now it hangs in Vaughan's office.

"The mule is part of the farm heritage," he said. "I've kind of always wanted to go a step further and get a dairy cow or a beef cow, but I've never done it."

Beware Internet rumors that the mule is actually named Ole Red and that Ole Red died in harness. It's just not true.

SOUVENIRS: Sorry.

WHERE:Ace Hardware Store, Lawrenceville, a few miles west of Emporia on U.S. 58. (434) 848-4124.