Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1896-12-03

lhu luG lCBlSNb VI
the cavalry. Concerning the last of
these Mr.. Rose says:
1t Is fact worthy of remembrance,
that all the greatest generals Of ancient
and modern times have put their great
est faith in their cavalry. 1t was his
superb cavalry, and not the Macedon-
ian phalanx, with which Alexander
charged the Persian center at Arbela,
and won the crown of Asia. 1t was
Hannibal's Numidian horse which
slaughtered those eighty thousand
Romans at Cannae and carried the
war to the very gates of Rome. 1t
was Napoleon's powerful cavarly re-
serve at Austeritz which enabled him
to finish off that great victory with the
capture of forty-three thousand Rus
sian and Austrian prisoners, and a
hundred pieces of artillery And 1t is
undoubtedly true, as the great captain
himself stated, that his success at
Dresden did not avail to save his
throne, because the horses with which
he had conquered Europe had per-
ished in the SHOWS of the Russian
steppes.
The Prussians are the greatest SOL
diers Of modern times, and they have
never made the mistake of undertaking
cavalry. 1t was Blucher's terrible cav
airy which changed the drawn battle Of
Waterloo into that dreadful rout, and
which all that awful night after Water
loo pursued the flying Frenchmen until
when the next day broke, of all those
with whom Napoleon marched out to
fight there was not an organized body
remaining, except Grouchy's detached
command. And in her last war it was
the Prussian uhlans that made Ger
many's great victories so effective and
made possible Sedan with its two hun
dred thousand prisoners.
And so it has become to be consid-
cred an axiom that, however authori-
ties may differ as to the relative value
of the different arms of the service in
battle, no great, decisive victory can be
won without sufficient cavalry to press
the pursuit; that the fruits of victory
cannot be gathered, the harvest cannot
be reaped, without sufficient fresh men
on horseback to pursue the retreating
enemy.
1t might be expected that, as the
Southerners were natural-born horse
men, cavaliers from the cradle" the
mounted arm of the service would have
been the strongest and the most val
ued and cherished; but strange as it
seems, the contrary, the very contra
dictory of that was true. From the
beginning the cavalry was relativelythe
weakest, was moderated and neglect
ed, and even ridiculed and derided. In
iocularity rewards were offered for "a
dead man with spurs on" such a poor
opinion had they Of soldier on horse
back.
At the first great battle of the war,
on the plateau of Manassas, the mount
ed men did not even fight as an organ
lied body but were divided, detailed
and attached two companies to each
brigade, in imitation, perhaps, Of the
old Roman legion, method of arrang-
ing cavalry in battle which was aban-
doned before the Christian era. And
yet Johnston has been blamed because
he did not capture the Federal army
and the city of Washington, too. And
at all times after that the little band
of horsemen never seemed to be con-
sidered as constituent part of the
fighting army. Nearly always they
were separated from it on detached
duty. At Gettysburg the Confederate
cavalry was miles away when the bat
tie began. They were not factor in
the great fight until the last day If
Lee had won, and had captured the
heights Of Gettysburg, it could not have
been in effect more than drawn bat
tie, because he had not sufficient cav
airy with which to press the pursuit.
And SO, from the beginning to the
emu, SlJueT DSCduoS CuG SONSIuul6ul
J could not learn the value of mounted
troops, or was incapable of changing
policy once adopted, or for some in
: applicable reason, the cavalry was un-
= derrated and neglected. The excuse
T cannot be offered that there were moi
) sufficient horses in the Confederacy.
= glance at the census Of 1860 will show
: that there were horses enough in Tex
? as, or Georgia and North Carolina, tC
= have mounted all the Confederate arm.
0 les in the field, leaving enough to make
c the crops; and surely, if the govern.
= ment may lawfully "conscript" a mar
Y into the army, his horse or his neigh.
t boris horse may also be conscripted
y Almost at the very time when the gen
p eral of the Army of Tennessee was
begging for horses to draw his can
non, a Federal army was capturing
nearly two thousand horses from thu
formers in the valley Of Virginia.
The Profit Don't Please.