gained by cavalry in modern warfare. They
illustrate, first, the importance of concentrating that arm in compact
masses under one competent commander, and in operations of the first
importance; second, the tremendous advantage of celerity of movement,
especially in modern warfare, where improved firearms play such a decisive
part; third, that the chief use of horses, notwithstanding that they may
in exceptional cases add to the shock of the charge, is to transport
fighting men rapidly to the vital point of a battlefield, and especially
to the flank and rear of the enemy's position, or deeply into the interior
of the enemy's country against his lines of supply and communication, and
also his arsenals, armories, and factories; fourth, that the best infantry
armed with the best magazine carbines or rifles make the best mounted
troops, irrespective of whether they be called cavalry, dragoons, or
mounted infantry.

When the fact is recalled that the seven divisions of this corps at the
close of the war mustered about 35,000 men for duty with the colors, and
that had the war lasted sixty days longer they could, and probably would,
have been concentrated in Virginia, it will be seen to what a high degree
of perfection the organization had been brought, and that it fully
justified Sherman's declaration that it was by far the largest, most
efficient, and most powerful body of horse that had ever come under his
command. But when the captures of the strongly fortified towns of Selma,
West Point, and Columbus are considered, with all the romantic incidents
of night fighting, together with the surrender of the no less strongly
fortified cities and towns of Montgomery, Macon, and West Point, carrying
with them the destruction of the last and only remaining arsenals,
armories, factories, storehouses, and military munitions and supplies, and
also the destruction of the railways connecting those places with their
bridges and rolling stock, it will be seen that Johnston and his generals
had nothing else left them but to lay down their arms and surrender. It
was no longer possible for them to concentrate an army, or to supply it
with food, or to keep it armed and equipped. With those places and the
manufacturing plants which they contained still in their possession, and
with the railways connecting them still unbroken, they might have
collected together in the Carolinas a force amply able to cope with
Sherman, and possibly to overwhelm hi