What was a typical life a a civil war horse?
I have a history project of the civil war and my topic is ‘horses in the Civil War’. Does anyone know what kind of training, diet and life they had. I’ve been looking it uo online, but can’t find a lot of information.
Thank you 
Both sides had to make extensive use of horses, and the war was hard on them. All officers were entitled to ride (even in the infantry), all cavalry, all field artillery was horse-drawn, and both sides had to use all the wagons they could find to haul supplies.
Maybe the worst was artillery service. If a battery of artillery was about to be overrun, they would call to bring the horses up and “limber up” and try to get away. The opposing soldiers would try to shoot the horses to prevent the cannon from escaping them.
Horse issues were frequently crucial for the Confederacy. Late in the war they were having a very hard time feeding anything, man or beast. Confederate forces frequently could not move because they did not have enough horses, or feed for the ones they did have, or wagons to haul supplies.
During the winter of 1862-63 Longstreet’s entire Corps of Lee’s army had to winter in southeastern Virginia, just to obtain forage for the horses. These veteran troops were absent when the spring campaigning season opened and the first battle could easily have been a disaster for the Confederates.
All Civil War campaigns had to be conducted within a relatively short distance from a railroad or a navigable waterway. As the armies moved away from those supply routes, all supplies had to be moved by wagon, and after a certain distance the horses pulling the wagon would have to eat its entire cargo. The alternative was cutting loose from your supply lines and “living off the land”, “foraging liberally”, meaning the MOVING army had to rob all the farmers along the way of horses and foodstuffs. If the army remained stationary for even a day or two it would quickly “eat out the country” for miles around. This was what Sherman was doing during his march from Atlanta to the Sea.
Union cavalry troopers rode government horses. Cavalry horses need a lot of training. Confederate cavalrymen rode their own personal horses (as did officers of both sides, in all branches). If a Union trooper lost his mount, he would be issued another one. If a Confederate trooper lost his, he was in danger of being sent to the infantry unless he could get another one. The efficiency of Confederate cavalry was more than once affected by the number of men absent on “horse leave” – those who had been given leave to travel all the way back home to obtain a new mount. Few farmers were able to keep their horse if the armies were anywhere near, and it was next to impossible to obtain a horse near where the fighting was.
One of the prime Confederate aims during the Gettysburg campaign was to “impress” all the Pennsylvania farm horses they could get their hands on, always being certain to give an impeccable receipt to the irate farmers. The government was busy for years after the war entertaining claims for the payment for these horses taken.
The Confederacy’s best source of both horses and beef was the Trans-Mississippi – the Confederacy west of the Mississippi. After Vicksburg fell, this source was mostly inaccessible, contributing to the shortage.
There were some very famous warhorses. General Lee’s Traveler was probably the best known. Lee had bought him late in 1861 when he was on a campaign in West Virginia, and changed his name from “Jeff Davis”. There was a photograph of Lee astride Traveler which adorned many southern walls long after the war. During Lee’s last years, when he was President of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) he used to love to ride him about the countryside. Traveler survived Lee and is buried behind the Chapel at Washington and Lee University, while Lee is entombed inside. Other famous warhorses included Phil Sheridan’s Rienzi and Stonewall Jackson’s Little Sorrel.
I have an ancestor who was colonel commanding a regiment of North Carolina infantry. Among the papers in the National Archives in his file is a receipt where he sold a horse to the artillery, for $300 (Confederate), probably because it was more of a draft animal than a saddle horse. There were five regiments in his brigade, and two of them were Texas Cavalry (dismounted), meaning they had enlisted to be cavalrymen, but had to fight as infantry because they could not get enough horses. There were a large number of dismounted Confederate cavalrymen who had to fight on foot.
Most infantrymen had little respect for the cavalry, whom they sometimes called “buttermilk rangers”, out of jealousy for the mounted man’s ability to get around and find himself something good to eat. “Who ever saw a dead cavalryman”. In reality the cavalry did very valuable service, keeping the general informed what the enemy was doing, protecting the flanks of the army, and screening the moving army so that they were not attacked on the march and keeping the enemy in the dark about where they were going.
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