May 27, 2018 3 min read

The first version of the official song of the U.S. Army featured these lyrics:

“Over hill, over dale, as we hit the dusty trail, And those caissons go rolling along …”

If there was ever any question as to what a caisson is, the hills and dales of Route 40 might provide an answer, as a team of horses pulls this staple of parades and processions every Memorial Day in Claysville at 9:30 a.m. The caisson also appears regularly in area Veterans Day parades.

The dictionary says the term “caisson” comes from the French word for large chest. Troops used them to store ammunition, bombs and gun powder. Presumably because these things were so heavy, the caisson came to describe the wagon that was hitched to horses to handle the hauling.

How did this artifact of warfare wind up in Claysville?

“It came from out in Ohio,” said Ted Dutton of Donegal Township, former commander of Claysville American Legion Post 639.

“It was on a farm. An old gentleman who was a member here, Tater McKenzie, he found it and brought it here.

“He wasn’t even a veteran, but he was very instrumental in that coming to Claysville about 50 years ago.

”I was commander at the time, It’s a nice thing, quite a conversation piece. It’s over 100 years old.”

The caisson and its flag-draped coffin may also awaken sorrowful memories of two men named Kennedy.

“The use of limbers and caissons (from the French for “artillery wagon”) for the burial of military personnel appears to have originated in the beginning of the era of light mobile field artillery in the eighteenth century,” according to an article by the White House Historical Association.

“When a caisson was unloaded on the battlefield, presumably it would reload with wounded, dead, or dying soldiers of the battery it had just resupplied. This matter of conveyance was later carried over and formalized into the use of a caisson for the burial of a singular fallen soldier in his coffin.”

At President John F. Kennedy’s state funeral in November 1963, the caisson preceded the caparisoned horse, Black Jack, who had backward-facing boots in his stirrups.

“The caparisoned horse represents the soldier who will no longer ride in the brigade,” according to the Horse and Man website.

Eight years ago, the flag-draped coffin was that of Army Ranger Nathan Kennedy of Claysville, who was killed April 27, 2010, in Afghanistan.”

“I rebuilt the whole thing so it could carry the casket up to the (Claysville) cemetery,” Dutton said.

And, like the Washington, D.C., ritual, Washington County mourners saw a riderless horse following the Claysville caisson.

When it’s not in use, the local caisson is displayed in a room at the Legion hall, which was once a bakery.

It harks back to a time of war horses. Joe and Ben, Percherons owned by Shirley and Lee Bedillion of Donegal Township, provide the horsepower, and Travis is the riderless equine.

“Lee is a Vietnam veteran, and it means a lot to him,” said his wife.