rings lightly, compared with
those of their horses. Long forage (oats, fodder, etc.) could not be
procured at all; and corn had to be hauled a distance of over thirty
miles, from a region whence other cavalry commands were also drawing
supplies of forage, or else it could only be gotten from Tullahoma out
of the forage stored there for army consumption. Consequently, corn was
rare at that time at Woodbury; two or three ears per day to each horse
was the usual issue. Upon some days none was issued. Every blade of
grass in the vicinity of the camp was eaten, and the trees were barked
by the poor animals as high as they could reach.

The men stood picket on foot; all of the stock was rendered utterly
unserviceable, and one fourth of it died. By such usage (necessary,
however,) this regiment was made unfit for active and efficient service
for months, and its discipline and morale were seriously, although only
temporarily, impaired. More than half--at any rate, a large proportion
of the cavalry of General Bragg's army were suffering, at that time,
precisely as this regiment was. In this condition of things is to be
found the explanation of the apparent degeneracy of the Confederate
cavalry, in the latter part of the war.

Another fact, too, should not be lost sight of. In common with every
other arm of the service, our cavalry became very greatly reduced in
numbers as the war wore on. We could not fill up our regiments as easily
as the Federals could fill their wasted organizations. Those who wonder
why well known Confederate regiments, brigades, and divisions did not
accomplish as much in the latter as in the early part of the war, do not
know, or do not reflect, that it was because they were reduced to a
fourth or a fifth of their original strength. This, however, was not the
case at the period of which I write. It was, too, in the summer of 1863
that serious doubt of the successful establishment of Southern
independence began to gain ground among the masses of the Southern
people; and a lukewarmness first, and next a feeling almost of
disaffection to the Confederate Government and cause widely prevailed.
This indifference was very unlike the strange absence of anxiety and
solicitude about the result of the war, which characterized its early
stages. The latter feeling proceeded from a blind and overweening
confidence, and those who entertained it were not the less intensely
patriotic and devoted to the cause. Nor was this