Ian Peavot
Private
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2018
The problem with comparing the two cavalry types which are only 50 years apart is, as I previously mentioned, that the mind set had changed. If you were to 'parachute' Nap cavalry into the Pickett situation, they were well used to and would have accepted as normal, to assault positions such as the Federals held and could've 'possibly' taken them. Compare for instance the French Cuirassiers charging the Raevsky redoubt at Borodino which they carried, but broadly speaking ACW cavalrymen were not used to and wouldn't have expected to execute those kind of tactics as the norm.Not to denigrate any of the great cavalrymen of the Napoleonic Wars, but I do not believe any 19th-century cavalry could have done much better than the rebel infantry on July 3, 1863.
Unsupported ventures are usually doomed to failure (take Ney's cavalry charges at Waterloo, no close infantry support) but insufficient infantry numbers, lack of proper supporting artillery fire to cover the advancing infantry and no cavalry to exploit any gains made by them could've meant only one thing, Lee's plan was fatally flawed from the outset.