War horse

“ The fragrant forest is silent, and the white blue light is just tinging the treetops. A shot rings upon the air: it is the warning-gun of the picket-sentinel, who comes galloping in upon the guard. The enemy approaches! ‘To horse!’ the bugle thrills in clear loud notes. The slumberers spring to their feet—they seize their rifles, pistols, and sabres, and dash through the smouldering fires till ashes cloud the air. The steeds snort and neigh; in a trice they are saddled, bridled, and mounted; and away sweeps the troop along the forest road. ”

“ It was no time for indecision; so, mounting our horses, we formed a double line, back to back, each man with his rifle or pistols ready. Then, indeed, imagination alone can depict the fierce war-cries that issued from all around us, the rush of horses, and the cloud of arrows that threatened annihilation to all. One of my English companions fell from his horse at the first discharge. ”

“ Is it not a magnificent sight to see that strange soldier and that noble black horse, dashing like a meteor, down the long columns of battle? Let us look for a moment into those dense war clouds. Over this thick hedge bursts a band of American [Pg 292] militiamen, their rude farmer coats stained with blood, while scattering their arms by the way, they flee before that company of redcoat hirelings, who come rushing forward, their solid front of bayonets gleaming in the battle light. In this moment of their flight, a horse comes crashing over the plains. ”

“ The helper of the weak.
My spear has made the dragon brood
Succumb to galling bands,
And tossed before the jaws of War
The forage he demands.
I steer my horse through stormy fights,
As a seaman steers his craft ”

“ All the earliest allusions to the use of the horse in war either point directly to the employment as a draught animal, or where not specific, as in the description of the war-horse in Job, they would apply equally well to one harnessed to a chariot as to one ridden under the saddle. ”

“ Mounted archers could, of course, inflict considerable losses on such a mass of men, and accordingly, as the horse came into warfare, horsemen appeared on either side as an accessory to this main battle. The reader must remember that the horse did not come into very effective use in western war until the rise of the Assyrians, and then at first only as a chariot horse. ”

“ If his horse, highly trained and bitted, fails to stop in time, he slips off like a drop of water from a pane of glass at the last moment, or if there is the smallest chance of passing on one side, lies low along his horse’s flank after the fashion of an old-time Apache or Comanche on the war-path. ”

“ Then he is exercised by a skilled rider, that he may become serviceable for war; then they put armour on him, the breastplate and the coat of mail, and first they hang up a bridle and shake it before the horse’s eyes, that he may get accustomed to it and not shy at it; and when thus taught by his rider, he learns to war with the enemy. Without rider and without breastplate, a horse is of no use for war. ”

“ During these manoeuvres, sharp shots as my comrades were, and fair marksman as I was myself, there was no instant when we could have hit any one of the five horsemen. It would have been easier to have brought down a bird upon the wing. Their horses we might have killed or crippled, but that would not have repaid us for the risk of an empty rifle. We dared not waste a bullet on the horses. ”

“ Infantry, without the horse, pursue the same object. They move more slowly, but present less vulnerable surface. The horseman’s problem is to neutralize greater vulnerability by greater speed and a larger measure of surprise. If we review the war as a whole, we cannot escape the conclusion that until the last year of hostilities the vulnerability of horses in rapid movement was exaggerated by both sides, and the effect produced upon the sighting, aim, fire-discipline, and equanimity of the defence underestimated. ”

“ The troop-horse, like all soldiers, has to learn his drill till he becomes as efficient as his rider. In war he will take his place in his squadron should his rider have been killed or wounded. In one instance, several guns of the Royal Horse Artillery were saved by the teams galloping back to their lines after all the gunners and drivers had been shot down. ”

“ And how, let alone horses, the other debris of a troop will tell you what condition they are in. It may say : " These men are reduced to dead horse, served with boiled grass. Press on, and hit them while they're weak." Over - delicate readers, please skip. But how a little thing brings before one in a flash all the cunning and all the hard, brutal necessity of war ! ”

