For Writers and Worldbuilders: On Warhorses

Basic Introduction

Horses have been used as an instrument of war since the dawn of their domestication. Their speed, strength, endurance, and versatility made them valuable assets of any land-based military campaign.

This guide will help you understand how to write about the warhorse as both a sentient animal, as cavalry unit acting in a strategic capacity for your setting, and as an economic consideration.

Note: This guide does not cover chariots.

This is a long guide, so here’s the Quick Skim Table:

Basic Terminology

Light Cavalry: The rider wore little to no armor. Designed to be swift and agile. Participated in ambush, harassment or pursuit of the enemy, lightning raids, foraging and reconnaissance, skirmishes, and other tasks where swift movement and maneuverability was essential. Weapons varied across time and geography: they could carry melee weapons such as swords or light lances, or they could carry bows and crossbows (which were later upgraded to mounted gunners and pistoliers.)

Heavy Cavalry: The mounted knight and lancer. The rider was always heavily armed. Early heavy cavalry horses were either unarmored or lightly armored. Heavily-armored horses did not appear until around the 14th century, reached their peak in the 15th century, and were in sharp decline by the 16th century.

Light Infantry: Unmounted, lightly armored. Archers, javelineers, gunners, pistoliers– they dealt in weapons that dealt out death at a distance.

Heavy Infantry: Unmounted, heavily armored. Equipped with pikes, spears, swords.

Mounted Archers: Mounted archers, arquebusiers, pistoliers. Typically light cavalry, but there are rare and noteworthy occasions where bows were provided to heavy cavalry (Byzantine Empire, post-Justinian). Mounted French pistoliers in the first half of the 16th century were heavy cavalry.

Charger: A type of warhorse used for charging. Refers to Destriers and Coursers collectively.

Knights: I feel the need to define this because the term itself can be confusing. Some interpretation of “knights” can refer to a man-at-arms who acts as part of a heavy cavalry unit, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s attained an Order of Knighthood. Then you have the Knights who do have an Order of Knighthood. Historians will sometimes refer to heavy-arms lancers from Classical Greece as knights as well. For the sake of simplicity, when I say “knight”, I say a person who has attained an Order of Knighthood.

Hands: Unit of measurement for horses, from ground to shoulder. One hand = 4 inches (or 10.16cm). Whether you use metric or imperial, “hands” is how horses are measured. It usually reads as something like “15hh” or “fifteen hands high” (15hh = 5 feet = 1.42m)

The Make of the Horse

Most of us imagine the warhorse as a large animal of great stature. Tall, muscular, handsome and powerfully built, capable of carrying a fully armored man into battle.

Throughout most of history and across the globe, the warhorse was usually a small, stout little animal that barely exceeded 14hh.

What?

Conventional wisdom tells us a larger animal can carry more weight. Longer legs cover more ground. Greater mass allows for greater force.

Then why was the typical warhorse so physically unimpressive?

The truth of the matter is that most warhorses were used in light cavalry, and even the smaller warhorse was used in early iterations of heavy cavalry.

Heavy cavalry, where it appeared, was almost always a minority within the larger cavalry body. It was usually represented by an elite “warrior class”: the privileged and wealthy. These were men who could afford fine horses and heavy armor. They were typically lancers.

Heavy cavalry as we most often envision it– heavily armored knights on large horses– didn’t appear in Europe until after the time of Charlemagne (though various forms of heavily-armored lancers did appear earlier, in the Mediterranean and parts of Asia). Central Europe was experiencing a wave of invasions from all directions: Vikings in the north, Magyars in the east, Moors in the south. As summed up in Warfare in the Medieval World:

“In response to this ‘Second Age of Invasions’, western European monarchies developed an art of war unique in world history in its reliance on heavy cavalry as the dominant weapon system. Needing the kind of strategic mobility only cavalry could provide, western European commanders initiated a gradual transformation in the composition of medieval armies. Consequently, heavy cavalry replaced infantry as the decisive arm. The mounted knight and lancer, with his stabilizing stirrup, expensive panoply and well-trained horse, gradually became the centrepiece of a combined-arms army where all other weapon systems were subordinated to heavy cavalry.”

(Warfare in the Medieval World, p. 9)

I’ll discuss European warhorses in a bit. First, we’re going to discuss the Small Warhorse.

The Small Warhorse

Basic Stats:

Average Height: 13.4hh (Range: 12hh to 14hh)
Build: Could be stocky or light.
Qualities: Sturdy, with high stamina and endurance. Able to endure harsh climates. Highly disease-resistant. Could survive on scanty and poor-quality food, as well as long periods without water. Were also able to make long marches at great speed for extended periods, with little recuperative time.
Further Note: Often small and often scruffy in appearance, they are notable for being robust and agile.
Breed examples: The African Barb, the Arabian, the traditional Mongolian Horse, the Hackney, the traditional Kyrgyz Horse, the Icelandic Horse. In Europe, the Small Warhorse was sometimes indistinguishable from the Rouncey, and breeds such as the Welsh Cob featured heavily in British cavalry. The Morgan was popular for American cavalry.

Why was this historically the warhorse of choice?

The qualities we think a warhorse should possess– speed and strength– are essential qualities, but they’re not the only important qualities.

The most important quality of the small and sturdy horse was its adaptability.

A swift and powerful horse is no use if it’s dead. The large and muscular war-horses that were coveted by the European elite in the Renaissance and Early Industrial period were fragile: they were susceptible to disease, required high-quality food and regular feedings, and efforts were made to protect them from bad weather. Attempts to import English stock to South Africa during the Boer Wars were unsuccessful, as the horses failed to thrive and the majority died.* These larger European warhorses were master of the field only in highly specialized circumstances.

The small warhorse was able to master all fields save for the one dominated by the European warhorse.

Despite his unimpressive appearance and short stature, the small warhorse excelled where he was put to use. Examples:

The Macedonians used him to conquer Persia and half the known world.
The Mongols, a pure-cavalry force composed of skilled archers, used him for both their light and heavy cavalry; and where they faced off against larger European horses on the steppes, the Small Warhorse allowed them to outmaneuver and divide the enemy with their “mock retreat” tactics. (See: The Battles of Liegnitz and Sajo River)
When he was brought over to the New World, he adapted and flourished– became the American mustang– and colonists and indigenous people alike found him uniquely hardy and intelligent, well-suited to war.
In Colonial South Africa and the Sudan, Europeans left their horses at home and used the small native horse instead, finding him hardier and better-suited to warfare than their home-grown stock.

Outside of combat, the little horse also excelled. From Small Horses in Warfare:

In the snow:

“We had ridden 371 miles in exactly nine days and two hours, thus averaging more than 40 miles a day! At the same time it must be remembered that, with an interval of in all not more than nine days’ rest, my horse had previously carried me 500 miles. In London, judging by his size, he would have been put down as a polo pony. In spite of the twenty stone he carried, he had never been either sick or lame during the journey, and had galloped the last 17 miles through the snow to Kasala in one hour and twenty-five minutes.” (Paragraph 16)

In the desert:

The squadrons marched to their destination, took part in field-days and pageants, and started to reach Bangalore by forced marches; they accomplished the last 180 miles at a rate of thirty miles per day, bringing in only one led horse, the remainder being perfectly sound and fit for further work. One horse, a 14.3 Persian, carried a corporal who, with his accoutrements, rode 22 stone 7 lbs. (Paragraph 18)

During the Korean War, the American military sometimes used horses and mules for support rather than direct combat, especially in areas where mechanized transport wasn’t viable. The horses they used were not typical large, American or European breeds, but smaller native stock. One remarkable little mare, Sergeant Reckless, became legendary. During the Battle for Outpost Vegas in April 1953:

For the better parts of three days and nights, she hauled ammunition — to the recoilless rifles by day and the mortar crews by night — with periodic breaks for water and feed, and short periods of sleep. Trained to travel by herself, she prompted one Marine to observe that she was so fast, no handler could keep up with her, anyway. She was wounded twice, patched up and resumed her work without hesitation. Time and again, her fellow Marines marveled at her resoluteness, as she maneuvered across areas where shrapnel was falling, and ran along the narrow berms beside the rice paddies, never stepping off into the mine-laden bogs. *

Throughout most of history, the little horse– rarely more than thirteen hands high and defined by his marvelous endurance– has been the face of the warhorse. Even when the larger European heavy horses arrived on the scene, he excelled in conditions they found intolerable. And in conditions where the bulk of a larger horse would seem to be beneficial, the smaller horse has more often won out.

