Snowball-Battle of the Cowshed heroism

The Battle of the Cowshed was the first and most decisive test of the animals' rebellion, and Snowball met it with a tactical brilliance that the regime would later erase from the official record. Having studied an old book of Julius Caesar's campaigns found in the farmhouse, Snowball took charge of the defensive operations, giving his orders quickly and positioning every animal at his post within minutes. The plan was a layered ambush: a first wave of pigeons and geese to harass the invaders, a second wave of sheep and goats to prod and butt, and a feigned retreat to lure the men into the yard, where the horses, cows, and the rest of the pigs lay in wait. Snowball had conceived the entire scheme, and his calm authority during the preparations earned him the trust of the animals.

When the men fell into the trap, Snowball himself led the charge. He dashed straight for Mr. Jones, who raised his gun and fired. The pellets scored bloody streaks along Snowball's back, and a sheep dropped dead beside him, but he did not pause for an instant. Flung his fifteen stone against Jones's legs, he hurled the man into a pile of dung, sending the gun flying out of his hands. The sight of Boxer rearing up and striking out with his iron-shod hoofs completed the rout, but it was Snowball's headlong courage that had broken the enemy's line. Within minutes the human beings were in full flight down the cart-track, and the farm was secure.

The animals unanimously recognized Snowball's valor by creating a military decoration, 'Animal Hero, First Class,' and conferring it on him and Boxer that same day. The medal consisted of old horse-brasses found in the harness-room, to be worn on Sundays and holidays. A second-class medal was granted posthumously to the sheep that had been killed. The battle itself was named after the cowshed where the ambush had been sprung, and its anniversary was fixed as October the twelfth, a day to be commemorated with the firing of the gun. Snowball's reputation seemed untouchable.

But that reputation was not allowed to stand. Within months, after Napoleon had seized power and driven Snowball from the farm, Squealer began the work of rewriting history. 'Bravery is not enough,' he told the assembled animals. 'Loyalty and obedience are more important. And as to the Battle of the Cowshed, I believe the time will come when we shall find that Snowball's part in it was much exaggerated.' Later, Squealer went further: he announced that Snowball had been 'in league with Jones from the very start'—a secret agent whose sole purpose in the battle had been to lure the animals to their doom. According to this new account, Snowball had almost succeeded in destroying the rebellion, and it was only Napoleon's heroic intervention that saved the day.

The animals were stupefied. They remembered — or thought they remembered — how Snowball had charged ahead, rallying them at every turn, how he had not paused even when the pellets from Jones's gun wounded his back. Even Boxer, who seldom questioned anything, was puzzled. He lay down, tucked his fore hoofs beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard effort managed to formulate his thoughts: 'I do not believe that. Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him "Animal Hero, First Class" immediately afterwards?' But Squealer's answer was always the same: Napoleon had said it, and Napoleon was always right. The memory of Snowball's heroism, though still vivid in the minds of the older animals, was gradually overwritten by the regime's official version.

Years passed. The short animal lives fled by, and a time came when no one remembered the old days before the Rebellion except Clover, Benjamin, Moses, and a number of the pigs. Snowball was forgotten. The heroic deeds of the Battle of the Cowshed, once celebrated with medals and anniversary gunfire, became a dim tradition, passed on in distorted form, or not passed on at all. The farm's new generations, born after the rebellion, knew only the official story: that Snowball had been a traitor from the beginning, and that Napoleon had been the true leader of the battle. The concrete evidence of Snowball's courage — the battle plan, the medal, the animals' own eyewitness accounts — had been buried under a mountain of propaganda, and eventually even the memory of the burial itself was lost.