"Those Damn Horse Soldiers": True Tales of the Civil War Cavalry

By George Walsh
Endnotes, index, 477 pp., 2006. Forge, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010, $27.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Michael Russert
Michael Russert, a member of the North Shore Round Table of Long Island and the Company of Military Historians, has a MALS plus 60 hours in American Studies. He is Coordinator of The New York State Veteran Oral History Program.

Review:
Trained as a journalist, Walsh writes with a flair for detail and he narrates a tale told well in a fast-moving style. "Those Damn Horse Soldiers" is delivered in a chronological format beginning with cavalry actions in 1862 and concluding with the cessation of hostilities in the spring of 1865.

Each year is divided into a series of chapters, each focusing on raids or battles of the Eastern and Western theaters during that particular year. No space is devoted to any of the horse actions of the Trans-Mississippi arena.

Walsh combines his fast-paced narrative with character studies along with selected first-hand anecdotes. The cast of protagonists ranges from Stuart, Forrest, Hampton, Wheeler, Morgan, Sheridan, Custer and Kilpatrick, to Mosby, Buford, Wilson and Grierson.

Each chapter combines a narrative of the action along with a character study of the main personality involved. The majority of the actions focus on the Confederate raiders, and Judson Kilpatrick certainly emerges as not being one of the author's favorites.

In his Prologue the author provides some reflections on why the Southerners were superior cavalrymen early in the war and how attrition and superior weapon development eventually resulted in Union victory.

Although Walsh never states his purpose obviously, "Those Damn Horse Soldiers" is more of a popular history aimed for the general reader rather than someone more widely read in Civil War genre.

For the novice, this book would be a fine introduction to Civil War cavalry actions. A more serious student of the Civil War, however, will discover there are some major flaws. Primarily, there is little substance to the chapters, each being a mere overview with little or no analysis.

Each chapter is further weakened by a lack of maps. This is a book about battles and campaigns; in fact, 45 different actions are chronicled. Yet, there is not a single map in the entire book.

Although there are endnotes, there is no bibliography, and when readers examine the endnotes, they will realize that the author relied on secondary sources or well-known previously published primary material.

It should also be noted that the author failed to use recent research, especially by cavalry historians Eric Wittenberg and Horace Mewborn. Many of the works cited by Walsh are older secondary works that have been superseded by more up-to-date scholarship.

"Those Damn Horse Soldiers" is a good read as an overview and introduction to cavalry actions during the Civil War. It should be reiterated that this is a well-written introductory study for the novice.

If a reader is seeking depth, analysis and new insights into cavalry leaders and their raids and battles, they need to look elsewhere. Even a general reader will, however, find the lack of maps frustrating. This book certainly fails to live up to the dust-jacket pronouncement as "A masterful work’Ķ"