The European Medieval Warhorse

There were three basic classifications: the Rouncey, the Courser, and the Destrier.

These designations were not breeds, but instead dictated a general sense of size and conformation. Remember that while all knights rode war horses, not all war horses carried knights.

The Rouncey, the Courser, and the Destrier were all of roughly the same height range: 13 to 15 hands. In fact, many Rounceys would have fit the mold of a Small Warhorse, and they’re functionally synonymous– the Rouncey is just the specific type of Small Warhorse employed within most of Europe.

The major difference between these three categories was in their conformation, not their height.

I can already hear you going: “What?”

The Destrier wasn’t a Percheron? Not an 18hh monster?

What’s going on?

The closest modern surviving example… the cob. In truth there are a number of breeds of cob, but as a general type it seems to fit the bill very well. They are quite small, again around fifteen hands or less, but very sturdy with short thick legs (often feathered at the fetlock as medieval illustrations show), broad chests and solid bodies. They are built for endurance rather than speed and are still used in long-distance races (up to one hundred miles) today. Surviving medieval horseshoes also confirm the idea of a fifteen hand animal as being about the maximum.

(Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994, p. 26)

When a human sits on a very large horse, such as a Percheron, this is what they look like:

percheron

A tall horse is also a very wide horse. It’s inevitable: the rider’s legs will stick out, rather than lie straight against the horse’s sides. This not only makes it harder to ride, but it also impairs the rider’s balance on the horse.

Okay, so what’s conformation?

In a nutshell, it’s how the horse is put together. The relative proportion of different parts (e.g small or large head, long or thick neck) and their shape (e.g thin or stocky legs).

Humans also have different conformation. Think about how two men of the exact same height can look different: one can be broad-chested, the other can have longer legs.

Different conformation lends itself to different ability. The man with longer legs will have a longer stride, even if he’s the same height as the broad-chested man. The broad-chested man will have greater lung capacity and thus have more endurance.

It is the same with horses.

But this was still a larger horse than the warhorses used elsewhere, right?

Yes. They were typically larger than, for example, the Mongolian horse. But it was a difference of a few inches of height. Nothing so drastic as this:

Screen Shot 2018-07-27 at 1.17.01 AM.png

They also lacked the hardiness of the Small Warhorse which I discussed earlier:

He [Edward III] had learnt early in his career, during the disastrous Scottish campagin of 1327… The costly destriers of his Flemish contingent led by the count of Hainault died in the inhospitable conditions of the Borders, chasing an elusive enemy who refused to battle. Edward III soon learned the lesson, which his grandfather had practiced, of encouraging the use of lighter horses (hobbies) in such inhospitable terrain.

(Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994, p. 39)

Note: by “hobby” he probably means the Irish Hobby.

The European Warhorse came from a tradition of horses which were only slightly larger than the average small warhorse. By the 4th century A.D, the Romans had begun to breed horses that could reach 15hh (though the average Roman warhorse was still closer to 13hh). Evidence of larger horses appear in Pictish artwork dating between the 6th and 9th centuries: these horses were still largely within the 14hh range, but riding (not draft) horses were starting to reach 15hh. These horses were made possible because their owners had access to grain– most likely oats– which they could afford not to use for human consumption. Plentiful grass and a larger grain diet allowed for larger growth patterns.

Bear this in mind: “Large” warhorses did not spring up overnight. Selective breeding and plentiful, high-quality, high-energy food were essential. This was in part possible because of the social organization of Europe (Feudalism) and how that affected which crops were grown, in what quantity, and how it was distributed. This became increasingly possible as food production became more streamlined and efficient in the coming centuries.

Even then, it was a struggle to maintain large horse height. Some countries were better-suited to the task than others. England bowed out of the development of the destrier in the late 14th century (which was well into the Renaissance). They were barely able to sustain the height of their light riding cavalry (comprised of Welsh Cobs and other native British/Scottish/Welsh/Irish breeds), much less that of a heavier horse:

Consistent with the national interest in preventing exports was the notion of improving the size and scope of the English horse. Uncontrolled breeding and an apparent disregard for the importance of selecting for size had led, by 1536, to a serious decline in the numbers of “good and swyfte and strong Horsis”, a deficiency which needed to be urgently rectified. To this end, owners of enclosed deer parks covering more than one square mile in area were required to maintain therein suitable breeding mares of at least 13 hands, to be mated by stallions of not less than 14 hands…

Beyond the confines of the deer parks and gentlemen’s stables lay hundreds of square miles of common and forest grazing land, host to all manner of native ponies and horses of varying size and description. To these Henrician legislators now turned their attention. In the hope that the stature of such horses could be increased, the law stipulated that no stallion of less than 15 hands (or, in some cases 14 hands) was to be allowed onto common land, while forest and commons officers were empowered to destroy mares considered unsuitable for bearing foals.

Those responsible for drafting… [this legislation] …were seemingly oblivious to the fact that the hardy ponies of the upland commons had evolved specifically to suit the prevailing conditions and that the sparse nutritional provision of those would have been incapable of supporting larger animals.

(Moore-Colyer 1994, p. 248)

If they were struggling to keep animals at 15 hands, there was certainly no way they were maintaining them anywhere near 18 hands.

We’ve now established that breeding large, high-quality horseflesh is an expensive investment. Why, then, did Europeans do it?

The development of the types of European warhorses that appeared in Medieval Europe facilitated a total change in military organization and strategy, in which heavy cavalry featured as the dominant and decisive weapons system.

Knights were walking tanks. Contrary to popular belief, armor was generally very mobile. It also didn’t slow you down much, but it did make you tire faster.

That’s where the horse came in. A horse made knights mobile on the wider battlefield. Advances in armor made a knight and horse terrifying to behold right up until firearms development caught up with them.

(Though they were still bound to the rules of warfare– which hold that infantry that hold formation against a cavalry charge can rebuff the cavalry.)

Let’s take a moment to appreciate why so much time and effort went into developing a horse that could carry these men:

A quick and dirty intro to European knight armor evolution:

Chainmail (4th to 13th century) –> Scale (early 14th century) –> Plate (14th-16th century)

Plate armor came after scale. Scale came after chain mail. Chain mail came first and, after the other two were developed, was often worn under the other two types of armor, but rarely on its own.

Chainmail was the lightest armor type while plate was the heaviest. Plate got progressively heavier to counteract firearms (until that was no longer possible, and was then abandoned.)

Rule of thumb: If one knight in your world wears plate armor, most knights should wear plate armor. The knights that don’t are either from a less technologically-advanced region or poor as all get out.

Which type of European Medieval warhorse was used the most?

The Rouncey.

The next most-used warhorse was the Courser.

The Destrier was restricted to the upper echelon: the elite within the elite. They were the cream of the crop, fabulously expensive, and always the minority of any standing cavalry.

During the Wars of Scottish Independence, in the Restauro Equorum rolls of 1336-38, only thirteen Destriers were accounted for in the Scottish Army (1% of the total cavalry). Fifty-three coursers accounted for 4%. This meant the remaining 95% of the Scottish Cavalry were Rounceys or animals more closely resembling the traditional Small Warhorse. (Ayton 214)

It’s reasonable to think that the Small Warhorse should have naturally done well in the rugged northern terrain of Scotland, and that explains why the two highest-quality European Warhorses were such a fractional minority in those wars.

