Shawn, thats a good, informative post. When I first started researching the war in Arkansas, specifically the roll of my ancestors cavalry regiment, I was suprised at what I found in the old reports & records. The commanders constantly reported their mounts as stove up, needing shod, lacking forage. At first I had a hard time understanding this. In this day & age we live by the auto, nobody rides horseback as a way of life, like our ancestors used to. Even the regiments in the more easily supplied posts of Devalls Bluff, Brownsville, or Little Rock dealt constantly with a lack of forage & shoes for their animals. A week or so in the field would wear down the underfed horses so that they would be innefective for days afterward. It was a fact that a quarter to half of the men would be dismounted at any given time. And as I said, this was at the more easily supplied posts.