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TheRemount Program
by Andrew Hanna
Aside from the soldiers themselves, In the past, the U.S. Army had relied on First, and perhaps most importantly,
regional purchasing boards that supplied horses to regiments that needed them. Because these agencies were usually poorly organized and underequipped, they were quickly overwhelmed by the soaring demand for warhorses. Purchasing boards were also often plagued by corruption. Worst of all, even when these unreliable organizations
did manage to buy mounts for their soldiers, many of the horses they procured were unfit for military service. Considering that the typical six-gun battery used 120 horses (and each calvary regiment required ten times that number), the Union Army needed to quickly fix this deficiency.
In 1863, the U.S. Quartermaster Corps responded by creating the Cavalry Bureau, the precursor to the Army Remount Service. It was initially unsuccessful.
“There were many reasons why the new bureau, set afoot...with the best motives and on the basis of flawless reasoning in the abstract, failed to bring about the reform expected of it,” Civil War historian Stephan Z. Starr noted.
horses have historically been the
most important participants in war. As early as 4,000 B.C., raiders on horseback launched surprise attacks on settlements
in Eastern Europe. About a thousand years later, warring Sumerian city states began using horse drawn chariots.
Horses quickly revolutionized warfare. Besides bringing soldiers into battle, they carried messengers and helped transport supplies, and later artillery. Unfortunately, because of the time and money required to care for them, warhorses presented a significant logistical problem. “Acquiring, feeding and caring for these animals,” the National Park Service explains, “was a massive, but necessary undertaking.”
After the outbreak of the Civil War, Union Army officials became acutely aware of this challenge. Unlike the Confederate forces,
who mandated that every soldier provide his own horse, the Union had promised to give each of their troopers a mount. Their pledge worked better in theory than in practice.
the organization lacked strong leadership. During its 8.5-month existence, the Calvary Bureau had four directors. Of these, at
least two apparently had little experience in the area. Its most effective director, James H. Wilson, only accepted the post under
the condition that he be rewarded with a coveted field command after 60 days. The agency was further hampered by the fact that it had to balance between “too many vested interests.” Besides being subordinate to the Quartermaster Corps, the Cavalry Bureau was subject to interference from the Ordnance Bureau (responsible for supplying armies with weaponry and ammunition), field commanders, and even the governors of the states in which it operated. Without any semblance of a hierarchy, the organization struggled to support the regiments it was supposed to supply.
The Calvary Bureau was also unable to establish consistent buying practices. While some officials tried to mandate that every horse be thoroughly examined before being
Besides transporting soldiers, Raiders on horseback later began using horse drawn chariots as part of horses carried supplies and
their war efforts on neighboring settlements. artillery into battle.
The Cavalry Bureau was established in 1863, but only lasted 8 1/2-months. The Bureau, however, established two remount depots which set a precedent for future remount programs.
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