Possibly.

But even on campaigns where the terrain was most favorable for heavy cavalry, such as England vs France in the Hundred Years’ War, the total number of Destriers in the first military expedition against France amounted to… eighteen.

Those eighteen Destriers made up 5% of the English Cavalry. (Ayton 214)

A few things worth noting:

The longer the war went on, the higher the proportion of high-value warhorses utilized rose. Men who first served on Rounceys would later be seen on better Rounceys or have upgraded to Coursers, especially if they’d made some significant career advancement in the interim (such as promotion from esquire to knight, i.e attaining an order of knighthood.)
A full kit of plated armor was expensive in of itself, just like the horse required to carry it. Not all knights could afford the best armor of the period, and not all knights who could afford the armor could afford the horse.
Cavalry is composed of a mixture of light and heavy. If heavy cavalry comprised even half of the total cavalry (I suspect it didn’t), then those eighteen destriers could have comprised 10% of the heavy cavalry. If it comprised a quarter of the cavalry, those eighteen would make up 20%. Still a clear minority, but not vanishingly small.
Just because the horse appeared in the rolls (records) does not mean it was utilized in battle:

It has long been understood that medieval warfare was based around chevauchée and siege (or guerilla-type raiding and ambush, on the marches especially) rather than set-piece battles. In these conditions, destriers possessed only a limited use.

(Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994, p. 39)

It’s also worth noting that Destriers did not gain as much traction in England as they did France and Spain. France clung to the Courser and Destrier even after the arms race against firearms had already been lost, for reasons that had more to do with status than sound military strategy. (Eminence over Efficacy, p. 1067-1068)

The most coveted and ideal warhorse of the Middle Ages was the least often used. A knight who owned a Destrier would often own a Courser as well, in addition to a light riding horse (sometimes a Rouncey) and a packhorse. The Courser was used in jousts and tournaments, where their speed was most needed. The Destrier was reserved for fighting and parade, but at the same time, was not strategically suited to every battlefield: if speed was needed, the Courser or Rouncey was used instead.

By the late Renaissance Period (16th century), due to advancements in firearms, the Destrier was more of a status symbol than a practical warhorse. The following excerpt from Eminence over Efficacy sums up the problem:

Screen Shot 2018-07-25 at 8.46.50 PM.png

Another factor that made contributed to the Charger being made obsolete was how it was strategically employed. Or un-strategically, as was often the case:

Still, good order and a uniform charge were not natural to noble heavy cavalry. The fighting ethic of the medieval knight was based on personal fame, personal honour and personal courage. To fight with peers and social superiors in a co-ordinated charge often meant subordinating the possibility of personal valour to a group. In fact, the natural trend of knights on the battlefield was for the individual to break out of rank and dash forward, as illustrated in the battle of Arsuf in 1191. These two contrasting styles of mounted warfare, disciplined and undisciplined, were illustrated in one of the pivotal battles of the high Middle Ages, the battle of Bouvines in 1214.

(Warfare in the Medieval World, p. 153)

The Baroque Warhorse

Basic Stats:

Average Height: 15hh (14hh to 17hh)
Build: Warmblood
Qualities: Strong, with the speed and maneuverability of light cavalry.
Further Note: Best described as big-boned, muscular gymnasts. Compact musculature and powerful hindquarters. These horses were developed from the same lines of stock as the courser and destrier, and the Renaissance saw further development of those qualities and specialization into distinct breeds. The major difference is that these horses are no longer carrying 350lbs into battle.
Breed examples: The Andalusian, the Friesian, the Lipizzan, the Warlander.

The curtain rises on the Renaissance. With the development of armor-piercing firearms, came the evolution of a new warhorse.

This horse fit the need for a blended “medium” cavalry that fused light and heavy. Smaller horses were still used, especially for light cavalry. In keeping with the Medieval tradition, there were some armies in which it was normal for a soldier to have at least two– often three– mounts (which they rotated through) and a (cheaper) packhorse.

The Baroque warhorse was larger, permitting a more heavily-armored rider. But the armor and weapons were overall less ponderous, permitting a smaller and more agile horse.

Cavalry riders now carried pistols as their primary weapon, with a sword as backup:

The wheel lock pistol of this era was inaccurate, unreliable, and time-consuming to reload. A horseman carrying three or four of them, however, could have a devastating effect, provided he fired from very close range. The general consensus among contemporaries was that the pistol was accurate only at a range of a few yards, but that it could do terrible damage if fired from close in.

(Tucker 2001, p.1070)

The practice of breaking rank and dashing into the fray in the pursuit of glory and personal recognition (aka The Pursuit of Career Advancement) declined during the early years of the Baroque Warhorse. Operating as a unit, though still detested by the nobility, had become absolutely necessary.

Operating as a cooperative unit wasn’t a new concept. Great armies who conquered on the back of the Small Warhorse had already mastered it. It also wasn’t entirely alien to the Medieval army, as it was still fairly standard for light cavalry and infantry. But it’d been abandoned by the noble class who traditionally made up the Heavy Cavalry.

With the Baroque Warhorse came the revival of teamwork among the nobility, at least on the battlefield.

Special Mention: The American Mustang

The American mustang is a population of feral horses who were brought to the New World. Horses sometimes escaped or were set loose, and they rapidly acclimated to the Americas. Originally descended from Spanish stock, they’ve since incorporated an untold number of breeds, of various size and conformation.

Due to their broad genetic variation, it’s common to find populations with different sizes and builds. With the mustang, you have a greater chance of finding a horse that has the desired hardiness and endurance of the Small Warhorse packaged with other traits, such as size, conformation, or gait. Colonists and indigenous people alike used the mustang to great effect in warfare.

Height Range of the mustang warhorse: 12-15hh.

So what type of warhorse do I need?

Let’s recap:

Small Warhorse, Rouncey, and Mustang:

Ideal for light missile cavalry (archers and arquebusiers, firearms) and lightly-armored troop cavalry (e.g: lancers).
Rider can wear light armor (i.e boiled leather, a single metal breastplate)
Good in combat, campaign marches, load-carrying and rapid transit.
Disease resistant and can survive on scanty food and water
Highly adaptable
Affordable

Destrier and Courser (Chargers):

Ideal for heavy cavalry (large swords and lancers)
Rider and horse can both wear heavy armor (i.e full metal armor)
Slow: often has to travel separately from the knight on campaign because it’s significantly slower than the march. Sometimes too slow to suit certain types of battles.
Difficult to breed and maintain due to high nutrition requirements.
Struggles to adapt to new environments, especially harsh ones.
Expensive

Baroque Warhorse:

Ideal for medium cavalry with mixed-weapons: swords/lances and arrows/pistols.
Rider can wear limited heavy armor (i.e metal armor covering vitals– head, chest, maybe knee and elbowcaps).
Agile, able to wheel and maneuver rapidly on the battlefield.
Harder to maintain than the Small Warhorse, far easier to maintain than the Chargers.
More adaptable than Chargers, less adaptable than the rugged Small Warhorse and Mustang.
More expensive than the Rouncey/Small Warhorse, exponentially more affordable than a Charger.

Does it have to be this way in my setting?

The conditions of your setting could totally alter this. The possibilities are limitless.

What if good food is so plentiful that large horses are easy to rear, so you can have a whole army of them? What if, in your setting, what constitutes high-quality, high-energy food is a completely invented type of grass or grain with a different nutrition profile than anything that exists on Earth? What if you have warming and cooling technology you can apply to horses so that they don’t flounder when imported to extreme climates? What if the type of warfare in your world doesn’t require long marches over rugged terrain because of where the two warring states are located, or because of transit infrastructure (e.g good roads, boats, even trains)?

