Randy Steffen – författare

A large part of American history was written from the seat of a military saddle. While the United States Army used horse-mounted fighting men from the very beginning, it was in the nineteenth century - from the decade before the Mexican War through the Indian wars - that the dashing cavalry units captured the American imagination.The horse solders remained part of the army until 1943, when the military converted them to mechanized forces. Even so, West Point did not tear down its stables and abandon its riding-proficiency requirement until 1947. The long retention of the cavalry was due to affection for the memory of the glorious role of the cavalry in American military history.

This is the first volume of a four-volune work. The total work represents the culmination of more than twenty years of painstaking research. It is an exhaustive delineation, in words and pictures, of every aspect of the attire and equipment of that most exciting of all United States military forces - the cavalry.Volume I covers the Revolutionary period, with a detailed account of the ""sires"" of the United States Cavalry, the Continental Light Dragoons. Then come the War of 1812 and the formation of the United States Mounted Ranger Battalion, and later the United States Dragoons. The uniforms, insignia, decorations, arms, horse equipment, accoutrements, and saddles are described and profusely illustrated in 11 color plates and 96 black-and-white drawings. Appended are sections defining the nomenclature of the horse, horse equipment, and arms, as well as a roster of cavalry bugle calls.In the work Steffen, a widely renowned military artist and historian, presents American military history from a perspective until now only superficially viewed. Historians, military specialists, and researchers will find a wealth of hard-to-find detail. The author's color plates and meticulously detailed drawings, reproduced from actual uniforms and equipment and official government specifications, show us the cavalryman as he actually looked, wherever he was stationed, whatever his war, wherever he was sent to be a horse soldier for his country.

This is the second volume of a projected four-volume work. In Volume I the author delineated the uniforms, arms, accouterments, and equipment of the period from 1776 to 1850. In this volume he addresses himself to the eventful, bloody tragic mid-nineteenth century. Here he describes the dress and equipment of the horse soldier of the early frontier, the Mexican War, the Civil War, and the wars with the Indians. The uniforms, insignia, decorations, arms, and horse gear are described and profusely illustrated in three color plates and 126 black-and-white drawings. For his models the author used actual uniforms and equipment, supported by official government documents.Among the subjects covered in this volume are the dress and equipment manufactured to meet the needs of cavalrymen at the early outposts east of the Missouri and in the brief War with Mexico that was a testing ground for the Civil War to come. (Ironically, much of the equipment and arms used by the United States Cavalry was designed by officers and government employees who later joined the Confederates.)After the war came a new duty for the horse soldier - pacification of the hostile Indians of the West. As the needs of this harsh and demanding duty became clear, radical modifications were made to meet them. All these changes are described and minutely illustrated in this, the second volume of an indispensable reference work for American historians.

This is the third volume of a projected four-volume work delineating, in text and voluminous illustrations, every aspect of the uniforms and equipment of that most colorful of all United States military forces - the cavalry.In Volumes I and II the author described and pictured the uniforms, arms, and equipment of the cavalry from Revolutionary days to the outbreak of the Indian Wars. In this volume the author addresses the period of the cavalry's decisive conquest of the Indians and the securing of the western frontier, the Spanish-American War and the glory of ""Teddy Roosevelt's boys,"" and the years when the thunder of the Great War in Europe was echoing ominously across the Atlantic to America.Each era made its demands upon the horse soldier and his mount, and the author shows how the government dressed, armed, and supplied them to meet those demands. Volume III, like the earlier volumes, is lavishly illustrated with two color plates and 168 black-and-white drawing, meticulously detailed.This book and the two earlier volumes in the series are indispensable reference works for researchers and historians of America's military past.

This is the fourth and final volume of Randy Steffen's monumental work, The Horse Soldier. With this volume the work brings together - in nearly a thousand pages of text and nearly 500 illustrations - a comprehensive history of the cavalryman's dress, horse equipment, weaponry - every item the horse soldier wore, carried, or used - from Revolutionary times to World War II.Volume IV covers the final twenty-five years - the World War I years, when the United States Cavalry fought for the first time as part of an allied force; the peacetime years, when the cavalry was largely a ""show"" force; and World War II, when mechanization finally outmoded the horse soldier, and the horse was traded for the tank. The cavalry became history.