Infantry on a western campaign

Pat Holscher · Sat Dec 09, 2006 7:38 pm

From War Path and Bivouac:

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The cavalry rode by twos, the intervals between the companies, except those which formed the rear guard behind the pack mules, being just sufficient to define the respective commands. The wagons, 120 in all, with their white awnings and massive wheels, each drawn by six mules, covered the rising ground in advance of the horsemen, while the dark column of infantry was dimly discernible in the van, because Crook always marched out his foot, for obvious reasons, an hour or two ahead of his horse. We used to joke about the infantry and call them by their Indian nickname of "walk-a-heaps," but before the campaign was over we recognized that man is a hardier animal than the horse, and that shank's mare is the very best kind of a charger.
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Pat

Couvi · Sat Dec 09, 2006 8:32 pm

I have read that Indians had a genuine dislike for Walks-a-Heap because they would lay down with their long rifles; take a clear shot and kill the unfortunate indigenous.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

Philip S · Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:50 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">before the campaign was over we recognized that man is a hardier animal than the horse, <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Some scientists compared human vs. animal endurance and found to their surprise that humans can outdistance any animal.

FtValleyPS · Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:51 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Philip S
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">before the campaign was over we recognized that man is a hardier animal than the horse, <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Some scientists compared human vs. animal endurance and found to their surprise that humans can outdistance any animal.
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I've heard that, too, Pat, but have also heard (have not seen scientific evidence) that day in and day out is where the conditioned horse or mule exceeds the human's ability for long distances. I wonder which is ultimately true. The long races, e.g. results of the 100 milers over tough country where there are people running, people running with an animal, and people riding animals, would perhaps shed some light on things, but I'm wondering about longer distances than this.

John

mattbody · Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:28 am

I know plenty of horses that can complete 100 miles in under 16 hours but I don't know of any humans except those riding the horses.

Matt

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:33 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by FtValleyPS
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Philip S
 <blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">before the campaign was over we recognized that man is a hardier animal than the horse, <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Some scientists compared human vs. animal endurance and found to their surprise that humans can outdistance any animal.
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I've heard that, too, Pat, but have also heard (have not seen scientific evidence) that day in and day out is where the conditioned horse or mule exceeds the human's ability for long distances. I wonder which is ultimately true. The long races, e.g. results of the 100 milers over tough country where there are people running, people running with an animal, and people riding animals, would perhaps shed some light on things, but I'm wondering about longer distances than this.

John

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That's was Philip's reply to the Finderty quote John. I haven't read the scientific item he notes, but I think what we probably need to keep in mind about things such as this is the numerous variables involved, which makes it considerably more complicated than we might imagine.

In terms of practical application, it is clear that horses would definately have the advantage (as would camels also) in terms of miles per day and per hour. That is, if we wanted to conver some significant distance over wild country, we'd take a horse. This is all the more the case if the human needs to avoid using up his own resources, although riding a horse, contrary to what those who do not do it imagine, is a physcial endeavor.

But, if what we are considering instead is the ability to cover a very long distance, day after day, with only meager rations, humans are amazingly durable. Quite a few Western campaigns proved that, as the cavalry would start off making great progress, but by the end of a lenghty (months long campaign) the horses would be "broken down", while the foot soldier kept on plodding. Of course, Indian ponies, needing less in the way of feed, seem to have largely kept on plodding themsleves.

What it gets to, I suppose, is that while the horse is an amazingly animal of transportation, his own physical requirements are more sensistive in some situations than might be supposed. In any practical application, mere transportation, campaigining in the field, stock work, etc., the horse had (and in some cases still has) the advantage over humans on foot by quite some measure. But, by the same token, the horses own needs are paramount to his utility, and once they are not met, he rapidly fails. Humans, on the other hand, seem to be generally capable of enduring enormous physcial abuse, if we are in good shape.

As a pure aside, Finerty notes that Crook sent one of the mule packers to deliver a message to Terry, once Crook began moving again. The mule packer, apparently a highly eccentric fellow, covered the distance on foot, rather than by horse, as it was his view that horses and mules gave away their riders position by calling to their Indian owned fellows. Finerty, however, also relates that it was this fellow's plan to feign craziness if caught by the Indians, and in Finerty's view it would not have been hard for that fellow to feign it, and remain quite true to his nature.

Pat

Joseph Sullivan · Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:34 am

I think the question Philip raises is not of speed or distance, but the long duration grind.

