The Unlikely Great Civil War Cavalry Commander Who Hated Horses
Benjamin Grierson was one of the Civil War’s most effective cavalry commanders. Few could have predicted that he would have such success commanding horsemen, seeing as how he hated horses. On April 17th, 1863, Union Colonel Benjamin Grierson led a cavalry brigade of 1700 horsemen out of La Grange, Tennessee. He took them southward to plunge deep into Mississippi, in a raid that would traverse the length of that state, and reemerge at the other side and the safety of Union lines in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. En route, the raiders discomfited the enemy and disrupted his communications. They tore up railroad tracks, destroyed bridges, wrecked Confederate installations and facilities, and otherwise wrought havoc and sowed confusion throughout Mississippi.
The raid sought to inflict significant damage, both physical and to the enemy’s morale. It was also intended to be the opening salvo of the Vicksburg Campaign, and act as a diversion from General Ulysses S. Grant’s planned attack against Vicksburg, Mississippi. Until then, Confederate cavalry had been markedly superior to that of the Union, literally riding circles around them. Thus, an additional motive was to demonstrate what federal horsemen could do with a daring exploit of their own to match the headline-grabbing ones of Confederate cavalrymen like J.E.B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.
