82 RAIDERS AND PURSUERS 



miles in fourteen hours. " The roads were frozen hard 

 and half covered with ice and snow. At the end of the 

 ride there was not a saddle-boil nor a broken-down horse 

 or man." In 1880 Colonel Henry, with four troops, rode 

 one hundred and eight miles in thirty-three hours, being 

 in the saddle twenty-two hours. One horse dropped dead 

 at the end of the march, but there was not a sore-backed 

 horse in the regiment, and they started out again after a 

 rest of twenty-four hours. The same command made a 

 night march of fifty miles in ten hours. 



General Merritt in 1879, with four troops, and ham- 

 pered by a battalion of infantry in wagons, rode one 

 hundred and seventy miles to the relief of Payne in sixty- 

 six and one -half hours, and reached the scene in prime 

 order and ready to go into a fight. Yery long distances 

 have been covered by cavalry regiments at the rate of 

 sixty miles a day. Colonel Henry, an expert on this sub- 

 ject r speaking of hardening the men and horses of a com- 

 mand by a month's drills of from fifteen to twenty miles 

 at rapid gaits, aptly says : " A cavalry command thus 

 hardened, and with increased feeds, ought to be able to 

 make fifty to sixty miles a day as long as required ; and 

 to such a command one hundred miles in twenty -four 

 hours ought to be easy. The horse, like the athlete, 

 needs training, and when this is done his endurance is 

 limited only by that of his rider." 



In 1877 General Miles organized in Arizona a plan for 

 accustoming men and horses to severe work by rides 

 across the plains by a party of " raiders," followed by 

 another of "pursuers." The parties were usually about 

 twenty strong. The pursuers were not allowed to start 

 until eighteen hours after the raiders, but the raiders were 

 bound to rest six hours after marching eighteen hours, 

 and again twelve after marching twelve more. The pur- 



