The Daily Dispatch: September 27, 1864., [Electronic resource]

On two occasions within the past week a Confederate army, defending a most important portion of the Confederacy, and conducting itself, so far as its infantry and artillery were concerned, with all the gallantry natural to it, has been defeated and compelled to fall back by the conduct of the cavalry placed to cover one of its wings, which appears to have given way almost as soon as proposing cavalry of the enemy made its appearance. This circumstance naturally revives an inquiry with which the public journals were rife but a year ago, and which it is of the last importance to pash to something like a definite answer. Why is it that our cavalry has, throughout this war, proved so obviously inferior in efficiency to both the other arms of the service? Why is it that, in point of fact, it has never, on any occasion, played the role which has always heretofore been thought to be peculiarly its own? Why is it that in an army containing thousands upon thousands of soldiers who have been in the habit of backing and riding the wildest horses from their boyhood, and who are, in truth, among the best riders in the world, there should be absolutely no cavalry, if we are to understand by that term such a species of force as goes by that name in every army of Europe? "It is, " says Colonel Sehaller, "the only weapon which can take advantage of a beaten enemy, pursue and rout him. Hence it has been fostered and trained in every well-regulated military system. Frederic the Great owes his most signal victories to the impetuous attacks of his Hussars. Napoleon hurled his masses of heavy cavalry against the decisive point, and felt assured of victory. The Polish cavalry dashed into many a Russian square in 1830 and 1831. The cavalry charges of Inkerman and Balaclava are immortal. On the plains of Italy, both French and Austrian horsemen, in the late war, performed prodigies. And all these bright deeds of arms were performed by men who had to be taught to ride after they were twenty years of age, and upon horses that had been broken by riding-masters who themselves would not have dared to mount a wild young horse, as our cavalrists do."

The fact is, our cavalry have degenerated into what Marmont calls, in the same work to which the above extract is part of a note, "dragoons." Of these, the same author says, "in principle, they are entirely mounted infantry; they ought always to have preserved this character. In that capacity, dragoons can render, in a thousand circumstances immense services; such as detachments for surprises in retrograde movements, and, above all, in pursuits. But it would be necessary, in conformity to their constitution, to mount them upon horses too small to be placed in line, otherwise the aspirations and pretensions of colonels will soon convert them into cavalry, and they will then become both bad infantry and bad cavalry."

So says Marmont; and we have the strongest proof in what is occurring every day in the Confederacy that he spoke the truth. Of cavalry, as such, we have none. Our whole force on horseback is mounted infantry, or, as Marmont calls it, "dragoons." It is an amphibious affair, indeed; neither cavalry nor infantry, but partaking of the worst points of both. The superior skill of our countrymen in riding is absolutely thrown away. The spur which Frederic taught his cavalry to depend on is of no use except in getting out of danger. The sabre is never used at all. The men ride up and fire their revolvers; and this they are taught to call charging. The actual shock of cavalry combat, where force meets force in the headlong charge, is utterly unknown to our system. The so-called cavalry dismount, dig a ditch, or get behind trees and pop away at each other after he fashion of Indian fighters in the impenetrable forests of the far West. It is no wonder that horsemen thus trained should give way upon the first symptom of a bona fide charge. How different was Marmont's idea of what cavalry ought to be when he wrote the following:

‘ "Horsemanship is everything! It subjugates and breaks the horse. Manœuvres will always be performed with sufficient correctness when the soldiers are good horsemen. Encouragement of all kinds should be given to obtain this result." Our troops want no encouragement whatever to make them form themselves into good horsemen. They are such already. They constitute such a body of riders as the world never saw. But all this is utterly thrown away. A very indifferent horseman would answer all the ends of our drill as well as the most splendid rider in the world. He can ride up, fire off a revolver, wheel to the right about, and gallop away; or he can throw the bridle of his horse to some comrade, dismount, take a tree, and pop away like an Indian. We are told that the nature of our country is such that our cavalry cannot charge as in Europe. Tariton's Legion, then, was all a myth, we suppose. There never was such a body of troops as the Queen's Rangers, under Simcoe. --Lee's Legion was the fabrication of some crazy rebel during the revolution. Tariton did not charge Morgan at the Cowpens, and William Washington did not charge Tariton in turn. Lee did not charge Tariton in the lane in front of Guilford just before the battle, and Tariton did not charge our left wing (in the woods, too,) at that battle under cover of the smoke raised by a body of infantry who fired especially for that purpose. These are all inventions — pure inventions. The country would not have admitted any of these things. It was infinitely more wooded then than it is now. Of course it could not have been. When we read, therefore, that Tariton charged the disordered ranks of Gates at Camden, and produced an irrepressible stampede, and that he pursued the fugitives for miles upon miles, cutting them down by the dozen at every step, we are reading of something altogether imaginary — something existing only in the heated fancies of the writers. The men who came from the Waxhaw settlements to a certain court-house, not many miles from this city, and there exhibited the terrible wounds that Tariton's men had inflicted in charging them, lied of course. The face of the country was very woody. How could Tariton charge there?

’ We believe the excuse about the nature of the country to be utterly unfounded. An author whom we have quoted before--Colonel Schaller--pronounces it to be so in the following words: ‘"No instances of what cavalry can do are necessary; history furnishes thousands of them; and if one would contend that the nature of the ground with us is such as to forbid anything like a charge or effective pursuit, he but shows ignorance of the topography of European battle-fields!"’ There it is, the whole truth, we doubt not. To tell us at this time of day that cavalry cannot charge and pursue in the countries where Tariton and Washington charged and pursued eighty years ago is preposterous.

Our men want nothing more than to be taught the use of the sabre, and the practice of charging with that weapon. Among the mounted men let there be a portion, at least, of these; and they the best riders, on the best horses. Do not make mounted infantry of all the cavalry force. Let every squadron have a certain number of mounted infantry, say forty, as Marmont advises in his book, which Colonel Schaller has translated expressly for the use of our army, and which has the seal of President Davis's approbation, and, we understand, of most other military men. Let the cavalry be made cavalry sure enough. We have very good officers; such as Hampton, Forrest, Fitz, Lee, Wickham, &c. Let them be instructed to teach their men the use of the sabre, or to have it taught, and the evolutions necessary for cavalry. Then, when we inflict another defeat on the enemy, there may be some hope of throwing a body of cavalry upon his disordered forces and gaining a decisive victory. Then we shall have no more long, murderous, indecisive battles. Then there will be bodies of troops who both can and will protect the country from pillage. The first of our commanders who shall teach his men to trust to the spur for victory will find himself suddenly occupying a niche in the temple of fame alongside of Siedlitz and Murat.