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Cavalry In Combat

I used to love to play cowboy and indians when growing up. The movies of fighting with horses was always very interesting to watch even if it was another period like the dark ages. What about the use of cavalry in combat about 150 years and more ago did it really make an attacker stronger or just put more horses in the line for death and injury?

Combat Cavalry

150 years ago cavalry didn't particularly make a combatant stronger, it made them more mobile. This would have been around the Civil War. That was an infantry war. The reason they weren't 'stronger' is because of the lethality of the periods weapons. Being on a horse didn't add to that. But being mobile was important.

Cavalry was the eyes of an army on the move. The reason Lee ended up fighting at Gettysburg on terrain to the defenders advantage was because he didn't have his cavalry to recon and the Union did. It was the Union's cavalry recon that the Confederscy actually bumped into.

Now, go back to the 1400s and earlier and cavalry had a decided advantage against all but the best trained and properly equipped infantry. This was because weapons were more favorable for the cavalry and a heavy cavalry charge was hard to withstand. They were like the tanks of their time. They didn't always win, enough bows or pikes could beat them, but that was the exception rather than the rule.