es per minute--

At a walk, from 110 yards to 120
At a trot, 220 240
At a gallop, 330 360

But on a march over the ordinary average of good and bad roads, cavalry
will walk about one hundred yards per minute, and at an easy trot, two
hundred.

An ordinary day's march for cavalry is about thirty miles, but on a
forced march this arm can march fifty miles within the twenty-four
hours. A single horseman, or a small detachment, can easily exceed this
distance.

"Light cavalry," says Napoleon, in his Memoirs, "ought to reconnoitre
and watch the motions of the enemy, considerably in advance of the army;
it is not an appendage to the infantry: it should be sustained and
protected especially by the cavalry of the line. Rivalry and emulation
have always existed between the infantry and cavalry: light cavalry is
indispensable to the vanguard, the rearguard, and the wings of the army;
it, therefore, cannot properly be attached to, and forced to follow the
movements of any particular corps of infantry. It would be more natural
to attach it to the cavalry of the line, than to leave it in dependence
upon the infantry, with which it has no connection; but it should be
independent of both."

"If the light cavalry is to form vanguards, it must be organized into
squadrons, brigades, and divisions, for the purpose of manoeuvring; for
that is all vanguards and rearguards do: they pursue or retreat by
platoons, form themselves into several lines, or wheel into column, or
change their position with rapidity for the purpose of outfronting a
whole wing. By a combination of such evolutions, a vanguard, of inferior
numbers, avoids brisk actions and general engagements, and yet delays
the enemy long enough to give time for the main army to come up, for the
infantry to deploy, for the general-in-chief to make his dispositions,
and for the baggage and parks to file into their stations. The art of a
general of the vanguard, or of the rear-guard, is, without hazarding a
defeat, to hold the enemy in check, to impede him, to compel him to
spend three or four hours in moving a single league: tactics point out
the methods of effecting these important objects, and are more necessary
for cavalry than for infantry, and in the vanguard, or the rear-guard,
than in any other position. The Hungarian Insurgents, whom we saw in
1797, 1805, and 1809, were pitiful troops. If the light t