Joe Nation wrote:Me too, but a comparison of horses to humans on Memorial Day Weekend, please. In a few hours I will be trading a few emails with some Viet Nam era GIs, shall I ask them what they think about the comparison?
Set, what do you think about the contention that Union soldiers did not fire at horses?
Joe(I think my nerves are as raw as the meat in a butcher's window)Nation
I know of few examples of cavalry charging infantry in that war in which it were not a case of the infantry scattering. Only a very few cavalry charges took place. The only notable example if know of in which infantry resisted a cavalry charge was during the battle of Stones River/Murphreesboro, when George Thomas' field police, the 11th Indiana Volunteers, formed "repel cavalry" and stopped the attack of Joe Wheeler's cavalry, which threatened to take Rosecrans' army in rear, and scatter them. On most occassions, cavalry dimounted and fought on foot, even when fighting one another.
The Poles certainly used cavalry against the Germans, and the Russians may well have done the same. You'll note that i referred to the Canadians in Moreuil Wood as conducting the last
successful cavalry charge in history.
If you wish to persist in the dull-witted judeo-christian superiority complex with regard to animals, you just help yourself, but don't try to come all over with me with moral self-righteousness. The human race can likely never repay dogs and horses for all they've done for us; were i confronted with saving the life of a man and that of a dog, i'd be hard pressed to decide. You tell your buddies just whatever the hell you want, and you tell them that a veteran who served from 1970 to 1973 said as much.
