Publisher's Synopsis
In this first of a two-volume survey of the Union and Confederate cavalries, primary sources abound. Historian Edward G. Longacre has consulted 50 manuscript collections pertaining to general officers of cavalry as well as the unpublished letters and diaries of 200 officers and enlisted men, representing almost every mounted unit in the Army of the Potomac. Well known for interrogating "conventional wisdom," he also contributes some provocative analyses regarding the mounted army's organisation, leadership, and tactics. This is an exhaustive study that no Civil War enthusiast will want to miss.