“ If the horsemen have Infantry rifles, and use them well, in conjunction with the horse, then, indeed, in combat as well as in speed, in tactical as well as in strategical mobility, they outmatch Infantry, and impose negative action on them. ”

“ Behind the weapon is the horse, and the horse is common to all mounted troops. Properly handled, mounted men will always be able to exert a strong moral effect upon non-mounted men, simply from their mobility, from their power to change or gain ground rapidly, to feint, raid, and swoop, envelop, outflank, mystify, outmanœuvre—in a word, to surprise their slow-moving antagonists. ”

“ The supply of horses in the country is exhausted. It has come to be just as bad for me to have a horse killed as a man. I cannot remount a cavalryman whose horse dies. General Grant can mount ten thousand men in ten days and move around your flank. If he were to send me word to-morrow that I might move out unmolested, I have not enough horses to move my artillery. He is not likely to send me any such message, although he sent me word yesterday that he knew what I had for breakfast every morning. ”

“ Of late years our custom has been to train our cavalry to fight on foot, and in the present war we have reaped the fruit of this wise policy. But the instinct which must be inculcated in the horse soldier to regard his horse as his chief reliance, must always disqualify him to some extent for the rôle which our cavalry were called upon to fulfil throughout the momentous issues in the history of the war of which this chapter treats. ”

“ The horse is as important as the man, and the infantry arm is reduced to the position of a first reserve, or to the rôle of piquets on the lines of communication, which remain always open to attack. Superior numbers and, above all, superior speed, are irresistible. ”

“ As quick as thought he is up and standing on the horse’s back with a war-cry of defiance,—although, according to Captain Page, U.S.N., never flinging away his javelin, for with him it must be a hand-to-hand fight,—whilst with equal rapidity he is down again, so as to be protected by the body of the horse, which is all the time in full gallop. ”

“ And two carried a slender wand from which dangled a scalp. They came in singing the song of victory; and then the war chief shouted: “A multitude of the enemy are on our trail. Break camp, you women, and move down river. Take your weapons, you men, and turn back with us!”
We took our weapons. We mounted our horses and rode like mad up the old war trail, and within a half-hour sighted the enemy, forty or fifty of them, strung out in a long, straggling line, according to the strength and speed of each one’s horse. We exchanged a few shots with the lead riders; one fell ”

“ What's called "Sauce-Jack" in the Army.
GLEANINGS FROM GREAT MINDS.
BY H. A. GWYNNE.
"The horse is the natural enemy of Man: the horse is the only animal that will dash himself over a precipice to avoid the shadow of his own feed-bag."—Kipling.
"All civilians must remain in their houses after eight o'clock at night."—Hints on Housekeeping (by Lord Roberts) .
"Your Mounted Infantry—it is as much as they can do to keep their hats on."—Albrecht, captured Boer Artillerist.
"I call the Cavalry the Oh, Lor! regiments. ”

“ The biped full of fire and courage, transformed by war-work to a wiry muscular dragoon, is able and willing, but the overloaded quadruped cannot gallop—he staggers.”
Our poor horses thus loaded, are expected to bound to hand and spur, while the riders wield their swords worthily. They cannot; and both man and horse appear inferior to their Indian opponents. The Eastern warrior’s eye is quick, but not quicker than the European’s ”

“ Situated as we are in regard to knowledge of horses, and hampered as we are in our preparation for war by the difficulty of teaching the essentials of campaigning horse management during peace time, we shall always find that it is in the early part of a war that our cavalrymen will fail to comprehend the necessity for nursing the strength of their horses, for discarding all unnecessary impedimenta, and24 limiting the task to what is absolutely necessary. ”

“ There was something in the appearance of this horse and his rider that struck them with surprise. Look! he draws his sword, the sharp blade quivers through the air—he points to the distant battle, and, lo! he is gone; gone through those clouds, while his shout echoes over the plains. Wherever the fight is the thickest, there, through intervals of cannon smoke, you may see riding madly forward that strange soldier, mounted on his steed black as death. Look at him, as with face red with British blood he waves his sword and shouts to his legions. ”

