The Daily Dispatch: January 3, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Army intelligence.

--Another unprecedented military march has been accomplished by a regiment of the United States Army. A large portion of the Seventh Regiment marched from Camp. Floyd, U. T., to Fort Buchanan, New Mexico, travelled one thousand miles, and spent 140 days on the road. This is one of the most lengthy military journeys recorded. It is not generally known that the longest march of infantry ever accomplished was successfully completed about a year ago by an American regiment — the gallant old Sixth--which left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for California, a distance of 2,800 miles, and was 190 days on the road, of which 162 were actually passed in marching. This march was nearly twice the length of that of Hannibal's troops, going from Italy to Spain, and more than twice as long as that of Xenophon's ten thousand, and much longer than Napoleon's perilous journey to Moscow. The Sixth suffered severely all the way. At Carson Valley the snow fell for three days, and at the end of that time lay on the ground eighteen inches deep. More recently several companies of a fine regiment passed over seventeen days without meeting water, being thus thrown on the scanty supply of their wallets.

The fatigue and labor of the endless campaigns incident to the service of an American trooper are said to be so debilitating that, of 14,000 men nominally considered efficient, hardly 6,000 could be selected fit to compete with regularly disciplined forces. The entire cavalry is in a wretched state, its men and horses being daily incapacitated for duty by illness and want.