The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 4: The Cavalry
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

---

“ [32] Cavalry,” at the First Bull Run, so terrible to the panic-stricken Federal troops in their race to Washington and safety; Mosby's frequent dashes at poorly guarded Union trains and careless outposts; and Stuart's picturesque and gallant promenade around McClellan's unguarded encampment on the Chickahominy, in 1862, the war record of the Southern horse notwithstanding its subsequent decline and the final disasters of 1864-65 will always illumine one of the brightest pages of cavalry history.

The Gettysburg campaign, June 1 to July 4, 1863, was exceptionally full of examples of the effective use of mounted troops. They began with the great combat of Beverly Ford, Virginia, June 9th, in which for twelve hours, eighteen thousand of the flower of the horsemen of the armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia, in nearly equal proportions, struggled for supremacy, with many casualties,¹ parting by mutual consent at the close of the day. This was followed by a series of daily skirmishes during the remainder of the month, in efforts to penetrate the cavalry screen which protected each army in its northward progress, culminating on the first day of July at Gettysburg in the masterly handling of two small brigades of cavalry.

It was here that General Buford delayed the advance of a division of Confederate infantry for more than two hours, winning for himself, in the opinion of a foreign military critic,² the honor of having “with the inspiration of a cavalry officer and a true soldier selected the battlefield where the two armies were about to measure their strength.” The important actions on the third day comprised that in which Gregg prevented Stuart from penetrating the right rear of the Union line (largely a mounted combat with saber and pistol), and the affair on the Emmittsburg Road on the same day where