And what about the type of weapons, styles of fighting, and military maneuvers utilized in your setting? Are your armies highly disciplined, as with the Mongols? Are they glory-seekers who break rank?

Part of the reason the Courser and Destrier– the “heavy warhorse”– lasted so long was because it was the convention of the time and had become tightly entwined with the highest status and class, long after it ceased to be effective. What traditions do people in your setting cling to, despite sound and logical reasons to abandon it?

What if armor in your setting isn’t terribly heavy– or rather, there’s a rare alternative material that’s extraordinarily light, like mithril?

There are lots of ways you can fiddle and problem-solve the mechanics of your world to get the desired outcome.

Don’t limit yourself to what’s “historically correct”. Instead ask yourself why these horses were utilized in their respective historical periods and locations. Think about geography, resource availability, medicine, weaponry, knowledge and interest in developing breeding programs. Worldbuilding allows you to modify variables in ways that never happened, or never could have happened, in real life. That’s the beauty of it.

Now let’s talk about training. What could a warhorse do ?

Training

Because the skillset of a warhorse varied across time and place, I’m going to give you a list of skills warhorses have been known to have been trained to. Note that this doesn’t mean a single warhorse was trained in all these skills.

Cue the training montage:

Training of the Warhorse

To move smoothly from one speed to the next on command (halt, walk, trot, canter, etc.)
To remain where he is left if the reins are dropped
To respond to the rider’s knees and seating position (for steering)
To respond to the rider’s voice (for steering)
To respond to hand gestures or sign language (for commands given on foot)
To not react to startling sounds (e.g yelling, drums, gunfire)
To not react to frightening stimuli (e.g blood, fire, smoke, smell of burning bodies, arrows whizzing past)
To come when called
To stand still while being mounted and to not move after being mounted until the rider’s command to do so
To cooperate while being saddled up– to not slow the tacking process by being difficult (e.g refusing to accept the bit, puffing out its belly when the girth is tightened)
To maneuver in formation, especially in close quarters with other animals
How to adjust and balance odd weight, especially when galloping (e.g the lance)
To kneel/lower its front end to assist with mounting
In some situations, to operate independently (see: Sergeant Reckless)
To navigate rough and uncertain terrain (steep ravines and rivers, for example)
To defend itself if a stranger attempts to grab its bridle, or mount it
Above all: to respond quickly and reliably to commands
To rear on command (see my note here)
To attack the enemy– to stomp, kick, bite, and otherwise maul (see my note here)

Discipline was the focus of a warhorse’s training, not aggression or fighting skill.

To that end, another part of training could include classical dressage.

What?

You may be familiar with the European schools of classical dressage, but they didn’t invent the concept. The Greek soldier and philosopher Xenophon wrote an entire book called On Horsemanship, for which the cliffnotes can be found here.

At the root of Xenophon’s advice, and the development of classical dressage in Europe, was the desire to improve the horsemanship of the rider and to create strong, agile, and responsive mounts.

Classical dressage is essentially a gymnastic school for horses: it helps them strengthen different parts of their bodies, especially the hindquarters, but it also teaches them discipline and fine control over body and balance.

See below: A controlled rear (or “levade”). Note the rider’s composure.

Image result for dressage levade

If you conceptualize the rider and his warhorse as a partnership, then it’s easy to understand why it’s important for them to hone their teamwork: a good horse is useless in the hands of a bad rider, and an unreliable horse is a dangerous distraction even for a good rider. A rider’s time spent training with his horse was time spent cultivating a seamless partnership, which allowed the rider to focus on combat rather than on finagling with his horse.

How dangerous was the warhorse?

A vivid anecdote from the memoir of Captain Jean Baptiste Antoine Marcellin de Marbot:

The Russian Grenadier with redoubled fury made another thrust at me, but, stumbling with the force which he put into it, drove his bayonet into my mare’s thigh. Her ferocious instincts being restored by the pain, she sprang at the Russian, and at one mouthful tore off his nose, lips, eyebrows, and all the skin of his face, making him a living death’s-head, dripping with blood. Then hurling herself with fury among the combatants, kick and biting, Lisette upset everything she met on her road. The officer who had made so many attempts to strike me tried to hold her by the bridle; she seized him by the belly, and carrying him off with ease, she bore him out of the crush to the foot of the hillock, where, having torn out his entrails and mashed his body under her feet, she left him dying on the snow.

There is no indication that Captain’s horse was trained to do this. There’s an important distinction between what an animal can be trained to do, and what an animal will do if sufficiently provoked.

When you write about warhorses in your setting, never forget: training or no training, an injured or panicked horse is a dangerous beast.

The Relationship Between Soldier and Horse

Most people find it difficult to treat animals as automatons in real life. They respond to us, for better or worse, and many people form emotional bonds with animals throughout their lifetime. In literature, especially speculative fiction, cats and dogs are often represented with vibrant personalities.

Why, then, should the horse be written as if it is an automaton?

It’s easy for the academic who has never been to war, and the layperson who has never met a horse, to default to reducing the warhorse to its practical purpose: an instrument of transport and labor. Many writers, afraid of being accused of anthropomorphism if they write about emotional bonds between man and horse, omit it entirely.

Don’t make this mistake.

Introduction to Basic Horse Psychology

The horse is a highly social animal that, left to its own devices, will seek out other horses to form lasting friendships and family groups. Horses socialize through mutual grooming, playing, and fighting. They can form bonds that last a lifetime, and show distress and grieving behavior when separated from a close companion. They’ve been known to exhibit anxious pacing, vocalization, depression, listlessness, and refusal to eat.

Horses are gregarious creatures. Even within a larger herd they form strong personal attachments to other individual horses with which they spend more time engaged in mutual grooming and sharing space, standing together far closer than they would tolerate a less familiar animal. The domesticated horse, like the dog and cat, retains juvenile characteristics into adulthood, and their ‘friendships’ often involve playful activity such as nipping, shoving, and chasing. Psychologically, such bonds are immensely important to horses, and those that are kept singly have often been observed to bond with surrogates, developing affectionate relationships with yard dogs and farm cats.

(Phillips 2013, p. 166)

Emotional bonds are the glue that tie social mammals together. When a man establishes his relationship with a horse, he is establishing himself as a member of that horse’s social group. Horses don’t like to be alone and when they notice the herd (or people) begin to move away, their instinct is to follow. Separation from the group means loss of safety and security, and horses kept in isolation often exhibit classic symptoms of separation anxiety.

This desire to follow (rather than, say, go off and eat grass or do something else) is a key part of a horse’s relationship with humans. Humans engage in important behaviors that are key to horse socialization– chiefly grooming, feeding, playing, and establishing leadership.

Horse heart rates decrease after affectionate contact with humans, and levels of agitation appear to decline. Grooming is a particularly important activity: although it probably evolved originally as a behavioural mechanism to remove parasites from areas of the body such as the neck, withers, and base of the mane that an individual animal could not reach, grooming plays a key social role in creating and maintaining bonds, both between horses and between horses and humans.

(Phillips 2013, p. 166)

Humans typically occupy a high, if not the highest, position within a horse’s social circle because they spend so much time in the horse’s personal space, teaching the horse to follow their direction.

Observe:

As you can see, horses are really good at playing “follow the leader”.

That’s cool, but why do I need to know this?

Because the way a horse engages with people– especially it’s rider– is an adaptation of the way it engages with other horses. The most major difference is that while a horse’s place in its hierarchy with other horses is negotiable, it is ideally taught that its place in the hierarchy with humans is non-negotiable (and horses that fail to learn this are often characterized as “bad horses”).

Horses form bonds with each other, and they form similar bonds with humans (and other non-humans– racehorses are frequently provided companion animals to help with anxiety.)

