GeorgiaBob
Senior Member
I wonder why the Confederates were better horsemen early on. Everyone rode a horse back then. Most Northerners were in rural areas like the Southerners were. I would have suspected northern riding skills would have been fine. Maybe tactics but they were all horse people. I guess someone has to be better. Just seemed strange to me.
The draft and enlistment records of the union describe a different Union Army from the one you think. A significant majority of northern troops came from cities. Fact is, most of the young cavalry troopers had little - or no - experience on horseback prior to being drafted. The very young Union horse trooper had to learn how to ride, how to care for the horses, how to stay in the saddle with cannons and muskets blasting, how to ride formation, how to fight mounted, and how to fight dismounted. That is a big part of what took years for the Northern cavalry to catch up.
Another mistake we make, looking back, is assuming that those northern city boys wanted to be cavalry. We look at the continental armies of the 16th through 19th centuries and see the proud, elite, mostly titled, dragoons and cavalry troopers. We want to imagine every boy in the 1860s USA or CSA wanted to be cavalry. That wasn't true for the Yankee city boys. It took two years of training, massive desertions from cavalry units, and several hard campaigns to create a competent mounted force. And it took that competent mounted force to make those northern city boys proud to be cavalry!