Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[194] But at the time of which we speak, they had not yet acquired that great art of the soldier which consists in bearing fatigue and taking rest in a systematic manner. They ate a great deal, did not know how to economize their food, adjusted their knapsacks clumsily, and could only carry two days rations. The first day's march, which used up a great number, although very short, already filled the road with stragglers, who, while directing their steps towards the place assigned for the halt, did not consider themselves bound to keep up with their comrades, and whom a fresh spring of water or a shady spot would keep back; fortunately for the Federal armies, the Confederate guerrillas, in picking up such stragglers, did more towards putting a stop to this fatal habit than the severest orders of the day.

The mounted volunteers naturally took the regular cavalry for their model, and imitated their mode of fighting, which, as we have already observed, recalled that of the old dragoons of the seventeenth century—a curious comparison between the ancient military customs of Europe and those of modern America. If those troopers borrowed the carbine of the regulars, it was not because they had to fight an enemy as swift in flight as the Indian of the prairies, but that every inexperienced soldier, when he can choose between side-arms and firearms, always prefers the latter, which does not compel him to come to close quarters with the enemy. Besides, in order to handle a sabre or a lance, one should be fully able to manage a horse, and the horsemanship of the Federal volunteers at the beginning of the war was deplorable. They did not fire from their saddles like the troopers of the times of Louis XIV., but got into the habit of fighting on foot, leaving their horses in charge of one-fourth of their number. The wooded and rugged character of the country was suited to this mode of warfare, but would not have admitted of those great and rapid evolutions of a cavalry relying solely on the swiftness of their horses, if such cavalry had existed in America.

The cavalry, however, at the outset of the war, confined itself to the complicated task of scouting for the armies, and acting as skirmishers. This service, although difficult for young troops, was not altogether new to American horsemen, accustomed to an adventurous life which suited their spirit of personal enterprise.