Shem Suggs is a 19-year-old from Arkansas. An illiterate orphan, he has a strong connection with horses, which “have always served [him] for kin” (5). Because he has no human family, his attachment to horses is particularly important to him. Unlike other soldiers, he does not have family to think about or write home to, so the cavalry’s horses are his family and support. Also unlike other soldiers, he does not enlist for excitement or glory but to get his own horse. As such, his motivation is not to fight or be a hero but to look after the horses. 

Shem is a static character because throughout the novel his priority is horses. The beginning of the novel shows him joining the Confederate cavalry just to get his own horse, and the end shows him sadly burying the horses killed in the battle. The battle does not really change his character or his motivation. Through Shem’s point of view that horses are innocent, the author develops the motif of horses to show that War Is Always Destructive.