GDG- A horse is a horse, or course...

[Richard M Kadas]

Hi Doug,
  I think you're right that most of the cavalry mounts were geldings. It still would be good history to see if the records of the AoP remount facility at Giesboro (near washington) were checked. It handled 170,622 horses in 1864 If not using the cavalry records from the Army after the ACW should show similar selection patter. I think that some general officers like Grant and Sheridan who were exceptional horsemen may have used stallions as their personal mounts because of their stamina and atthletic ability. Great idea about checking statues, but didn't Mollus only preserve Old Baldy's head?
  Dick

"Gitt, Doug" <dgitt at state.pa.us> wrote:
  Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:


Even though I am not a horse person, that makes sense. By elimination, it would seem that most of the horses would have been geldings; mares kept back for breeding and stallions being "all show". Should we check the sex of the horses on the monuments? :-)

Doug


From: Richard M Kadas 

One must suspect that most didn't want stallions who become virtually unmanagable in the presence of a mare in heat.
Dick

"Gitt, Doug" wrote:
Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:


A weird question popped into my mind this morning. For their horses, did the ACW armies prefer mares, stallions, geldings or all of the above? I suspect the horse breeders may have kept most mares for breeding. Did they prefer geldings over stallions? 

Doug

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