Thread Medic- Joined
- Jul 23, 2017
- Location
- Southwest Missouri
This sort of thing was going on, all the time. The infantry and artillery would do it. With many, particularly the artillery, who knew better, it was only joking, the soldier-instinct to stir up any passer-by. But with many, especially the infantry, who were not as much "up to snuff" as the artillery, these gibes at the cavalry expressed a serious, tho' mistaken idea, they had of them. Upon the advance of the enemy, of course, we were accustomed to see cavalrymen hurrying in from the outposts to the rear, to report. So the thoughtless infantry, not considering that this was "part of the large and general plan," got fixed in their minds an association between the two things, - the advance of the enemy, and, the rapid hurrying off to the rear of the cavalry, until they came to have the fixed idea, that the sight of the enemy always made a cavalryman "hungry for solitude." They reasoned that, as a mounted man was much better fixed for running away than a footman, it was, by so much, natural that he should run away, and was, by so much, the more likely to do it.
Also, our orders to move and to go into battle were always brought by horsemen; so the horsemen were thought about as causing others to fight instead of doing it themselves. So, in short, it came to pass, that this innocent infantry had a dim sort of notion that the chief end of the cavalry was, in battle time, to run away and bring up other people to do the fighting, and in quiet time, to "range" for buttermilk and other delicacies, which the poor footmen never got. Hence the soubriquet of "buttermilk ranger" universally applied to the cavalry by the army.
But, I assure you, that all this was dispelled at once, and for good and all, at Spottsylvania. Here these gallants had gotten down off their horses. They hadn't run anywhere at all; didn't want anybody else to come, and fight for them. They had jumped into about five or six times their number of the flower of the Federal infantry. They met them front to front, and muzzle to muzzle. Of course they had to give back; but it was slowly, very slowly, and they made the enemy pay, in blood, for every step they gained. They had worried these Federals into a fever, and kept them fooling away nearly twenty-six hours of priceless time; and made Grant's plan fail, and made General Lee's plan succeed, and had secured the strong line for our defence.
It was a piece of regular, obstinate, bloody, "bulldog" work. We knew, well as we thought of ourselves, that not the staunchest brigade of our veteran "incomparable" infantry, or battery of our canister-shooting artillery, could have fought better, stood better, or achieved more, for the success of the campaign. We felt that General Lee,—that the whole army,—"owed the cavalry one," "several," in fact. The army, even the infantry, had come to know the cavalry, at last. Obstinacy, toughness, dogged refusal to be driven, was their test of manhood, and this test the cavalry had signally, and brilliantly met. Everybody was satisfied, the cavalry would do, they were "all right." We couldn't praise them enough, we were proud of them. The remark was even suffered to pass, as nothing to his discredit particularly, that our "Magnus Apollo".
General Lee, himself, had once been in the cavalry, and no one resented it now. We knew that it was when he was younger than now. We, of the "Howitzers," knew very well what arm of the service, and what corps of that arm, the experienced old General would join, if he was enlisting in the Army of Northern Virginia, now, when he knew more than he did. Still! he had been a cavalryman; admit it!
From "From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign"
Also, our orders to move and to go into battle were always brought by horsemen; so the horsemen were thought about as causing others to fight instead of doing it themselves. So, in short, it came to pass, that this innocent infantry had a dim sort of notion that the chief end of the cavalry was, in battle time, to run away and bring up other people to do the fighting, and in quiet time, to "range" for buttermilk and other delicacies, which the poor footmen never got. Hence the soubriquet of "buttermilk ranger" universally applied to the cavalry by the army.
But, I assure you, that all this was dispelled at once, and for good and all, at Spottsylvania. Here these gallants had gotten down off their horses. They hadn't run anywhere at all; didn't want anybody else to come, and fight for them. They had jumped into about five or six times their number of the flower of the Federal infantry. They met them front to front, and muzzle to muzzle. Of course they had to give back; but it was slowly, very slowly, and they made the enemy pay, in blood, for every step they gained. They had worried these Federals into a fever, and kept them fooling away nearly twenty-six hours of priceless time; and made Grant's plan fail, and made General Lee's plan succeed, and had secured the strong line for our defence.
It was a piece of regular, obstinate, bloody, "bulldog" work. We knew, well as we thought of ourselves, that not the staunchest brigade of our veteran "incomparable" infantry, or battery of our canister-shooting artillery, could have fought better, stood better, or achieved more, for the success of the campaign. We felt that General Lee,—that the whole army,—"owed the cavalry one," "several," in fact. The army, even the infantry, had come to know the cavalry, at last. Obstinacy, toughness, dogged refusal to be driven, was their test of manhood, and this test the cavalry had signally, and brilliantly met. Everybody was satisfied, the cavalry would do, they were "all right." We couldn't praise them enough, we were proud of them. The remark was even suffered to pass, as nothing to his discredit particularly, that our "Magnus Apollo".
General Lee, himself, had once been in the cavalry, and no one resented it now. We knew that it was when he was younger than now. We, of the "Howitzers," knew very well what arm of the service, and what corps of that arm, the experienced old General would join, if he was enlisting in the Army of Northern Virginia, now, when he knew more than he did. Still! he had been a cavalryman; admit it!
From "From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign"
Bringing the