482 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period v. 



theory, and to make their own horse, not the jinghng, 

 brilliant, costly, but almost helpless unreality it is with 

 us, l)ut a force that was able, on all grounds, in all 

 circumstances, to act freely an<l efficiently, without any 

 support from infantry. 



" Not only is there no European cavalry, with which 

 the writer is acquainted, that could have acted the part 

 now played by the force under Sheridan, Ijut there is 

 not on record, that he is aware of, an instance in the 

 eventful wars of the last or the present century in 

 Europe of a strong rear-guard having been thus 

 effectually dealt with." ^ Again ho says : " Had it been 

 any European cavalry, unarmed with ' repeaters,' and 

 untrained to fight on foot, that was barring the way, any 

 cavalry whose only means of detention consisted in the 

 absurd ineffectual fire of mounted skirmishers, or in 

 repeated charges with lance or sabre, the Confederate 

 game would have been simple and easy enough. 



"They would merely have had to form battalion or 

 brigade squares with their baggage in the midst ; to have 

 placed these squares in echelon so as to support each 

 other, and then, advancing, to have steadily shot their 

 way through the opposing horse. Who does not recollect 

 Napier's celebrated account of the two squares, one com- 

 posed of the 5th and 77th British regiments, the other 

 of the 21st Portuguese, at El Bodon, breaking their way 

 out, 'issuing unscathed, like the holy men from the 

 Assyrian furnace,' through the surrounding clouds of 

 Montbrun's splendid and eager French cuirassiers '( 

 What reader of military history but will at once recall 

 the instance of the safe retreat of the English infantry 

 for three miles over the open plain at Fuentes d'Onor, 

 leaving 500 of these same chosen horsemen, who had 

 vainly essayed to bar their progress, stretched prostrat(^ 

 on the field ; or the similarly successful retreat of the 

 Russian squares at Cra6ne and at Rheims in 1814? 

 The Confederate rear-guard, now under the veteran 

 Ewell, were men who had shown themselves, in a 

 hundred tried fields, from Bull Run downwards, to he 



» Havelock, 97, 98. 



