Blackhorse -> RE: Rail and road movement (6/15/2004 1:13:24 AM)
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ORIGINAL: GAMETESTER I believe Jackson's foot cavalry did 50 miles in 2 days once which was considered a great achievement at the time. Twice, actually, (en route to Second Bull Run, and again in the Shenandoah). The best feat of Civil War marching that I am aware of is Francis Herron and his two divisions hoofing it to Prairie Grove (an 1862 battle in Arkansas). "Herron . . . received Blunt's message on December 3 and put his 7,000 men on the road early the next morning. During the next three and one half days Herron's two divisions marched 110 miles across the Ozark Plateau—an average of thirty miles per day. Some units covered the final sixty-five miles in only thirty hours. It was the most extraordinary forced march of the Civil War. Not every soldier could maintain such a grueling pace, and the Union column dwindled as the hours passed, but by dawn on December 7 the vanguard of Herron's command was in Fayetteville, only eighteen miles from Cane Hill." But even they couldn't march 90 miles a day!
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