Joe

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:36 am

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by mattbody
 I know plenty of horses that can complete 100 miles in under 16 hours but I don't know of any humans except those riding the horses.

Matt
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Quite true.

I think what Finerty was getting at (as I noted in the post just above) was the effect of riding horses day after day, for very long periods of time, on short rations, compared to marching humans day after day, on short rations. That seems to have been a feature of quite a few Western campaigns.

At least one Indian Wars general became so frustrated with Army horses breaking down on campaigns that he actually wrote his superiors in Washington asking for cavalry to be withdrawn from the Frontier. Its generally assumed he was not serious, but only frustrated, and in actuality what tended to occur was that commanders looked for a way to convert infantry into mounted infantry, as the example given from Finerty in another thread illustrates. However, in many campaigns from various wars, the danger of horses failing on short rations, or when poorly cared for, is well demonstrated. It is the distance per day that is the problem here, or even the days and days in the field, but the lack of care, or feed, for the animal.

Pat

Couvi · Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:04 pm

Manual of Instruction in Pack Transportation, H.W. Daly, Press of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, 1901, page 70

117. Forced Marches. In forced marches, the pack animal should not be loaded in excess of 200 lbs.

If traveling with cavalry, the pack mule may be able to spurt off at a ten mile gait, but he will be pushing the horse before 30 miles are covered, and he has the horse at his mercy in a march of 75 or 100 miles in 24 hours.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 7:43 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Couvi
 Manual of Instruction in Pack Transportation, H.W. Daly, Press of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, 1901, page 70

117. Forced Marches. In forced marches, the pack animal should not be loaded in excess of 200 lbs.

If traveling with cavalry, the pack mule may be able to spurt off at a ten mile gait, but he will be pushing the horse before 30 miles are covered, and he has the horse at his mercy in a march of 75 or 100 miles in 24 hours.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"
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Extremely interesting, thanks for that quote.

Pat

Couvi · Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:40 pm

Also from Manual of Instruction in Pack Transportation, H.W. Daly, Press of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, 1901, page 70.

Chapter IV

Marches and Loads: 

As instancing a case in which pack animals have been employed for continuous work, the Geronimo campaign, lasting from June, 1885, to September may be mentioned.

Several pack trains followed the troops taking part in the various operations. These trains were continuously on the move, traveling through the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and through the states of Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico, crossing the Sierra Madre Mountains at their highest and most precipitate part, from Oporto in Sonora to Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. Through such a country any other form of transportation would have been utterly impracticable.

The mules carried loads averaging 250 lbs.; the average day’s march was 30 miles, except when climbing mountains, when about 15 miles per day was the rule.

The mules subsisted entirely on the grasses found in the country, and when the campaign was over, were returned to their posts in good condition.

 114. Forced Marches. The following instances, out of a great many, may be briefly mentioned: In the campaign of 1881, under Colonel Buell, 15th Infantry, against Chiefs Victoria and Nana, of the Warm Spring tribe of Apaches, a company of Indian scouts and one pack train made a march of eighty-five miles in twelve hours, loaded 200 lbs. to a pack animal.

Later pursuing Indians of the same tribe, a company of Indian scouts and one pack train marched from old Fort Cummings to Fort Seldon, on the Rio Grande, about 60 miles, from sunrise to sunset. Then went by rail to Fort Craig, N.M.; loaded 250 pounds to the mule; marched across the valley, some 30 miles, to the San Mateo range; struck the trail of Chief Nana and party; and, without making an all night’s camp, followed the hostiles into Old Mexico, south of the Hatchet Mountains.

This was a running fight the whole way. A distance of about 300 miles was covered in about four days.

During the “Loco” outbreak from San Carlos Agency, Arizona, in 1882, one company of scouts and one pack train loaded 200 pounds to the mule, made a forced march of 280 miles in three days.

During the Garza campaign in the Rio Grande frontier in Texas, in 1891 and 1892, a troop of the 3d Cavalry and a part of one pack train, marched 108 miles in 16 hours; the mules were loaded 300 pounds to the mule.

In the same campaign another troop with a part of a pack train marched 104 miles, in a night and a part of the following day.

And in another instance, in the same campaign, a pack train made 90 miles in less than 24 hours, the animals carrying loads of 275 pounds.

II. What may be required of the Pack Mule. 

 115. Under Ordinary Conditions. Under ordinary conditions the pack mule, carrying a load of 250 pounds, will travel from 20 to 25 miles per day, and maintain a rate of speed of 4 ½ to 5 miles per hour.

