bg: Most of the cavalry troops in the west were self-mounted troops who supplied their own horses and equipment, for which they were compensated. Horses, as you can imagine, were in short supply starting in 1863, and by the fall of 1864, many cavalrymen did not have a mount due to attrition, disease, and well, abuse. The government took the Fifth's horses beginning in 1864, for which they lost that needed extra monthly payment, but the army supplied the soldiers with horses from government stocks. In mid-1864, again due to need and lack of mounts, half the regiment was dismounted, with all the horses being sent to Company A - F, so the regiment essentially remained a cavalry regiment. The Fifth's colonel scoured the countryside from Illinois to Mississippi and gathered enough mounts to remount the regiment by the Fall of 1864. With luck, many of the men held onto their horses until they received fresh mounts for their expedition into Texas under Custer in July 1865.

Rhonda