Don't trip over the Saber: How Civil War Troopers Managed Their Sabers Dismounted 

sheridan be like

I know this comment is over a year old as I’m writing this but if I’m correct the minimum height for union cavalryman (which was 5’7 if I remember right) was in place so a soldier could walk with their saber. Any shorter troops were probably irregulars who probably wouldn’t wield sabers of this length anyways.

Chris, trying something "new"! LOL. I figured I should try and switch it up some!

Usually by bringing your own horse

Henry Wayne's 1840 manual is a great contemporary source.

@@alexanonimo6876 I assume you mean "The Sword Exercise, Arranged for Military Instruction" which was from 1850, not 1840, or is there an earlier work with which I am unfamiliar? Unfortunately, that book is entirely devoted to the spadroon rather than the saber, and while there is overlap (and while serjeants of infantry often carried them), it is not a saber book.

@@Schlachtschule Is it 1850? My mistake. However, while the plates for the second section do indeed show techniques with the 1840 NCO spadroon (or "cut and thrust," as Wayne calls it), that section is devoted to exercises meant for "broadsword, sabre, cut and thrust, and stick," and is itself of the same general stock in that section as Roworth's own, with but slight variance in terminology.

@@alexanonimo6876 It is 1850; it was finished in 1849 and published in 1850. I must be missing part of the book, however, because all the pictures I see are of spadroons.

@@Schlachtschule It's divided into two sections: the first deals with smallswords, and the second, which I believe you're seeing, on the method of using spadroon, saber, and broadsword, "broadsword" itself often being found in American literature to describe a saber, oddly enough. As I said, the pictures show spadroons, but the method is for both. Reading 179-185, he indicates even more the similarity of style applied to either, while also implying that the methods in the narrative are not necessarily for spadroon/cut-and-thrust/espadon, but that if one uses one, how to do so effectively. He also indicates that one should utilize smallsword technique, as well, in order to affect a better method. Regardless of the depiction in the plates, the manual's second section, as I said, is meant to be dedicated to the use of broadsword, saber, and spadroon. He dedicates a section to how one would use a spadroon, because as you said, the technique is a little different. He even has a short section on how to oppose a spadroon. Give it another read, but stick to the words, and see how you feel.

Sounds like im insulting you but its meant to be a question