nder most
important service in completing the destruction of beaten corps, or
compelling their surrender, and so enable us to secure the great
strategic objects of the campaign. Thus, after the battle of Waterloo,
it was the Prussian cavalry that completed the dispersion of the French
army, and prevented it from rallying. And, but for Napoleon's ill
fortune in respect to Grouchy, in that battle, he would, to all
appearance, have succeeded in accomplishing his plan of campaign, which
was, to separate the English from the Prussians, beat them in detail,
and complete their destruction with his twenty thousand cavalry.

2. The battles of the late War of the Rebellion, the earlier ones, at
least, were mostly indecisive. One chief cause of this was, that neither
side had a sufficient force of true cavalry to enable it to complete a
victory, to turn a defeat into a rout, and drive the enemy effectually
from the field. The cavalry charges were generally such as mounted
infantry could have just as well made; charges in which the pistol and
carbine played the principal part, instead of the spur and sabre. It was
not until the fight at Brandy Station, in June, 1863, that sabres were
used, to any extent, at close quarters. Thus, neither of the contending
armies was able to break up and disperse, destroy, or capture its
enemy's infantry masses, in the manner practised in Napoleon's great
wars, not having, to any considerable extent, that description of force
called Cavalry of the Line, which alone is capable of effecting these
results by its solid and compact formations, its skilful, yet rapid
manoeuvring, and its crashing charges.

3. European cavalry of the line is divided into Heavy and Light. Heavy
cavalry is heavily armed; that is, their weapons are larger and heavier
than those of light cavalry, and to these weapons, carbines, in most of
the corps, are added. Some of the corps wear steel or brass cuirasses;
and the men and horses are of the largest size.

In Light cavalry, the only weapons are the sabre and pistol; and the men
and horses are light and active, rather than strong and large.

Lancers are considered a medium between Heavy and Light cavalry.

4. Great as may be the advantages of a large force of regular cavalry of
the line, there were serious objections to its being raised at the
opening of the late war.

(1.) The theatre of war presented nowhere any of those wide and level
plains so common in Europe, and on