The fact that horses will follow– and can be taught to move as a larger group and unit– is part of what makes them such excellent choices for war mounts. Horses are extremely sensitive to body language. It is the cornerstone of their communication with each other and with people. An animal so attentive to the body language of others can easily learn subtle riding cues and participate in cooperative maneuvers.

Bonus note: horses will beg for treats by pawing the ground. This is generally considered bad behavior by most trainers– but it adds personality to a horse in a story setting.

Now let’s look at what warriors thought of their warhorses.

In the Medieval Period

Chivalric literature contains numerous attestations of the strong bond between knight and horse. A man’s horse, like his sword, often received a name in early chansons. Notably, several found in Bartholomew Anglicus’s encyclopedic entry on horses– their loyalty, their ability to communicate and to mourn a master’s death, their refusal let any other man ride them– are mentioned also in the chansons de geste and other chivalric literature.

(Tails of Masculinity, p. 964)

Demonstrating the love of horse for man:

Marie de France relates how, after Sir Graelent is taken away to the land of Faerie:

His destrier… grieved greatly for his master’s loss. He sought again the mighty forest, yet never was at rest by night or day. No peace might he find, but ever pawed his hoofs upon the ground, and neighed so loudly that the noise went through all the country round about. Many a man coveted so noble a steed, and put bit and bridle in its mouth, yet never might one set hands upon him, for he would not suffer another master. So each year in its season the forest was filled with the cry and the trouble of this noble steed which might not find its lord.

(Tails of Masculinity, p. 965)

Demonstrating the love of man for horse:

Guillame d’Orange, in the late-twelfth-century Aliscans, fears he will be killed or captured by Saracens and, even worse, his beloved horse, Baucent, taken: “If Paynims took you back to Spain with them / I’d die of grief, so help me God above!” Baucent “listens like a man” as Guillame urges him to find the strength to carry them to safety; the horse joyfully obliges.

(Tails of Masculinity, p. 965)

For the medieval knight, his horse was a sentient, intelligent and emotional creature with whom he shared a powerful bond. It was the stuff of medieval romance!

The knight, with his upbringing and the skillset required to wield a lance, could generally be relied upon to understand horse behavior and have excellent riding skills. The horse, which the knight rode, was a similarly well-educated animal. On the long and difficult march, through sieges and raids and skirmishes, knight and horse relied upon each other for safety, success, and ultimately survival.

A great deal of what’s expressed in medieval literature is certainly heavy anthropomorphism on the knight’s part. But it shouldn’t be surprising that a knight’s horse, having spent so much time with his master, would learn how to interpret the language of man: a tone of urgency, for example, or body language that expresses exhaustion and pain. Horses, like dogs, can also pick up vocabulary without being expressly taught.

It should therefore come to no surprise that, from the knight’s perspective, his horse seems to respond with understanding, “like a man”.

But there is a sobering flip-side:

This terrestrial, flesh-and-blood connection could be further enhanced by the last service a warhorse could do for his master—to be eaten. This was a not infrequent occurrence for a besieging army out of supplies but determined not to withdraw.

(Medieval Knighthood V: Papers from the Sixth Strawberry Hill Conference 1994, p. 40)

What about warhorses beyond Medieval Europe?

The concept of a powerful bond between horse and rider was not unique to Europeans. Horses held a special place in the hearts and history of Arabs, particularly the nomadic Bedouins who relied upon them in the desert: their loyalty, courage, sensitivity, and intelligence are clearly woven through various horse legends.

The Bedouins have over a thousand unique words for describing horses, parts of horses, horse behavior, horse-related activities, and legal agreements– including a word specifically for describing the act of keeping a horse in the family tent, with the rest of the owner’s worldly possessions:

[Jashâr] The horse left at the tent and not allowed to feed on the pasture because it may be stolen… and qaşîr (“held short,” when there is no time to let the horse seek forage away from the tent).

(Vocabulary of Bedouin Words Concerning Horses, p.103-118)

Some other vocabulary of note:

“Water-carrier”; he who hands down to posterity in poems and songs the traditions or pedigrees of the forefathers and their horses.

“Forelock,” the sacred tuft of hair on the forehead of an Arabian horse. An angel (according to Bedouin tradition) visits every night the noble horse and, placing his hand on the forelock, blesses the horse and its owner (or curses the owner if he abuses or selfishly treats his animal.)

(Vocabulary of Bedouin Words Concerning Horses, p.123-125)

The relationship between Bedouin and horse was not just between one man and one animal, but a relationship across generations that was more akin to a living heirloom. It was a shared inheritance and it established the warhorse as a member of the family.

It’s worth noting that while warhorses were almost exclusively stallions throughout Medieval Europe, because the status and imposing physique of such animals was often used to accentuate or signify the rider’s, the Bedouins were somewhat the opposite: they preferred to ride mares for war, rather than stallions. They had “warmares”. A rather sensible decision, as stallions tend to be a great deal less tractable than mares (and far more easily distracted).

The Mongols treated their horses in a manner that’s quite relatable to Bedouins in some respects and medieval knights in others:

The horse was the Asiatic pastoralists’ most crucial instrument of production and their most prized possession. They gave horses grass and water before tending to their own needs or the needs of their other animals… they had a reputation for being kind to their mounts; they sang about them in their love songs, and never wantonly beat one. But none of this inhibited them from slaughtering fat mares for the feasts of heroes and “big men,” nor from serving boiled horsehead and horsemeat sausages to wedding guests… on long journeys, horsemeat was indispensable as an emergency ration. To judge from the behavior of the later Mongol armies, the freedom to consume horseflesh was a military necessity for them. On the march they drank horse blood until an animal keeled over, and then they devoured its corpse.

(Good to Eat; Riddles of Food and Culture, p. 91)

Like the Bedouins, the Mongols lived in such close proximity to their animals, and their horses were so key to their way of life, that the horse was involved in every part of their daily lives. It was part of their self-identity. It’s no wonder that they were exceptional horsemen. Though data on the Mongols of Genghis Khan’s era is more difficult to come by, some remarkable insight can be had from Mongols of the 20th century:

Virtually all Mongols were and still are herders of what they call the “five domestic animals”: horses, camels, cattle, sheep, and goats, and for this a transhumant, if not nomadic, life is necessary. Riches are often still reckoned in animals rather than money, and surplus wealth is converted into herds, particularly horses. In many regions the unit of value was the horse…

Horses are the great pride of the Mongols. Their breeding, temperaments, gaits, and abilities are discussed endlessly; men take the same interest and have the same personal involvement in the cut of their horses’ manes that girls do in their own hair styles. It is thought that horses are patrilineal, like humans, and that the really important things– spiritual qualities, character, and stamina– are determined by stallions rather than mares. The genealogies of good stallions are remembered for about four generations. The horses not selected for breeding or racing are gelded and kept separately for riding.

(Waddington 1974, p. 477-478)

Horses were currency, status, a way of identifying kin, and served religious and spiritual purposes. To list all the ways in which horses influence Mongol culture would be much like trying to categorically describe all the ways in which dogs influenced Europe. They were even a manner of measuring how well a marriage was going:

What in fact happened as regards branding was largely a matter of the relative power of the two families. If the wife’s side was poor, the husband would simply take over her animals. But if she came from a relatively wealthy and influential family, he would not dare to touch her animals until her father died. Some husbands took their wives’ foals and branded them secretly, hoping that the wife would not notice, but this could cause a full-scale family row if found out. What usually happened, apparently, was that as the years went by and there were children, and divorce (which was quite frequent in Mongolia) became more unlikely, the wife allowed her young animals to be branded with the husband’s mark and gradually her herd disappeared.

