Horses suffered not only from artillery fire but also from the fire of advancing infantry. The capture of a piece of artillery was a great exploit, bringing with it honor and recognition. Confederate regiments in the Western theater were allowed to place crossed cannons on their regimental battle flags after they had taken a Federal gun.

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One tactic used in attacking a battery was to shoot down the horses attached to it. If the battery horses were killed or disabled, moving the guns back to safety was an impossible task. But horses could take much punishment. They were difficult to bring down, and once down were difficult to keep down, even with the impact of the large-caliber Minie bullets.

At Ream’s Station in August 1864, the 10th Massachusetts Battery fought from behind a low makeshift barricade, with its horses fully exposed only a few yards behind the guns. The battery was fighting with five guns, and in a short time the five teams of six horses came under fire. Within minutes only two of the 30 animals were still standing, and these all bore wounds. One horse was shot seven times before it went down. Other horses were hit, went down, and struggled back up, only to be hit again. The average number of wounds suffered by each horse was five. The Confederates were firing from a cornfield approximately 300 yards away.

By far the greatest number of horses were lost to disease and exhaustion. Again referring to the 10th Massachusetts Battery, reports reveal a dismal trail of horses dying from disease or being put to death because of exhaustion. Between October 18, 1862, when its service began, and April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered, the battery lost a total of 157 horses from causes other than combat. Of these, 112 died from disease. The most prevalent disease in the battery was glanders, which claimed 45 horses. Glanders, a highly contagious disease that affects the skin, nasal passages and respiratory tract of horses and mules, was also called farcy or nasal gleet in wartime reports.

Forty-five of the battery’s horses were lost to fatigue when they simply became worn out and unable to work, and so were put to death. The losses to exhaustion can be keyed to specific events. In June 1864, 13 battery horses were lost to exhaustion, reflecting the crushing pace of Grant’s advance after leaving the Wilderness. In the days after the fall of Richmond, 14 horses went down as a result of the hard pursuit of Lee’s retreating army. Even when the surrender came, the killing chase continued to take its toll, with an additional 22 horses being put to death due to exhaustion between April 10 and April 15.

The horses were worked hard and long, but it had to be so. A battery racing to catch up with a retreating enemy or to gain a position of advantage had no room for gentle treatment. The stakes were high, and the horses paid the price. The alternative might be defeat. A man on a long, hot march, pushed beyond what his body could bear, might drop out temporarily and catch up with his company later. Horses had no such choice. Harnessed to the limbers, they pulled until they fell or, as happened in most instances, until they harmed their bodies beyond healing, and then were shot.

Mud or dust seemed to plague every movement of troops. Of the two, mud was the greater problem for the artillery. Dust created great discomfort, but little more. While an artilleryman might find it difficult to breathe and intolerably itchy in the suffocating dust, the guns and caissons could still be moved. Mud, on the other hand, often made movement impossible. Sinking below their axles in holes full of clinging muck, guns and caissons could be moved only with superhuman effort, the men pushing at the wheels and extra horses pulling on the traces. Sometimes guns were simply abandoned to the mud.

A battery moved at the same speed and covered the same distance as did the troops to which it was attached. This distance could be anywhere from a few miles to 20 or 30 miles a day. When a battery moved independently, it was not limited by the movement of the troops and was thus free to cover as much ground as it could. All in all, there was not a great deal of difference in the distance traveled. Such gains as there were resulted from the absence of thousands of marching infantrymen, supply trains and other units cluttering up the roads. The battery was then able to travel without long delays due to the inevitable traffic jams caused by jostling troops.

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