“ At last a struggling band of horsemen, leading among them the fainting form of an old, grey-bearded warrior, his helmet hacked, the hawk's wings gone, one arm hanging down limp and useless, the other aimlessly holding the reins of his horse, came past in wild confusion, hard pressed by a victorious troop of warriors, flushed with victory, and striking mercilessly at the panic-stricken fugitives ”

“ Men and horses, dead or wounded, or writhing and dying, lay singly or in piles and heaps together, among a vast débris of broken helmets, torn standards, and bloody pennons, splintered spears, swords, scarfs, and bucklers, near the Sauchieburn, which yet gurgled placidly along under its pale green willows, as the King leaped his fiery and unwearied horse over it, and with a breaking heart rode towards the banks of the Forth, while night and sorrow descended together on that disastrous field. ”

“ Men, women, and children were all brawling and shouting; dogs barking, yelping, and howling. Some of the warriors ran for the horses to gather and drive them in from the prairie, some for their weapons. As fast as they could arm and equip they sallied forth; some on horseback, some on foot; some hastily arrayed in their war dress, with coronets of fluttering feathers, and their bodies smeared with paint; others naked and only furnished with the weapons they had snatched up. ”

“ Two of the horses meet in the midst, as if in a tournament; but in madness of fear, not in hostility; on the horse to the right is a standard-bearer, who stoops as from some foe behind him, with the lance laid across his saddle-bow, level, and the flag stretched out behind him as he flies, like the sail of a ship drifting from its mast; the central horseman, who meets the shock, of storm, or enemy, whatever it be, is hurled backwards from his seat, like a stone from a sling; and this figure with the shattered tree trunk behind it, is the most noble part of the picture. ”

“ How mercilessly they betray, even through the cloud of dust still hanging in the air, a hint of the more unpleasant side of war! The weary and lathered horses, the red and strained faces of the men, their peeled noses, the little runnels made in the grime on their cheeks by the perspiration as it streams down, the purple sweat-patches in the greenish-yellow uniform. ”

“ You don't imagine that our cavalry evolutions are all performed on straight turnpike roads, do you? Now you know that you have given me an animal that can carry me wherever a horse can go, and so have added much to my chances of safety. I can skim out of a melee like a bird with Mayburn—for that shall be his name—where a blundering, stupid horse would break my neck, if I wasn't shot. ”

“ Ten thousand horsemen, magnificently dressed, with the fleetest steeds in the world, urging their horses with bloody spurs, to the most impetuous and furious onset, rending the heavens with their cries, and causing the very earth to tremble beneath the thunder of iron feet, came down upon the adamantine host. Nothing was ever seen in war more furious than this charge. Ten thousand horsemen is an enormous mass. ”

“ Where our cannon had mauled their retreating cavalry, the horses lay in close ranks, with their long necks stretched out, and their riders beneath them, all torn, brained, or disembowelled alike by the iron storm of grape-shot that had swept through the squadron. In some places we saw only a red, muddy pulp, composed of flesh and bones, where the enemy's brigade of guns had traversed the ground.
"War!" says a French writer; "those by whose will war comes—those who make men resemble the savage beasts—will have a fearful account to render to the righteous Judge above!" ”

“ When, on the battlefield, a mounted farrier is hard pressed by enemies, he runs the risk of being killed so long as he remains upon his horse with weapons in his hand. But if he alights, kneels down, and with the corners of his hooded cloak or burnous imitates the movements of a pair of bellows, thus revealing his profession, his life is spared. ”

“ Six horses to a piece, three riders to each gun. Over dry ditches where a farmer could not drive a [Pg 31] wagon; through clumps of bushes, over logs a foot thick, every horse on the gallop, every rider lashing his team and yelling,—the sight behind us makes us forget the foe in front. The guns jump two feet high as the heavy wheels strike rock or log, but not a horse slackens his pace, not a cannoneer loses his seat. Six guns, six caissons, sixty horses, eighty men, race for the brow of the hill as if he who reached it first was to be knighted. ”