Thanks, Danny. That's the kind of information I was hoping you would have in your files.

I, too, think that Marmaduke's assignment was a mismatch. He was an infantry officer from the get-go. He graduated from West Point (Class of 1857) near the bottom of his class. The way things worked in the old U.S. Army was that branch assignments for newly-commissioned graduates of West Point was based on class standing. The top graduates were normally assigned to the engineers; then came cavalry, and finally infantry. Marmaduke thus had no cavalry experience, yet was assigned to an important cavalry command.

Shelby was, in my opinion, the prototypical Southern cavalry commander. He was a wealthy, aristocratic plantation owner from Kentucky, schooled in the classics, steeped in chivalry, with no military experience (except for a minor role in the Kansas/Missouri border disputes, commanding a company of Kentucky volunteers), who nonetheless became an aggressive and capable cavalry commander.

His official reports are a hoot to read. He used flowery, Walter Scott language, inserted lines of poetry and Latin maxims, etc. One of my favorite Shelby-isms is from one of his reports where he talked about beginning an attack at sunup. Where every other officer in the army would write something like "at sunrise," Shelby wrote, "As rosy-fingered Dawn spread her gay colors against the Stygian cloak of Night..." He always rode the biggest horse in the brigade, and sported a large black plume on his hat. The man obviously loved his job.