Glad to see that clarification made. The boot backwards in the stirrup may me even older than JFK. I’m honestly thinking Lincoln, whose funeral model is exactly what Jacqueline Kennedy requested.
Also, I understand a new president, immediately as is practical, upon taking office is charged with submitting a personalized funeral plan of action.
At least to Washington as far as Presidents go, obviously for strictly military commanders, before. boots
Glad to see that clarification made. The boot backwards in the stirrup may me even older than JFK. I’m honestly thinking Lincoln, whose funeral model is exactly what Jacqueline Kennedy requested.
Also, I understand a new president, immediately as is practical, upon taking office is charged with submitting a personalized funeral plan of action.
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True-but even further back than that—see my post link below:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3809887/posts?page=1170#1170
At the end of the 18th century in the United States, with the death of America’s first president, a new role emerged: the riderless horse representing the mount of a fallen leader.
A former officer in the American Revolutionary War, Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee eulogized George Washington in December 1799 as being “...first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen...” Twelve days after Washington’s death at Mt. Vernon, a riderless horse took part in an elaborate, simulated funeral ceremony conducted in Philadelphia, the then-capital of the United States, with an empty casket symbolizing the late president. The event was described in The Pennsylvania Gazette:
memday
Immediately preceding the clergy in the funeral procession, two marines wearing black scarves escorted the horse, who carried the general’s “saddle, holsters, and pistols” and boots reversed in the stirrups. The riderless horse was “trimmed with black - the head festooned with elegant black and white feathers - the American Eagle displayed in a rose upon the breast, and in a feather upon the head.”
The empty boots facing backward in the stirrups had two levels of meaning. First, their being empty indicated the individual would ride no more. Secondly, they suggested the deceased was taking one last look back at his family and the troops he commanded. Both of these meanings carry forward to today’s tradition of boots reversed in the stirrups.