(Waddington 1974, p. 477-478)

The Mongols were also concerned with the education of their horse as much as Xenophon and the schools of classical dressage might be. They certainly understood the importance of a reliable mount in warfare, which is well-expressed through their historical victories under Genghis Khan and military strategy; but the role of a well-trained horse went a bit deeper into their social strata:

Furthermore, a man was known by his horse. Mongols did not judge a man by his clothes or his accent. They looked carefully at his horse, and by its proportions, color, gait, and the look in its eye they could tell all the essentials about its owner. Knowing this, people chose and educated their riding horses with almost unbelievable care.

(Waddington 1974, p. 485)

The bond can be thus summarized as a highly emotional, religious and spiritual one; but it is still subject to the pragmatism of warfare. Animals are subject to butchering under certain circumstances, such as the animal’s inability to work, the need for emergency rations, or special occasions.

If we cross the other side of the Atlantic, we find the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. To speak of the Indigenous (Native Americans/First Nations) as a broad, generalized group is like speaking of Europe as a broad and generalized group: what applies to one country, religion, or ethnic group often does not apply to another, but there are still common linkages worth examining.

Horses are native to North America, but went extinct around 12,000 years ago. The “wild” horses that exist today, and the ones which were used by the Indigenous tribes, were first brought over by the Spanish. It these horses which the indigenous peoples first adopted. The impact of the horse was perhaps mostly strongly observed among the groups who lived on terrain most ideally suited to the horse, in places like Montana (e.g. Crow Nation) and the Dakotas (e.g. Lakota)– in other words, the plains. But they weren’t the first tribes to acquire horses.

Horses were most likely first acquired from the Spaniards in the Pueblo Uprising of 1680, in New Mexico. Earlier expeditions saw large numbers of horses, but Spanish law required soldiers to ride stallions. As a result, even if horses were successfully acquired from those earlier expeditions, there was no way to produce more. (A Song for the Horse Nation, p. 8)

I bring this up for four reasons:

First, it’s important to remember how late horses came to the Americas.
Second, it’s important to remember that the type of horses the indigenous had were– at least at first– the same kind as their enemies, whether those enemies were Spanish or other indigenous groups. This would inform their military strategy.
Third, the context in which they first encountered, acquired, and then employed horses was already warfare– which presents interesting worldbuilding possibilities and considerations for conworld cultures. Compare and contrast to cultures that encountered wild horses natively and domesticated them, first for transportation and labor, then for warfare.
Fourth, if you ever include a similar dynamic in your setting, this is the place to start looking for inspiration.

How they treat their horses could fill whole books. In a nutshell, they became fundamental to the indigenous economy in a manner similar to the Mongols– it’s well known that horses were signs of wealth, that good horsemanship was valued, and horses were frequently given as gifts– but how did they treat their war horses?

The first part of addressing that question: What was a horse to them?

Indeed, imagine confronting an enemy on a horse for the first time. One such witness was a Cree Indian named Saukamaupee, who told his story to Hudson’s Bay fur trader David Thompson during the winter of 1787-88. As a young man, Saukamaupee had lived with the Piegan Indians… [who] were continually at war with their Shoshone neighbors, and Saukamaupee participated in several fights. In his first one, which took place in about 1730, several Shoshones were riding horses, a creature he and his Piegan friends had never before seen…

Soon after, the Piegan got their first close look at a Shoshone horse, which had died from an arrow wound in its belly. “Numbers of us went to see him,” Saukamaupee recalled, “and we all admired him. He put us in mind of a stag that had lost his horns, and we did not know what name to give him. But as he was a slave to man, like the dog, which carried our things, he was named the Big Dog.”

Later, because horses were the size of elks, the Piegan began calling them ponokomita, or “elk dog,” which is still their word for horse.

(A Song for the Horse Nation: Horses in Native American Cultures, p. 8-9)

For the Piegan, at least, and this one Cree man who shared his story, a horse was a “Big Dog”– which, in truth, is a pretty on the nose. The tractability of the horse, his obedience and his strength, were immediately apparent.

There is among the Teton Sioux an organization called the Horse Society. It was said that some of the songs in the following group were used in this society and were also used on the warpath to make a horse swift and sure. The estimation in which the horse is held by the Sioux is shown by a speech by Brave Buffalo. This speech was made before the singing of his first song and was recorded by the phonograph. Freely translated it is as follows:

Of all the animals the horse is the best friend of the Indian, for without it he could not go on long journeys. A horse is the Indian’s most valuable piece of property. If an Indian wishes to gain something, he promises his horse that if the horse will help him, he will paint it with native dye, that all may see that help has come to him through the aid of his horse.

Śiya´ka said that on one occasion when he was hard pressed on the warpath, he dismounted, and, standing in front of his horse, spoke to him, saying:

We are in danger. Obey me promptly that we may conquer. If you have to run for your life and mine, do your best, and if we reach home, I will give you the best eagle feather I can get and the finest sina´lu´ta, and you shall be painted with the best paint.

*The eagle feather was tied to the horse’s tail, and the sina´lu´ta was a strip of red cloth fastened around the horse’s neck.

(A Song for the Horse Nation: Horses in Native American Cultures, p. 41)

The relationship between man and horse is demonstrably spiritual and personal here, which is not in of itself much different from the previous examples; but it demonstrates a combination of a spiritual and personal relationship that the previous examples don’t quite touch on. It treats the horse as an entity to be negotiated with, who can be offered gifts and status-markers. To use less clinical terms, it treats the horse as both a person and a friend.

Artwork was also made to honor and commemorate specific horses. The famous dance stick created by No Two Horns portrays his horse who died in battle: the six red triangles mark the six wounds the horse received.

[speaking of an Assiniboine horse stick]

Most successful warriors had special relationships with their favorite horses because they depended upon each other. In order to confirm and continue this close bond, a warrior would often immortalize a horse that had saved his life by creating a wood carving in the horse’s image.

(A Song for the Horse Nation: Horses in Native American Cultures, p. 73)

As a writer, these are the examples I find most intriguing for worldbuilding and storytelling. All four examples here demonstrate, in their own way, cultures in which the warhorse was treated as a cherished companion.

I hope you find these examples inspiring as well, when inventing cultures and ironing out the particulars of their warfare. In stories where the warhorse features so prominently as to be worth the title of deuteragonist, a deeply personal and spiritual relationship compatible with the religion and spirituality of the setting can be quite compelling.

And a final word on the soldier-horse bond, from WWI:

A booklet distributed by the British War Office states:

In these times, and in accordance with the methods now in vogue, the horse is almost as necessary in warfare as is the soldier. They have to fight and to suffer together, the difference which strikes one most forcibly being that the man goes into the fight of his own free-will, while the horse, who is a timid and nervous animal, is forced into it against his will. Surely it is incumbent on those who thus force him, to do what they can to lighten his lot.

(Corvi 1998, p. 272)

To recap:

Horses have agency. They react to stimuli and they think. They have wants and desires, which they will pursue. They can also be taught to defer gratification.
Horses are social animals that actively seek and maintain social bonds.
Humans and animals in prolonged circumstances where their survival and safety require them to depend on each other tend to form strong bonds.
Humans express how they value animals– both as individuals and as a broader concept– through art, literature, music, oral storytelling. They also demonstrate that they value the animal by treating it in ways they treat other people or themselves (i.e: decorating the animal, grooming the animal, offering it high-value food, bringing it into their living quarters).
A horse is neither a steamroller nor a tank: they prefer not to run over people and will avoid it where possible. They will certainly not run straight into a line of infantry, unless it is by panic and confusion.

Let us now turn our attention to a very different example: depersonalized treatment of the warhorse, not by the academic or inexperienced, but by the rider.

Horses and Soldiers with No Relationship

Examples of soldiers and warhorses who failed to bond are rare. Rarer still are examples of systemic, large-scale disregard for the most basic welfare of warhorses. In addition, while it was understood that the loss of equine life was a fact of war, their lives were rarely sacrificed callously or carelessly.

