The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-11-22

Of Asia. II was Hannibal's Numidian
horse which slaughtered those eighty
thousand Romans at Cannae, and car
ried the war TO the very gates of Rome.
1t was Napoleon's powerful cavalry re-
serve Mt Austerlitz that enabled him to
finish off that great victory with the cap
ture Of forty-three Thousand Russian
and Austrian prisoners. and q hundred
pieces of artillery. And it 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
persisted in the SHOWS of the Russian
steppes
The Prussians are the greatest soldiers
of modern times and they have never
made the mistake of undertaking cavalry.
1t was Blucher's terrible cavalry which
changed the drawn battle Of Waterloo
into that dreadful rout, and which all
that awful night after Waterloo pur-
sued the flying French 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 Germany's great VICTORIES SO
effective, and made possible Sedan with
its two hundred thousand prisoners.
And so it has come to he considered
an axiom that. however authorities may
differ as to the relative value OF the diff
ferent arms of the service in battle, no
great, decisive victory can be won with
out sufficient cavalry TO press the pursuit;
that the fruits Of victory cannot be gath
cred the harvest cannot he reaped, with
out sufficient fresh men on horseback to
pursue the retreating enemy.
1 1t might be expected that,as the South
crners were natural-born horsemen,
cavaliers from the cradle, the mounted
arm of the service would have been the
strongest and the most valued and cher
ished but strange as it seems, the contra
ry. the very contradictory. Of that was
true From the beginning the cavalry
/ was relatively the weakest. was under
rated and neglected and even ridiculed
and dcrided. In popularity rewards were
offered for "a dead man with spurs on,
such poor opinion had they Of a soldier
on horseback.
At the first great battle Of the war, on
the plateau Of Manassas, the mounted
men did not even fight as an organized
body. but were divided, detailed, and at
tached two companies TO each brigade, in
| imitation. perhaps. of the old Roman
| legion. method OF arranging cavalry in
| battle which was abandoned before the
| Christian era And yet Johnston has
| been blamed because he did not capture
the Federal army and the city Of Wash
ington too. And at all times after that
the little band or horsemen never seemed
To he considered as Il constituent part
Of the fighting army. Nearly always
they were separated from ii on detached
duty. At Gettysburg the Confederate
cavalry was miles away when the battle
began. They were not factor III the
| great fight until the last day If Lee
| had won, aud had captured the heights
| Of Gettysburg, il could not have been in
effect more than drawn battle, because
he had not sufficient cavalry with which
to press the pursuit.
/ And so, from the beginning to the end.
either because the government could not
| learn the value of mounted troops, or
was incapable OF changing policy once
adopted, or for some inexpicable reason.
| the cavalry was moderated and neglect
| ed. The excuse cannot be offered that
there were not sufficient horses in the
/ Confederacy 4 glance at the
census Of 1860 will show one
that there were horses enough III
! Texas. or Georgia and North Carolina, to
have mounted all the Confederate armies,
in the field, leaving enough to make the
crops; and surely. If the government may
| lawfully "conscript" man into the
| army, his horse or his neighbours horse
may also be c0nscripted Almost at the
very time when the general Of the Army
of Tennessee was begging for horses to
| draw his cannon, a Federal army was
capturing nearly two thousand horses
| from the farmers in the valley Of Nir-
ginia.
Nor can the excuse he made that '.the
country in which the armies generally
operated was SO densey wooded, brok-
en-, and difficult that cavalry could not be
used to advantage by cavalry mean
ing not only those who usually fought on
horseback. cavalry properly speaking,
but all mounted troops. This was not
true even in the war of the Revolution,
when there were no roads at all, and
nothing but grass TO feed the horses. The
little army with which Greene retreated
so skilfully before CORVALLIS along the
Piedmont was nearly all cavalry, and
Shelby's back mountain men, some OF
them even from Tennessee beyond the
AlIeghanies, who rode over the Blue
Ridge to fall upon Ferguson at Kings
Mountain were all mounted men, and
Ferguson's army was captured to the
last man.
The splendid work which Forrest did in
the West was sufficient to show what
might have been done had the cavalry
branch OF the Confederate service been
organized But neither Forrest nor his
services were valued at their worth. For
a time he was even removed from his
command, and at all times he was left to
shift for himself to provide horses, arms,
and equipments for his men.
IF the country was too difficult for
cavalry operations. how came it that the
very men whom Jackson, in 1862, led
victorious and triumphant up an down
the valley Of the Shenanoah-how came
it that these same men, in 1864, when
once defeated, were to be seen throwing
away their guns and haversacks, and fee
ing for their lives TO the woods and the