Page:History of the Fenian raid on Fort Erie with an account of the Battle of Ridgeway.djvu/29

24 In the first place his greatest want was a small force of Cavalry for scouting purposes, in fact the frontier should have been picketed with a body of cavalry from the moment an attack became probable. Had that been done, perhaps the raid would never have taken place, and if it had, the mounted men hovering about the enemy would never have lost sight of them, would have prevented them from spreading over the country, would have saved the farmers' horses and provisions, would have found out the numbers and designs of the enemy, and our authorities would have received full and accurate information of all their movements. No cavalry were on the front, however, and none were ordered out until the last moment when it was too late for them to do real service. There is no doubt, whatever, that to this great want of cavalry may be attributed the failure of the whole campaign.

The cavalry force of this Province is small in numbers, and, consequently, weak in influence. All the officers in high positions in this country are either infantry or artillery officers, and consequently they have not any sympathy with the cavalry arm of the service, nor as full an appreciation of its value as a cavalry officer would have. In addition to this cavalry have latterly been much decried and neglected, and a strong prejudice exists among some members of the ministry against that force. They have heard it said that cavalry cannot break squares although the military history of the last 2000 years proves conclusively that they can; and although Napoleon hardly ever fought a battle where his Cuirassiers did not overthrow infantry squares. They have heard it said that this country is too much cut up with fences and woods to allow of charges of cavalry to be made, and for these reasons they jump to the conclusion that cavalry in future wars may be done away with.

They forget or do not know that cavalry are the eyes, the ears, the feelers and the feeders of an army. They forget that there are generally 20 or 30 days of marching and countermarching, of camping and bivouacking, for one day of