Horses: the Army’S Achilles’ Heel in the Civil War Plains Campaigns of 1864- 1865

Horses: The Army’s Achilles’ Heel in the Civil War Plains Campaigns of 1864- 1865 (Article begins on page 2 below.) This article is copyrighted by History Nebraska (formerly the Nebraska State Historical Society). You may download it for your personal use. For permission to re-use materials, or for photo ordering information, see: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/re-use-nshs-materials Learn more about Nebraska History (and search articles) here: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/nebraska-history-magazine History Nebraska members receive four issues of Nebraska History annually: https://history.nebraska.gov/get-involved/membership Full Citation: James E Potter, “Horses: The Army’s Achilles’ Heel in the Civil War Plains Campaigns of 1864- 1865, Nebraska History 92 (2011): 158-169 Article Summary: Civil War armies relied heavily on horses. Armies in the field equipped with artillery, cavalry, and supply trains required one horse or mule, on average, for every two men. Horses fit for service became scarce by the war’s final years. Far from the major eastern battlefields, regiments such as the First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry felt the brunt of the equine shortage. Cataloging Information: Names: Henry Sibley, Alfred Sully, Robert B Mitchell, Robert Livingston, Patrick Connor, Grenville Dodge, August Scherneckau, John Pope, Henry Halleck Place Names: Fort Kearny and Fort Cottonwood, Nebraska; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Julesburg, Colorado; Fort Laramie, Wyoming; St. Louis, Missouri Keywords: Grenville Dodge, John Pope, First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry, supply lines, Confederacy, Union, Powder River Expedition Photographs / Images: Custer’s supply train, Black Hills Expedition, 1874; Pvt. Luther North, Second Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry, 1863; “Cavalry Charge of Sully’s Brigade at the Battle of White Stone Hill, September 3, 1863,” Harper’s Weekly, October 31, 1863; District of Nebraska commander Brig. Gen. Robert B. Mitchell; flag of the First Nebraska Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, about 1866; Col. Robert R. Livingston; Brig. Gen. Patrick Edward Connor; Maj. Gen. John Pope; Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge; Yoking Up in Corral, by William H Jackson, from his 1866 sketch; a soldier killing his exhausted mount for food during Gen. George Crook’s campaign against the Lakota – H O R S E S – The Army’s Achilles’ Heel in the Civil War Plains Campaigns of 1864-65 BY JAMES E. POTTER 158 • NEBRASKA history n August 18, 1864, after hastily re-mustering at Omaha from their veteran The First Nebraska’s furloughs, the men of the First Nebraska Volunteer Cavalry left for Fort OKearny. Instead of returning to Arkansas where it had spent the first half of plight was a common 1864, the regiment’s new mission was to help defend the Platte Valley freighting, experience for the stagecoach, and telegraph route from an onslaught of Indian raids that had recent- ly broken out.1 Having been issued only sixty horses for three hundred men, the volunteer cavalry mostly dismounted cavalrymen probably appreciated the irony of being sent off on on the Plains during foot to chase down an elusive foe known for its horsemanship. A month later the First Nebraska’s Lt. Col. William Baumer notified District of Nebraska headquarters the Civil War. in Omaha that five companies of the regiment at Fort Kearny and at Plum Creek Station, thirty-five miles to the west, were still without horses.2 Custer’s supply train, Black Hills Expedition, 1874. Similar extensive supply trains hampered the army’s mobility during the 1865 Powder River Expedition. Photo Courtesy of the Archives of the South Dakota State Historical Society WINTER 2011 • 159 Over the next several months, horses were on May 9, 1865, the quartermaster general’s depart- gradually issued, but never enough to mount all ment bought approximately 193,000 cavalry horses. the men. What’s more, many of the horses the regi- Only a relative handful of these made their way to ment did receive were mediocre at best, poorly fed, the Plains. Although Secretary of War Edwin M. and could not perform the duty expected of them, Stanton claimed in his postwar report, “The supply a problem that persisted. On May 19, 1865, First of horses and mules for the army has been regular Nebraska Col. Robert R. Livingston told District of and sufficient,” apparently the secretary had not the Plains commander Patrick Connor what Connor paid attention to letters coming from commanders already knew: “Our horses cannot run an Indian in the West. In late February 1864 Department of down, too poor.”3 Kansas commander Samuel R. Curtis wrote Stanton The First Nebraska’s plight was a common ex- from Fort Leavenworth recommending the pur- perience for the volunteer cavalry on the Plains