There are three major reasons:

Men who rode horses into battle were experienced horsemen.
Horses are more costly to replace in wartime, both because of the imperative necessity of having a mount and because of the training involved in developing a reliable war-mount. Understanding this, care was taken to keep them working and sound.
One man does not fight a war alone: he is judged in how he treats his animal by his peers and superiors, who are usually aware of the reduced military efficacy that comes from animals rendered mentally and physically unsound.

There are few rare examples of widespread abuse among a single army, rarer examples still of horses being employed as cannon fodder. The circumstances of the American Civil War not only created a culture of apathy toward the warhorse as a companion, but also one of callous disregard for the most basic welfare of the warhorse.

If you want inspiration for a military that is utterly ineffective at maintaining, training, and deploying its horses, look no further.

Alternatively–

If you want inspiration for what a cavalry comprised of people with little to no prior horsemanship nor organized military experience looks like, look no further.

Conversely–

A study on how not to write your setting’s cavalry.

The first question to ask is: Why? What changed in the American Civil War?

The evidence from the American Civil War suggests that such bonds could be created (or even carried over from pre-war association) and sustained under wartime conditions but that this was the exception, not the rule. In the majority of cases the logistical and operational demands of war, the ignorance of citizen-soldiers with little or no knowledge of horses, and ad hoc and deeply flawed procurement and remount services militated powerfully against the formation of those relationships that are so crucial to the mental and physical well-being of the horse. Even those who understood, and might have alleviated, their misery generally chose to sacrifice them to the grim necessities of military service. Charles Francis Adams, Jr, then a captain in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, wrote to his mother in May 1863, telling her:

you have no idea of their sufferings… I do the best I can for my horses and am sorry for them; but all war is cruel and it is my business to bring every man I can into the presence of the enemy, and to make war short. So I have one rule, a horse must go until he can’t be spurred any further, and then the rider must get another horse as soon as he can seize one.

(Phillips 2013, p. 166)

Men with no experience with horses were assigned to ride them into battle.

In all prior examples in which I spoke of men who had strong bonds with their warhorse, they were comprised of men who either:

Came from a culture where horses were so central to their way of life that everyone knew how to ride them, and were taught from the moment they were old enough to sit upright in a saddle.
- See: The Mongols
From a privileged class or caste where horsemanship was part of their formal education.
- See: The Medieval Knight

The American Civil War introduced cavalrymen who came from a different background: men who had never ridden a horse.

How is that possible? Weren’t horses central to the pre-modern American economy?

Yes. You would be hard pressed to find someone who had never seen a horse.

But there were numerous people in professions that had nothing to do with horses, did not require them to have a horse, and did not afford them the time or money for one.

Many were also “urban” types who were so far removed from horses that they had no functional knowledge of horses. They saw horses, they knew people who had horses, they did business with people who brought them their goods via horse-drawn cart, they perhaps even rode in horse-drawn taxicabs.

But they did not know horses.

Imagine a person who lives in a world of cars, but has never had one. They’ve ridden in a car, or a bus, but always as a passenger. They’ve never been taught to drive, they’ve never been taught how to fix and maintain a car, they’ve never been taught how cars work.

Then one day, you tell this person, “You’re going to take this car and drive it into battle.”

As Captain Jacob Roemer so eloquently put it:

What, for instance, can be expected from a stocking manufacturer, or a linen weaver who considers the horse a wild beast? We all know that such men rarely have confidence in their horses, but look upon them as their greatest enemies, against whom, for the future, they must struggle for their lives. They never learn to ride, never can preserve their balance, but hang on the horse like a senseless lump, which in order [for the horse] to preserve its equilibrium, unnecessarily wastes a large portion of its strength, and on this account is soon exhausted… The animal at last becomes refractory; he hangs upon the bridle, and, overcome by the pain of his mouth, curvets, rears, and bounds to escape suffering. The rider whose fear and anxiety increase, clings still closer, and labors intently by sticking with knees and heels, to make the best of the struggle. Thus the quietest horse becomes at last passionate, and will endeavour to be rid of his burden or to run away.

(Phillips 2013, p. 172-173)

If your protagonist has never seen nor ridden a horse in their life, odds are he or she will ride about as well as these cavalrymen did: like senseless lumps.

Captain Roemer also notes that not only did the men ride badly, but the way they rode also damaged the horse: he describes how the horse is “overcome by the pain of his mouth”, which occurs when frustrated, terrified, apathetic, and/or inexperienced riders yank on the reins.

Horse bit pain

It is as painful as it looks.

It also causes permanent scarring around the horse’s mouth, rendering the horse less sensitive to softer cues. The horse develops bad habits in response to this mistreatment– it will seize the bit in its teeth (“hang upon the bridle”), so as to stop the rider from being able to pull on its sensitive mouth. It will also attempt to forcefully evict the rider from its back once it’s had enough– even the best horse has a limit for the mistreatment it will tolerate. As a consequence:

As an exasperated Roemer was quick to note, many potentially fine mounts had been permanently ruined for service long before they saw the enemy in the field.

(Phillips 2013, p. 172)

Here’s an account of how such an inauspicious introduction between horse and man might might play out:

The consequent difficulties that a raw cavalry regiment could experience in its earliest days were well illustrated by the ordeal of a company of the 10th New York Cavalry, undertaking its first escort duties in Virginia in December 1862, just six weeks after being mustered into service. Its captain recalled:

Such a rattling, jingling, jerking, scrabbling, cursing, I never heard before. Green horses … turned round and round, backed against each other, jumped up or stood up like trained circus horses. Some of the boys had a pile [of equipment] in front on their saddles, and one in the rear, so high and heavy it took two men to saddle one horse and two men to help the fellow in his place. The horses sheered out going sidewise, pushing the well-disposed animals out of position… Some of the boys had never ridden anything since they galloped on a hobby [child’s toy] horse, and they clasped their legs close together, thus unconsciously sticking the spurs into the horses’ sides… In less than ten minutes Tenth New York Cavalrymen might have been seen on every hill for two miles rearwards.

(Phillips 2013, p. 171-172)

Horses with no training, experience, or were otherwise unfit to serve were selected as warmounts.

If inexperienced and ignorant riders were not disastrous enough, inexperienced and undertrained horses created the other half of a perfect storm of shoddy warfare. Horses were brought in which had never been taught to carry a rider, much less trained to remain disciplined and keep a cool head under fire.

Horses which were too young or too old, horses which were unbroken, horses with serious health issues, horses which were too high-strung for battle, were all pronounced “fit for service”:

Relying on an ad hoc procurement system, in which poorly qualified inspectors purchased horses from the civilian market, the Federal army fostered greed and corruption by buying thousands of animals that should never have been subjected to war’s hardships…

Young horses under three, and old ones well into their twenties, were passed fit for service. Jaws swollen with distemper and spavined limbs went unnoticed or unremarked by purchasers… General William Sooy Smith, chief of cavalry in Mississippi, complained of ‘fraud perpetrated on the Government by the inspectors and purchasing quartermasters’, alleging that ‘not one fifth’ of the horses in the corrals at Nashville were fit for use: ‘many of them are from fifteen to twenty years old, some are blind and some are badly spavined’. It takes no great leap of imagination to appreciate the misery that these elderly and infirm creatures must have endured in the last few remaining weeks of life allotted to them by human cupidity.

Under such selection, it’s little wonder that there was a tremendously high death-toll among the cavalry. Phillips provides numbers that suggest at least 1.2 million horses and mules died in active service over the course of the Civil War. To put that in perspective, that’s almost half the total number of soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

The Comte de Paris suggested that in the opening 12 months of the war ‘more than one [Federal] regiment used up three horses to every man’, and that ‘it was only through the severest discipline that troopers were taught at last to take care of their horses‘. According to the calculation of another French military attache, by 1863 Federal troopers were actually ‘using up’ six horses per annum. Other commentators were less euphemistic: Major General George Stoneman, appointed in 1863 as ‘Chief of Cavalry’, angrily described the brigade of the young brigadier general George Custer as ‘great horse-killers’.

