Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-09-10

by CAPTAIN HENRY SHAkESPEARE.
The perfection to which the weapons used
by artillery and infantry, have been brought
in the present day, and the consequent
greatly increased power of those two arms,
make it advisable that nations should turn
much of their attention to the improvement
of their cavalry. 1t appears also the duty
of those who have had experience in that
arm, and who know what great efforts il is
capable of to put upon record the fruits Of
that experience in the hope that govern
ment, laying aside all prejudice in the mat
ter, will fairly test the advantages or dis
advantages of suggestions put forward by
its officers For they naturally feel pride
in the successes and efficiency of their own
branch of the service as well as the deep
notifications that, while all around them
Improvement is going on, it alone is not
only not progressing, but may be said to
have deteriorated during the last hundred
years.
There is preconceived opinion, (Which,
as a cavalry soldier, / utterly differ from)
that cavalry can not make an impression on
artillery or infantry, at the commencement
of an engagement; and that it can not sue
cessfully attack either until they have been
shattered and broken, or are on the move,
and then only on favorable ground. Cav
airy, therefore, is not now employed, as OF
yore, to decide battles. 1t is kept back
sometimes until the flight of the enemy, and
the end of the battle-the men, sick from
vainly longing to attack; the horses, tired
out and wearied, from having been without
food for perhaps twelve hours, and from
being crushed with the weight of the modern
dragon and his cumbersome accoutrements.
g, .bo, ;s ,1r opar1o-,a1 TO mn,
flying enemy, or TO intercept the baggage.
Either duty is repulsiye to the feelings of
soldier, and especially of a soldier on horse
back.
Now, it appears to me, that the error
which the great nations Of Europe have
fallen into, in the formation Of their cav
airy, is in imposing such excessive weight
on the horses, in riders and accoutrements.
Instead, too of reducing this enormous
weight by recruiting only light, active men,
and putting them into light saddles olsen
cumbering them of sabretaches valises and
other useless accoutrements, they have re-
tained the heavy soldier and his heavy ac-
Coutrements, and vainly endeGvored to OBJ
tain an animal to carry, it all.
The premises of my argument are as fol-
lows; but if my reader dissents from the
premises so laid down, Of course nothing on
earth can make us come 10 the same eonclu-
SION
Cavalry, to be really effective, must be
rapid as possible in execution, fearless, and
enduring under priyation and fatigue. To
enable the horse TO possess these qualities,
they must be high blood and thorough bred,
or as nearly 50 as possible. I need scarcely
remark that a thoroughbred horse is, from
his very conformation-his long pasterns,
light limbs and Northumberland shoul-
ders, (which give him vast strides, together
with his elastic tendons and ligaments-
unable and unfit by nature to carry heavy
weights; and that, in consequence Of pos
sessing the qualities which ensure speed.
Nature herself, therefore, has set her limit
upon the thorough bred horse, as to his ca
pability of carrying weight. If, then, you
expect to be successful in breeding thorough
bred horses to carry two-and-twenty stone,
(three hundred and eight pounds,) and with
it to move at great speed, you are striving
directly against the laws Of nature, and
you are trying to breed animals which never
have existed and never can exist. They
would be new, and, in short, impossible
genus. You can no more give the blood
horse the limbs and action Of cart-horse,
than you can breed a deer to look, or work,
like an OK, or give the one the capability of
draught that God has given to the other
Again, if it were possible to teach this
thoroughbred horse, by making him sufi-
ciently shorten his strides TO move safely
under this crushing weight, his stride would
be so much shortened that he would have
no pace. Consequently, he would not be
fast enough for modern warfare; and such
cavalry would be moved down and anni-
hilaled by artillery and infantry, armed as
they are for long distance practice, before
they could move across the intervening
ground to attack them. In a word, the
form that gives speed precludes carrying
heavy weight; the form that gives the power
of carrying weight precludes the possiOilit.
of great speed. / assert, therefore, that tn
cavalry of the great nations of modern
Europe are on the horns Of one Of these tW
dilemmas; they are either mounted OF
horses that are strong enough to carry thes
enormous weights at O slow pace, and, il
that case, they must be kept so far from
the field of battle, that, by the time they ar
rive on 1t, even if not too late for the crisi
at which they are required, their horses are
fatigued, blown and useless for the attack
or else heavy weights are mounted OIL
thoroughbred horses, unfit TO carry them
and thus they, too, ore useless.
In the days OF chlValfyi when men were
cased in armor, l doubt much whether
they weighed more on horseback than the
modern horse soldier but the knight never
attempted to ride a palfrey in battle. His
heavy horse was fast enough for his work
because he had only TO move q couple OF
hundred PAGES, and that against archers, oi
infantry not armed with firearms. His
armor made him and his horse proof against
almost everything but the cloth-yard shat
of the English bowman, and he was out o.
range at two hundred yards. But wher
artillery andriAe-armed infantry are the op'
ponent of cavalry, what can the latte
effect if mounted on horses that can no
carry them at speed for at least a mile an'
half2 If cavalry, therefore, is TO take it
proper and noble part in the battle field
and not be kept merely for pursuit-55iI
ThieL case, before long, NO honorable nal