hen Richmond fell, "We thought no more of
riding through the enemy's bivouacs than of riding round our fathers'
farms." So congenial were the duties of the cavalry, so attractive
the life and the associations, that it was no rare thing for a
Virginia gentleman to resign a commission in another arm in order to
join his friends and kinsmen as a private in Ashby's ranks. And so
before the war had been in progress for many months the fame of the
Virginia cavalry rivalled that of their Revolutionary forbears under
Light-Horse Harry, the friend of Washington and the father of Lee.

But if the raw material of Jackson's army was all that could be
desired, no less so was the material of the force opposed to him. The
regiments of Banks' army corps were recruited as a rule in the
Western States; Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia furnished the
majority. They too were hunters and farmers, accustomed to firearms,
and skilled in woodcraft. No hardier infantry marched beneath the
Stars and Stripes; the artillery, armed with a proportion of rifled
guns, was more efficient than that of the Confederates; and in
cavalry alone were the Federals overmatched. In numbers the latter
were far superior to Ashby's squadrons; in everything else they were
immeasurably inferior. Throughout the North horsemanship was
practically an unknown art. The gentlemen of New England had not
inherited the love of their Ironside ancestors for the saddle and the
chase. Even in the forests of the West men travelled by waggon and
hunted on foot. "As cavalry," says one of Banks' brigadiers, "Ashby's
men were greatly superior to ours. In reply to some orders I had
given, my cavalry commander replied, "I can't catch them, sir; they
leap fences and walls like deer; neither our men nor our horses are
so trained.""* (* Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain, General G.H. Gordon
page 136.)

It was easy enough to fill the ranks of the Northern squadrons. Men
volunteered freely for what they deemed the more dashing branch of
the service, ignorant that its duties were far harder both to learn
and to execute than those of the other arms, and expecting, says a
Federal officer, that the regiment would be accompanied by an
itinerant livery stable! Both horses and men were recruited without
the slightest reference to their fitness for cavalry work. No man was
rejected, no matter what his size or weight, no matter whether he had
ever had anything to do with horseflesh or not, and consequent