Horses and Bayonets Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gold and blue

In the US armed forces, gold denotes mounted cavalry. Blue denoted the queen of the battlefield, the infantry.

Answer: The British used only the bayonet

Paoli Tavern was considered a massacre because the British used only the bayonet when routing the rearguard element of Washington's army after the battle of Brandywine Creek. Actually, prisoners were taken, but the killed and wounded were the result of the use of the bayonet, a weapon not fully understood and feared by the raw militia and Continentals.

Answer: By ingenuity, without loaded firearms

On July 15, 1779 'Mad' Anthony Wayne's Light Infantry was able, by stealth and using extra security measures, to storm the 150 foot peninsula at Stony Point. General Wayne ordered the men to unload their weapons and use only the bayonet. This insured that the garrison would not be alerted by concentrated musketry. Stony Point avenged Paoli and vindicated Wayne's reputation. Five hundred British prisoners were taken and this was the last major engagement in the north during the Revolutionary War.

Answer: The bugle

The bugle was used in the cavalry corps in order to signal tactics. On the battlefield, drums and drummers were not practical on a mount.

Answer: None

A volunteer wishing to join a Yankee cavalry regiment needed no qualifications. He didn't even have to know how to ride a horse and wasn't exepcted to supply a horse. The majority of the volunteers joined for either romantic reasons or simply in preference to the infantry. All of that disappeared when a recruit was expected to ride twenty miles or more a day. JEB Stuart's troopers regarded Yankee cavalry with nothing but contempt.

Answer: A sabre and pistol

During the Civil War, cavalrymen carried a sabre and pistol in place of a bayonet. Since a carbine could not be fitted with a bayonet, one was not issued. As the war went on, cavalrymen preferred pistols only because in a close engagement a pistol was more practical.

Answer: They formed infantry squares

The British used the infantry square to nullify the French cavalry charges. The horses would not charge a line that was bristling with cold steel, no matter how hard the riders urged them on.

Answer: Mounted infantry

Dragoons were basically mounted infantrymen who could ride into battle on horses and fight like standard infantry, a technique cavalrymen lacked. They were not generally used for scouting, skirmishing or long range reconnaisance. These were regarded as cavalry specialties.

(Note that there have been - generally minor - variations between armies and over time).

Answer: Bataan

The final cavalry charge by mounted US troops was made by the 26th US Cavalry (Philippine Scouts) at Bataan. It was made near the village of Morong in order to break up a Japanese troop concentration. Sadly, the surviving mounts of the operation were used to feed the starving troops on Bataan.

Answer: 'My sword is my soul'

During WWII, Japanese soldiers regarded bayonet fighting as a very serious art. In order to instill ardor, every soldier of the Emperor regarded his sword (bayonet) as his soul. 'Devil subduing bayonets' was a common term used early in the war not just for propaganda purposes; their atrocities with the bayonet testify to their devotion to this weapon.