With occasional days of rest, he may be expected to perform this amount of work steadily, and thi2, too, without the aid of grain or hay.

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What is the Garza Campaign of 1891?

Would it not have made sense to mount Infantry on mules full time, rather than have the repeated failures with horses? Was it that the Army was just too horse-proud to admit that mules would have done a better job?

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 9:08 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Couvi
 

Would it not have made sense to mount Infantry on mules full time, rather than have the repeated failures with horses? Was it that the Army was just too horse-proud to admit that mules would have done a better job?

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I think in part the answer to that question relates to the nature of the "failure", and also to the suitability of the horse to cavalry.

The failures question is actually fairly complicated, and gets back to the earlier items here. Cavalry in the field was doing more than just marching in the advance. It was doing that, but it was also performing the cavalry role of being the eyes of of the army, so it was covering a lot of additionial ground on occasion scouting, etc. Indeed, what's remarkable in a way about Little Big Horn is that Custer actually ran into the Sioux and attacked with cavalry alone, when there was actually quite a bit of infantry committed to the overall campaign. If we look at Little Big Horn that way, we have an example of what might be considered to be a large scouting element encountering the main force of the opposition and attacking, rather than reporting the enemy's postion to their main body (there's lots of problems with this analysis, but it isn't completely off the mark, and serves for the example).

Mule mounted infantry, on the other had, were just using mules to cover ground on the route of march. So they were spared the scouting roles, and the mules were conserving the infantrymen's strength and allowing them to keep up with the cavalry. But here the mules were mere transportation.

With that being the case, the question then become whether or not mules would have been suitable mounts for cavalry. I don't know enough about mules to answer that question, but there seems to be little experimentation with that. There are examples of individual cavalrymen (normally officers) or scouts using mules on Western campaigns, but I'm not aware of any sizable body of cavalry using mules for mounts anywhere. That leads me to wonder if there's something about mules that would have made them unsuitable for the various roles of the cavalrymen, which do not come in to play with mounted infantrymen. Perhaps its was just a matter of gaits when cavalry picked up speed, or perhaps, more likely, mules were difficult to train for mounted combat, or were simply too balky for mounted combat.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:27 pm

This has been an interesting discussion. To add a bit (hopefully) to the conversation, it occurs to me that the discussions of horses "breaking down" omit nearly as much as they include, and may be somewhat deceptive out of context.

To start with, it is clear that horses can cover long distances day after day, without ill effect. Feed, however, is the key to keeping them able to do that. They are a big animal, and with weight on them, they do consume a lot of calories just moving along. They can loose weight on a long ride relatively rapidly.

A lot of the items that note problems with horses breaking down also seem to feature short rations. They are rarely terribly clear, but it seems to be the case that the horses weren't being fed adequately. In the case of the American frontier, horses breaking down seems to be associated with that in "American" Horses, the big horses that came from east of the Miss. The Army found that smaller range horses were much more durable. It's been noted that range horses were bred in the West, but perhaps the most significant thing about them is that they were just smaller and tough, so perhaps they could endure long marches on shorter feed more easily. The British also experienced problems with horses breaking down in the Desert in WWI, and that was certainly associated with short feed and little water. Likewise, Australians experienced problems with their horses brought over from Australian in the Boer War, which was due to the horses getting out of condition on the ship ride over from Australia.

To add to all of that, cavalry in the field likely covers more miles in a march than the statutory mileage of the march may suggest. As a body of cavalry on campaign is constantly scouting, a long march also entails a lot of extra riding for at least some of the command. That's quite a workout for the horses. It's of note here that other people who undertook similar long rides usually didn't try it with just one horse, but cavalrymen did. The traditional number of horses to a man in working stock is seven horses to the man, which is still a benchmark for that work. As noted in the Finerty quote on Indian horses, the Shoshone were using two horses per man when they joined Crook in 1876. And when it could be done, Army officers would do that also. Tompkins notes in Chasing Villa that he had two horses, one Arabian, and something else, on the Punitive Expedition.

In country with good forage, all that might not matter. In country without it, however, it did. It probably wasn't until the 1970s, with the example of the Gray's Scouts, that feed problems of this type were overcome. Roy has discussed that elsewhere on the forum.

As a final addition to my rambling monologue, it’s interesting to note that the “break down” can occur with humans also, and at least in some examples, this illustrates where horses were needed. An interesting example is the German’s 1918 offensive. By that time, the Germans had very little cavalry, and they don’t seem to have used any significant cavalry formations in the offensive. Exploiting the offensive was entirely the role of the infantry, which was soon so fatigues that their officers could not get them to move even when they threatened them with death. If the Germans had still retained cavalry in 1918, their offensive may have been more successful.

