This is the first volume of a four-volune work. The total work represents the culmination of more than twenty years of painstaking research. It is an exhaustive delineation, in words and pictures, of every aspect of the attire and equipment of that most exciting of all United States military forces - the cavalry.Volume I covers the Revolutionary period, with a detailed account of the ""sires"" of the United States Cavalry, the Continental Light Dragoons. Then come the War of 1812 and the formation of the United States Mounted Ranger Battalion, and later the United States Dragoons. The uniforms, insignia, decorations, arms, horse equipment, accoutrements, and saddles are described and profusely illustrated in 11 color plates and 96 black-and-white drawings. Appended are sections defining the nomenclature of the horse, horse equipment, and arms, as well as a roster of cavalry bugle calls.

In the work Steffen, a widely renowned military artist and historian, presents American military history from a perspective until now only superficially viewed. Historians, military specialists, and researchers will find a wealth of hard-to-find detail. The author's color plates and meticulously detailed drawings, reproduced from actual uniforms and equipment and official government specifications, show us the cavalryman as he actually looked, wherever he was stationed, whatever his war, wherever he was sent to be a horse soldier for his country.