MERRILL : Spurs to glory (fülszöveg)
THE United States Cavalry was born of necessity, to protect the settlers in their march across the continent. When possible, cavalry met the Indian in peace. As often they met in war; in countless skirmishes from the Florida swamplands to the western desert; in hand-to-hand combat and breathtaking mounted charge.
Indians were not the only enemy. 1846 saw the cavalry on foreign soil. New Mexico was captured. California was next. The young nation gained a south-western empire. The cavalry had created a two-ocean nation. But its greatest role was still ahead.
Civil War found the Northern cavalry almost totally unprepared. While the South called up large units of expert horsemen, the North called up raw recruits. But it trained them well. Soon they were raiding with Grierson in Mississippi, with Custer and Davis in Virginia, with Sheridan to the very gates of Richmond. The cavalry was proving its worth in the last war in which it was to play a major part.
Peace between the North and South came in 1865, and it was time now to weld the states into one strong nation. The cavalry was again called upon to protect the frontiers. From the Canadian border to Mexico, from the Missouri River to the Pacific, the Indian staged his last great uprising. Incredibly tough, he could not be defeated by Civil War tactics as was discovered, sometimes too late, by General Custer among others. One of the most frustrating and difficult expeditions undertaken by the cavalry was the hunt, throughout the Southwest and Mexico, for Geronimo and his band of outlaw Apaches. But by 1890 the West was at peace. The cavalry had won. Now only two tasks remained.
Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, General Pershing and the search for Pancho Villa—the final battles were fought. The job of the cavalry was done. The long ride to glory was ended.
The horse cavalry lived for just onehundred-and-ten years. It fought our battles; then progress, in the form of the tank, airplane, and new weapons, passed it by. SPURS TO GLORY is the story of those years. The pride of the Army. The pride of the nation.
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| KATALÓGUS | TARTALOM |
