In front of the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middleburg stands a sculpture of an emaciated, broken down horse. The monument is a stark reminder of the often overlooked suffering inflicted on millions of equines during the American Civil War. The names of some of the more famous horses are remembered today – Traveler, Little Sorrel, Rienzi, Old Baldy – but those tend to be mounts used by famous generals. The armies of the Civil War were largely horse powered, relying on equines to haul artillery, pull supply and ambulance wagons, and as cavalry mounts. It’s estimated that over a million horses and mules died during the conflict.

The end of the Civil War did not end the US Army’s need for quality horses, but it wasn’t until 1908 that a concerted effort was made by the Quartermaster Corps to replace wartime bloodstock losses. In that year the US Army Remount Service was established, with facilities in Colorado, Idaho, California, Texas, Wyoming, Kentucky, and here in the Heritage Area at Front Royal, Virginia.

Construction of what became known as the Ayleshire Quartermaster Remount Depot began outside of Front Royal in 1911, and by 1915 the depot was operational. Eleven barns and stables were erected, along with other supporting structures and a rail depot. The facility was responsible “for the purchase, receipt, quarantine, and conditioning for issue of animals required by the Army in the eastern zone.” Remount officials worked with private horse breeders to collect animals suitable for military service, or for breeding at the facility.

The Remount service took on increased importance in April 1917, as the United States entered the First World War. Although trench warfare on the Western Front made mounted cavalry largely impractical, horses were still vital for transportation and for moving artillery and materiel. Just a month after the US entered the war, the War Department issued orders for the purchase of 250,000 horses and mules. Thousands of these animals passed through Front Royal, where they were loaded on trains bound for Newport News. The Remount Depots not only supplied the horses needed overseas, but also squadrons of men to support them, provide veterinary care, and recondition broken-down mounts for return to service.

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One of the locals who served in the Remount service was Major Bolling Haxall. The grandson of one of Richmond’s wealthiest business leaders, Bolling was living near Middleburg when the US entered the war. He would serve overseas as an officer with the 303rd Remount Squadron at the 1st Army Headquarters. Major Haxall survived the war, but died of disease during the occupation of Germany in 1919. The following year his remains were returned to Middleburg and he is buried at Sharon Cemetery.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the US Army sought to reduce its dependence on equines. Nearly all of the cavalry arm was mechanized by 1940, and trucks gradually replaced wagons for transportation. Combat experience, however, would show that there were certain situations where horses and mules were preferable to wheeled vehicles. In western Europe, the US Army was almost exclusively mechanized, but in the trackless jungles and unforgiving terrain of the Pacific and southeast Asia, horses and mules were necessary. The Remount Depots continued to meet the demand for equines in this theater of the war, and in 1945 alone over 7,000 foals were born at Remount Facilities. Over the course of the war over 50,000 equines were used by US forces.

The Second World War marked the end of horses as an important part of American warfare. The adoption of mechanized and air-mobile formations changed the nature of cavalry forever. As a result, the Remount Service was disbanded in 1948. The property where the Front Royal Depot was located was given over to the Department of Agriculture, and is now the home of the Smithsonian Institution’s Conservation Biology Institute. Where horses and mules were once bred for war, this facility now carries on vital work in preserving threatened species from around the world.