Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 116

An interesting difference between the Union and Confederate cavalry was that the government provided a Union cavalryman a horse in the same way it provided a uniform and equipment. In the Confederate armies, a cavalryman had to provide his own horse. Needless to say, this led to a large number of well-off men joining the cavalry, although anyone who could procure a horse by any other means could become a cavalryman. Many Confederate cavalry raids in the war were launched specifically to capture horses. For a large part of the war, Confederate cavalry outperformed Union cavalry, because most of the troopers already had well-developed horsemanship skills. In the early part of the war, most of the Union troopers were still learning how to ride a horse, let alone fight on one.