chase of Indian ponies for government use because 5 Pvt. Luther North, Second during the Civil War. The rebellion placed enor- “better horses are now becoming very scarce.” Nebraska Volunteer mous demands on the country’s equine resources Regulations provided that the ideal cavalry Cavalry, 1863. NSHS at a time when animals also furnished the principal horse was from 15 to 16 hands high at the withers RG2320-43 motive power in the civilian world. Armies in the (5 feet to 5 feet, 4 inches), five to nine years old, field equipped with artillery, cavalry, and supply weighing from 750 to 1100 pounds, and “sound in trains required one horse or mule, on average, for all particulars . in full flesh and good condition.” every two men. Some 284,000 horses were con- As the war with its tremendous consumption of sumed by the Union cavalry alone during the first horseflesh dragged on, the “ideal” cavalry horse two years of the war and Army Chief of Staff Henry became little more than an abstraction. Union Halleck rated the Union’s 1864 expenditure of cav- cavalryman Charles Francis Adams, Jr. described alry horses at slightly fewer than 180,000 animals, how the service ruined horses. Even a walking an average of about five hundred per day. Between pace of four miles an hour was “killing to horses” January 1864 and February 1865 the Army of the carrying the average load of 225 pounds compris- Potomac’s cavalry arm had twice been remounted.4 ing the soldier and his equipment. During active From January 1, 1864, until purchases ceased campaigns, said Adams, the horse remained The northern Plains in 1865. Map by Steve Ryan 160 • NEBRASKA history “Cavalry Charge of Sully’s Brigade at the Battle of White Stone Hill, September 3, 1863,” Harper’s Weekly, October 31, 1863 saddled an average of fifteen hours per day. “His than those that have been stabled and groomed.” feed is nominally ten pounds of grain a day and, Overland emigrants also noted the contrast. John in reality, he averages about eight pounds. He has M. Shively, who went to Oregon in 1843, authored no hay and only such other feed as he can pick up a guidebook that admonished emigrants to “Swap during halts. The usual water he drinks is brook your horses for Indian horses and be not too par- water, so muddy by the passage of the column as to ticular, for the shabbiest Shawnee pony . will be of the color of chocolate. Of course sore backs answer your purpose better than the finest horse are our greatest trouble.” Nonetheless, the horse you can take from the stables.”7 “still has to be ridden until he lays down in sheer Lengthy supply lines, bad weather, or Indian suffering under the saddle.” Adams was describing raids were serious obstacles to timely grain deliv- conditions in northern Virginia in 1863, not those eries for the distant outposts west of the Missouri facing the cavalry on the distant Plains, with even River. The quartermaster depot at Fort Leavenworth fewer resources to call upon.6 was about 286 miles from Fort Kearny and 600 Not only were there too few horses to mount the more or less from Fort Laramie. Even shipping Plains cavalry in 1864 and 1865, they broke down points farther north on the Missouri River were quickly from overwork and a shortage of grain. The some 500 miles from Laramie. Making matters full forage ration for an army horse was 14 pounds worse, requisitions for troops, horses, and the of hay and 12 pounds of grain daily, which Adams supplies to sustain them were processed by a noted was not regularly provided even in the war’s cumbersome military bureaucracy. Regulations re- eastern theater. And unlike the Indian pony that quired all army horses to be purchased and issued ethnologist John Ewers described as “a tough, through the quartermaster department’s cavalry sturdy, and long-winded beast that possessed great bureau. The nearest remount depot to the Plains powers of endurance” and which was acclimated commands was in St. Louis.8 to the Plains environment, American horses could Aside from supply problems stemming from not maintain their stamina by grazing alone. This geography and bureaucracy, the Union leader- was no secret to military men with Plains experi- ship devoted little attention or resources to the ence. Capt. Randolph B. Marcy’s 1859 guidebook, Indian conflicts in the West because its first prior- The Prairie Traveler, advised “for prairie service, ity was winning the war against the Confederacy. horses which have been raised exclusively upon For example, the Minnesota Sioux uprising that grass and never been fed on grain . are decid- so panicked the frontier broke out in August edly the best and will perform more hard labor and September 1862 at the very time Robert E. WINTER 2011 • 161 Lee’s Confederates had just whipped John Pope’s from western governors, legislatures, and military Union army at Second Bull Run and then invaded officers became too loud to ignore or when the Maryland.

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