442 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period v. 



the sword sprang up in the Soutliurn armies, and although 

 at the outset of the war the Northern caviJry, and par- 

 ticularly the regulars, used the sabre, the Southern troops, 

 both mounted and dismounted, so despised the weapon 

 that nothing could make them give way to a charge of 

 cavalry sabre in hand. 



A distinguished Southern general told the writer that 

 this contempt of the Southern infantry for the sword 

 was marvellous. He said he had seen lines of skirmishers 

 and lines of battle of infantry charged by Northern regular 

 cavalry, and when his men would see them coming the cry 

 would be raised along the line, " Here, boys, are those fools 

 coming again with their sabres ; give it to them !" and 

 they would laugh and joke at the idea as if it were the 

 extremity of foUy. 



The writer has often heard officers of General Morgan's 

 command speaking the same way. In referring to actions 

 with bodies of Federal cavalry they would say : " They 

 charged down upon us with their sabres, but when we 

 saw that we knew we had the fight all in our own hands, 

 for it was simply silly for them to think they could do 

 anything with us in that way." 



So strong was this feeling in the west at the outset of 

 the war, that the hastily raised and imperfectly equipped 

 Southern cavalry, armed as they often were at first 

 simply with double-barrelled -fowling-pieces loaded with 

 slugs, would charge at speed at a line of hostile cavalry, 

 firing both barrels into the enemy's faces, and would 

 then dash through, striking with the butts of their 

 guns. 



With this type of soldier to recruit from, and under 

 these circumstances, Major-General John H. Morgan 

 revived and improved the principle of the dragoon 

 organisation, and applied it successfully to the fullest 

 extent. 



General Basil W. Duke, in his " History of Morgan's 

 Cavalry," says : " Whatever merit may be allowed or 

 denied General Morgan, he is beyond all question en- 

 titled to the credit of having discovered uses for cavalry, 

 or rather mounted infantry, to which that annfwas 



