[FAMOUS CAVALRY CHARGES.]
AT BEVERLY FORD.
BY RICHARD BARRY.
It is a fact that has been noted by many historians, in writing of the actions in the civil war, that the sabre wounds that were reported at the hospital were few and far between. This is easily accounted for in the first two years of the war, for the reason that the Confederates, from whom the Union forces learned the severest kind of lessons, used their cavalry forces as dragoons, or mounted infantry. The celerity with which they moved bodies on horseback from one point to another caused consternation throughout the North. General McClellan, who had been, it must be confessed, not very much impressed with the need of a cavalry force, at last declared himself as almost helpless without this assistance; and from this time on this branch of the service received the attention so long denied it.
Although the Confederates could rightly point with pride to their well-organized cavalry divisions, there can be no record prouder than that of the First Cavalry Division, known as Buford's Cavalry. To quote from the writings of Brigadier-General Wesley Merritt, "Its history shows that from the time of its organization until the end of the war it captured more men, horses, guns, and munitions than would equip it twice over, and yet that during this time it never suffered a surprise, never lost a wheel captured by the enemy, and never met the enemy but to defeat it."
From the very day of the new organization that took place under General Hooker the cavalry force of the Army of the Potomac began to live and move, and the contempt that the victorious Southern horsemen held for the riders of the North slowly diminished, until in its place was the respect born of fear.
The Richmond Examiner, one of the strongest journals of the Confederacy, thus speaks of the new order of things that began to exist. This extract is taken from that issue which speaks of the great cavalry fight at Beverly Ford:
"If the war was a tournament, invented and supported for the pleasure and profit of a few vain and weak-headed officers, these disasters might be dismissed with compassion; but the country pays dearly for the blunders which encourage the enemy to overrun and devastate the land with a cavalry which is daily learning to despise the mounted troops of the Confederacy. It is high time that this branch of the service should be reformed.
"The surprise of this occasion was the most complete that has occurred. The Confederate cavalry was carelessly strewn over the country, with the Rappahannock only between it and an enemy who has always proven his enterprise to our cost. It is said that its camp was supposed to be secure, because the Rappahannock was not supposed to be fordable at the point where it was actually forded. What? Do Yankees, then, know more about this river than our own soldiers, who have done nothing but ride up and down its banks for the last six months?