War Horses – the Engines of Battle
Revolutions, Retreats and Civil War
1776: By the time of the American Revolution, gun carriages are part of every well-outfitted armory.
1812: Napoleon’s army retreats from Moscow. 30,000 horses starve or freeze to death. Meanwhile, the British are fighting the Peninsular War, during which horses are found frozen to death like statues, with their dead riders still in the saddle. Horses who survive the horror of the retreat stagger into Corunna only to be shot by soldiers when there’s no room for them on the boats.
A model horse and painted troops at the Waterloo Panorama in Waterloo, Belgium.
1815: Battle of Waterloo.Another horse massacre. British Army Captain Mercer writes in his diary:
“Some lay on the ground with entrails hanging out. One poor animal … had lost both his hind legs, and there he sat the night long on his tail, looking about as if in expectation of coming aid, sending forth from time to time long and protracted melancholy neighing.”
Benson’s Battery – Horses in the American Civil War
1865: The American Civil War. As the fighting draws to a close, 600,000 people are dead and the South is declared the loser. But the real losers are the horses: more than a million horses and mules have been killed in the war – a clear victory of humans over horses.
1903: The Royal Army Veterinary Corps is founded in the U.K. to care for horses wounded in war.
Next: The Wars to End all Wars