l Meade not a
little. I knew that it would be difficult to overcome the recognized
custom of using the cavalry for the protection of trains and the
establishment of cordons around the infantry corps, and so far
subordinating its operations to the movements of the main army that
in name only was it a corps at all, but still I thought it my duty to
try.

At first General Meade would hardly listen to my proposition, for he
was filled with the prejudices that, from the beginning of the war,
had pervaded the army regarding the importance and usefulness of
cavalry, General Scott then predicting that the contest would be
settled by artillery, and thereafter refusing the services of
regiment after regiment of mounted troops. General Meade deemed
cavalry fit for little more than guard and picket duty, and wanted to
know what would protect the transportation trains and artillery
reserve, cover the front of moving infantry columns, and secure his
flanks from intrusion, if my policy were pursued. I told him that if
he would let me use the cavalry as I contemplated, he need have
little solicitude in these respects, for, with a mass of ten thousand
mounted men, it was my belief that I could make it so lively for the
enemy's cavalry that, so far as attacks from it were concerned, the
flanks and rear of the Army of the Potomac would require little or no
defense, and claimed, further, that moving columns of infantry should
take care of their own fronts. I also told him that it was my object
to defeat the enemy's cavalry in a general combat, if possible, and
by such a result establish a feeling of confidence in my own troops
that would enable us after awhile to march where we pleased, for the
purpose of breaking General Lee's communications and destroying the
resources from which his army was supplied.

The idea as here outlined was contrary to Meade's convictions, for
though at different times since he commanded the Army of the Potomac
considerable bodies of the cavalry had been massed for some special
occasion, yet he had never agreed to the plan as a permanency, and
could not be bent to it now. He gave little encouragement,
therefore, to what I proposed, yet the conversation was immediately
beneficial in one way, for when I laid before him the true condition
of the cavalry, he promptly relieved it from much of the arduous and
harassing picket service it was performing, thus giving me about two
weeks in which to nurse the horse