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:32 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Couvi
 

What is the Garza Campaign of 1891?

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I'd never heard of it, but apparently it was an uprising against Mexico based in Texas. The Army was sent to keep it from developing into a border war:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onl ... print.html

Pat

Pat Holscher · Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:35 pm

I'm impressed with the distances in the item quoted by Couvi. Likewise, in reading War Path and Bivouac I've been impressed by some of the disances cited. These are long distances. To ride them is really impressive, and they must have been real ordeals for the infantry to walk them.

Pat

throwback · Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:42 pm

as with everything else, mule or horse depends on the mission and the environment, the training and fitness of the riders and the equines.

there are differences between the types, and even more in the states of training and fitness of the men and animals.

it was a real advantage to be able to choose the better mount for the mission.

kearny remounted his escort batallion of dragoons on mules from the quartermaster train before he left santa fe for california. he directed that the horses be returned to ft. leavenworth to recruit their fitness, "horses cannot be of service in this country (new mexico)." the army of the west and its 5000 equines and oxen really put a burden on the available forage and water, first on the santa fe trail, and then, on new mexico-- kearny had warned of it and tried to get as much infantry as he could, but most of the missiouri volunteers that mad up most of the army of the west wanted to RIDE.

it was one of a pair of mules that got lassoed by a californian at san pasqual. he then ran off the mountain howitzer they were hauling. kearny explains much of the tragedy of that battle to the extreme fatigue of his mule, while pico's men were on fresh horses. http://www.militarymuseum.org/SanPasqual.html (well told, great pitchir too)

so, in the case of a horse vs. mule BATTLE most familiar to me, the consensus is that the horses won-- because they were fresh and fit, not because they were horses. (and kearny would have arrived on foot, not mounted, if he had marched with his horses-- the mormon battalion followed his route on foot and did make it, but it was very hard.)

Couvi · Mon Dec 11, 2006 7:56 pm

It is my understanding that most of the horses used by the Army in the West were large “eastern” horses that were kept on good feed and water. Most of the pack mules used were “Spanish” mules and probably closer kin to the Indian ponies than to Missouri mules, who were of the same size, breeding and habits as eastern horses.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"

Pat Holscher · Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:14 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Couvi
 It is my understanding that most of the horses used by the Army in the West were large “eastern” horses that were kept on good feed and water. Most of the pack mules used were “Spanish” mules and probably closer kin to the Indian ponies than to Missouri mules, who were of the same size, breeding and habits as eastern horses.

Couvi

"Cavalier sans Cheval"
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That's very intersting. I had no idea the Mules were from the southewest.

Pat

throwback · Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:54 am

the mules of the army of the west train assembled at ft. leavenworth in the spring of 1846 were purchased locally, mostly missouri and illinois, tho some may have had their origins in mexico-- the back and forth st. louis/westport-santa fe/chihuahua trade had been going on for two decades.

army horses always get a bad rap but as with everything, some were good, others were better. native americans often employed army horses when they got them, if they didn't have to eat them. natives used horses (and mules, which most LOVED if they could get them) differently for raiding and battle, in relays, with minimal loads. captured army horses could and did often adapt to that application quite well.

ig reports for antebellum territorial new mexico do agree that the qm-furnished horses didn't last long in standard cavalry use, but local horses couldn't compete. mansfield condemned all he encountered (and many troops had fleshed themselves out with local animals) in 1851 new mexico.

a big part of the problem was the heavy loads called for in standard usuage-- the horses were often packing about 250+ pounds with a trooper up and field gear and weapons loads. NOBODY else loaded horses that way in the sparse west.

another part of the problem was the way the army had to subsist their animals, mostly on cured hay and grain so they could be located independently of available forage posts were located in part to be by available grasses, but they had short growing seasons or were limited by moisture, AND ranging very far made herds very vulnerable.

mansfield called for two years of conditioning and much lighter loads for horses in the desert southwest.

kearny's horses were run down from the incredible load the army of the west's animals put on the very limited local forage-- mules did better, but even they could be worked and starved to death or almost.

(once again i would point out that use of carried forage did generally give mounted european-americans an advantage in winter, when native mobility was much reduced and local browse beat down-- hence all the winter campaign sucess before and after the civil war.)

Pat Holscher · Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:39 pm

Bump.