The Wild West, August 5th, 1851
Day 1 of the Invasion of Equestria
We were moving out. The time had come, at last, to take this fight to them.
Over the course of the last few days, we had assembled the three army groups. The 21st Infantry was placed in Army Group A, which would directly attack their capital. Good. Time to pay for our losses with the razing of their foul place...
Oddly enough, there had been no mention of a change of tactics, only a directive saying that our service was of great importance to the survival of the human race.
We were also given a paper, signed by President Fillmore, that essentially stated the same thing.
All bullshit. How can our cause be worth that when we lost three times as many men on the first battle?
Marching out in our long blue lines each numbering about 1,000 men, that easily stretched as far as the eye could see, was the Army of the West. Remarkable still was our cavalry, what Scott had called our 'secret weapon' in the sense that these devil-horses, which some were beginning to call 'ponies' to reduce to confusion, had not seen our horses yet, so there would be plenty of confusion in their lines as they saw our men on horseback, sabers drawn, running at full gallop to them.
And finally, in the rear, were our artillery pieces. Most of the crews were veterans of the Mexican-American War, where we proved that our men could reload five times faster than a Mexican, so, if they had any sort of artillery, I wondered how long it would take them to fire it.
We had 12-pounders, to be used in normal engagements. We also were packing our siege guns, 18 and 24-pounders, along with our 8 and 10-inch mortars. Perhaps the one part of General Scott's directive that I agreed with was that we were going to "blast these things to kingdom come" before they could even reach us.
So we marched. We marched, and we marched, for days on end. Thankfully, the Army Groups were arranged so that Army Group B led the assault, followed by Army Group A, then C. I suppose it was to give us veterans of the Battle of Clovis their much-needed rest. There was barely any guard duty, so we had some time to reflect.
The strategic reasoning behind this was that should Army Group B encounter resistance, Army Group A would not be touched, and thus ready for the hard campaign to their capital. Logistically, this sounded genius, but tactically, each Army
Group marched within eyesight of each other, which raised a cloud of dust that could be spotted well before we arrived.
On Day 4, we encountered a signpost, with a rather happy pink horse drawn onto it, welcoming us to Equestria, and telling us to "Enjoy your Stay!".
The day following, we encountered a settlement that wasn't on any maps, so Army Group B deployed in battle formation, with the rest of us placed on standby.
I got a glimpse of the battle from what the soldiers of Army Group B told us later that night.
They had seen tents pitched around the city, obviously the base of an army. So, the artillery had begun bombarding the town, which caused them to assemble into their formations remarkably similar to ours.
It was then decided to send the advance guard of about 7,000 men forward, and use them along with our artillery to take the town. Our cavalry were going to be used later.
They deployed in a single large mass, which was being straightened out right before the eyes of Army Group B, their force numbering about 5,000 horses, was perhaps trying to mimic us, but we had our muskets, something they didn't.
As the soldiers of Army Group B advanced, they came under artillery fire. Great blasts of purple and pink exploded around them, only two shots causing any casualties.
So the order was given to close into range with them, and we did. They simply stood, watching our every move as Army
Group B let loose with a thunderous volley that even I could hear, all the way behind them.
About a fourth of their line fell, and they promptly decided to charge, not sitting around.
However, this time, we had artillery, which started opening holes in their charge, which made them fall back while our lines were reloading.
That was the Battle of Appeloosa, as we called it, judging from the signposts. The Army of the West halted there for the night, as we saw that this town was not unlike Clovis, and their architecture was remarkably similar to ours.
Losses for the day, 20 men killed through artillery on our side, and 2,100 killed on theirs. That was more like it.
We didn't, however, capture their artillery, which we had seen fled the scene as the battle began.
I wonder if their leader had told them that they were acceptable losses, or what type of propaganda they had used.
As the Army of the West settled down for the night, there was some talk of finding some of their women, and using them to our advantage, so to speak.
Colonel Gearhart had overheard this, and gave us a speech that we must not sink to the level of savagery that these brutes had become used to. And, there were no civilians there to begin with. They had been evacuated, we presumed, before the battle began.
The next day, we awoke to see multiple birds circling over us, but we then saw that they were some of these horses too.
We saw them perform intricate tricks over us, perhaps to intimidate us. But we held steady, and held our fire as well.
The order was given to now begin the Trident Plan. Our Army Group would continue marching straight west, as the others took up our flanks and pushed forward.
Thus began another cycle of marching, marching, marching, to the point that we figured that we had won the war already.
We had only encountered one city, and had taken it easily enough. But those people that had suggested that we had won should have taken a look into the sky, seeing that we were being trailed by these flying devils.
They would follow us, perhaps 20 at a time, then the original 20 would be replaced with another 20, and the now tired ones would fly back to someplace out of sight.
That someplace was decided to be the direction of their capital, so we marched after them, the tunes of Yankee Doodle and Old 1812 becoming burned into my mind.
I heard some of the more inexperienced men calling it the splendor of war, but I refused to believe that.
To me, the splendor of war was lost at Clovis.