Similarly, when Quartermaster General M.C. Meigs received yet another impatient demand for more horses that year, from Major General William S. Rosecrans, he replied by suggesting that Rosecrans husband his current stocks more carefully, observing caustically that ‘We have over one hundred and twenty-six regiments of cavalry, and they have killed ten times as many horses for us as for the Rebels.’

The situation was similar in the artillery arm. Straining to pull a ‘Napoleon’ howitzer through deep mud and across streams and rivers, through broken scrub and dense wood land, as part of a six-strong team, the artillery horse had a life expectancy of seven and a half months.

(Phillips 2013, p. 168)

Both the Union and Confederate armies had poorly-designed remounting policies.

When I say “remounting policy”, I mean: “What happens when a cavalryman loses his horse?” To a bullet on the battlefield, death from disease, collapse from overwork, theft during the chaos of war?

The South (Confederate Army):

The South required cavalrymen to provide their own mounts. Under ordinary circumstances, this policy is effective in bringing in mounts that are suited to warfare and for fostering a bond between horse and rider. This is the same policy that was used by Medieval Knights. Why didn’t it work here?

The policy came with an addendum: If a man is dismounted (that is to say, he has lost his horse), he is given thirty days’ furlough. The purpose of the policy was to give men time to acquire a replacement.

What ended up happening: Men would sell or trade their mounts away whenever they wanted to go home.

The loophole of this policy was exacerbated by other factors:

It was tremendously difficult to find a new mount. The major horse-breeding regions the South relied upon to resupply mounts were under Federal control by 1862, one year after the start of the war, thereby cutting off their supply.
As a result, horse theft was rampant. If there were no horses to buy, the next step was to steal.
Even if you had a mount, it might wind up requisitioned and transferred to the gun/artillery team: each man’s horse would be assessed for its worth, the man would be paid, and the horse taken away– entirely out of the cavalryman’s control.

In the end, that vital bond between horse and soldier was sundered by the continued insistence that men provide their own remounts when mounts were impossible to find, and a callous self interest began to dictate the treatment of horses.

(Phillips 2013, p. 170)

The North (Union Army):

The North had a similar remounting policy to the South: men who lost their mount, for whatever reason, would be sent back to Washington D.C. to obtain another. Because horses were provided by the government, rather than the soldiers, the problem of horse-trading seen in the Confederate army manifested in an altogether different way:

Federal forces a similar situation also eventually arose, in which horses were not traded but willfully mistreated. Major General Judson Kilpatrick… complained of individual soldiers who deliberately ‘neglect their horses and lose their equipments, knowing in either case that they will be sent in to Washington to refit.’

(Phillips 2013, p. 167)

The North went through the process of acquiring and transporting mass numbers of horses to replace lost mounts in the worst possible way: Horses were crammed together in railroad cars and tight picket lines, with unfamiliar animals. They were provided little or no food and water, and force-marched for days at a time.

As a result, animals would arrive at the corrals in poor condition, often with not-insignificant injuries acquired during transportation: horses do not like being crammed in small spaces with strange horses, and in such a high-stress environment, there must have been a great deal of lashing out (kicking and biting).

A French observer, the Comte de Paris, was particularly struck by the conditions in which Federal remounts were held during the opening months of the war:

Immense corrals were established among the vacant lots in the neighbourhood of Washington and the Western cities to receive droves of animals emaciated by long journeys which horse-contractors brought from Vermont and Kentucky. Taken a few days previously from the farm upon which they were grazing at liberty, never having been broken, these horses were crowded in a narrow space, carelessly picketed, badly fed, seldom groomed and without any shelter.

(Phillips 2013, p. 167)

Note: “Never having been broken” means the horse has not been taught to carry a rider.

How did callousness, apathy, and sometimes ignorance toward the warhorse manifest?

A number of ways:

Failure to provide basic maintenance care. Failure to remove parasites, dirt and other irritants (like burrs). Failure to check hooves for stones, wire and nails. Failure to clean off mud from body and hooves, which encouraged sores on the former and hoof-rot on the latter.
Failure to provide necessary shelter from the elements. Failure to provide cover from rain, wind and snow. Horses were picketed out in the open.
Failure to provide the horses with the most basic necessities even when available. Allowing horses to starve to death, even when adequate food was available. Forcing the horse to drink polluted water rather than find a clean source.
Willful mistreatment. Horses would be deliberately neglected or mistreated, in the hope that they would be made unfit for duty– the end result being that, Union or Confederate, the rider would be given a short reprieve from duty.
Horses were ridden into the ground. They were pushed until they could go no more, until they (sometimes literally) dropped dead .

To Recap:

A large number of men who didn’t know jack shit about horses were assigned to ride or drive them.
Horses who– due to reasons of age, disease, temperament, conformation, or lack of training– had no business being used for war, were enlisted.
Due to the shortage of available horses, nevermind suitable mounts, theft was rampant among the regiments.
Horses died at an atrocious rate, partially due to their unsuitability for war, partially due to the callous treatment they received; the rapid rate at which they died created further apathy, resulting in a vicious cycle.
Horses were constantly assigned and reassigned, killed or stolen in battle or on march, so even if a bond formed between horse and rider, they could be separated at any time.

What does this mean for my setting?

If you have a setting where an army has been raised:

In a hurry, with no time to prepare, and:
As a result of this lack of preparation, there is a shortage of decent warhorses in terms of the animals’ conformation, condition, and training
As a result of this lack of preparation, there is a shortage of skilled riders who understand the care and maintenance involved in a horse
And, for whatever reason(s)– through policy, through rapid reassignment, through combat or disease– soldiers don’t have the time and/or emotional energy to bond with their horse, because they cycle through them in so quickly

Then you could conceivably wind up with the same conditions as what took place in the Civil War. Rebellion and guerilla-type warfare is most likely to elicit this, because other situations– e.g planned campaigns– allow for time to either raise/import horses and to train men.

You could wind up with this if you have a society that doesn’t believe animals can think or experience pain. The problem is that long-term treatment of horses (and mules) in this manner is a losing strategy. It’s not only massively wasteful, but it reduces overall military efficiency and effectiveness. So, if you have an army that operates this way, they’re basically functioning on a massive “handicap” against an army that doesn’t treat its warmounts this way.

For Writers and Worldbuilders: On Warhorses

Basic Introduction

Basic Terminology

The Make of the Horse

The Small Warhorse

The European Medieval Warhorse

The Baroque Warhorse

Special Mention: The American Mustang

So what type of warhorse do I need?

Training

The Relationship Between Soldier and Horse

What about warhorses beyond Medieval Europe?

Horses and Soldiers with No Relationship

Men with no experience with horses were assigned to ride them into battle.

Horses with no training, experience, or were otherwise unfit to serve were selected as warmounts.

Both the Union and Confederate armies had poorly-designed remounting policies.

How did callousness, apathy, and sometimes ignorance toward the warhorse manifest?

Other Questions of Interest

Published by Aegyuptus

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Basic Introduction

Basic Terminology

The Make of the Horse

The Small Warhorse

The European Medieval Warhorse

The Baroque Warhorse

Special Mention: The American Mustang

So what type of warhorse do I need?

Training

The Relationship Between Soldier and Horse

What about warhorses beyond Medieval Europe?

Horses and Soldiers with No Relationship

Men with no experience with horses were assigned to ride them into battle.

Horses with no training, experience, or were otherwise unfit to serve were selected as warmounts.

Both the Union and Confederate armies had poorly-designed remounting policies.

How did callousness, apathy, and sometimes ignorance toward the warhorse manifest?

Other Questions of Interest

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Published by Aegyuptus

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