Mobile farriers also traveled with the army on the move. Just one Union remount depot in Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., held up to 20,000 horses and employed 100 blacksmiths. With heavy use, these horses and mules needed to be reshod more often. Horseshoes helped keep animals healthy and mobile. Even though horses and men often went hungry, tens of thousands of wagons were on the move daily.

One Union general estimated his forces alone required more than 500 wagon loads of feed a day. The recommended daily ration for a horse was 14 pounds of hay and 12 pounds of grain. The most important role of draft animals was maintaining the complex logistics involved in supporting hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses in the field. Horseshoes also helped keep cavalry units on the move for intelligence gathering and raiding parties. However, mules did carry the small mountain howitzers that were small enough to break apart and be carried on their backs. Mules couldn’t be used because they would go berserk. Artillery counter-fire would try to immobilize cannons by killing the horses. Horses provided essential mobility for artillery. Battle deaths were typically higher for horses than for men, and as many as 3 million horses died in the war compared with 620,000 soldiers. Animals and horseshoes were critical for the war effort.

David production horses