Grant’s Cavalryman: The Life and Wars of General James H. Wilson

At the start of the Civil War, the cavalry of the Union army seemed habitually to lag behind its Confederate opponents. It was not for want of brave men or good animals. The fault, rather, laid in the least glorious aspect of all military branches - organisation and administration. Once Union authorities applied some system to their cavalry service, telling results rewarded their efforts. More than anyone else, the man responsible for that success was Grant’s cavalryman, General James H. Wilson. Drawing from a host of sources unused by previous historians and marked by a dramatic narrative, Edward G. Longacre’s Grant’s Cavalryman is the only modern biography of the man who revolutionised the Union cavalry.