Before the cavalry at Fort Meade made the final change to mechanization, Nye conceived the idea of making one last full cavalry march. He explained that he wanted to make this field training expedition to demonstrate what the cavalry did, and what it could do, before it was too late. Thus in July of 1938 the Fourth Cavalry made the journey from Fort Meade, South Dakota, to the Pole Mountain area between Cheyenne and Laramie in Wyoming, returning in August. Six-hundred horses took part in the march, and covered twenty-five miles per day ? the proper distance, Nye states in his report of the expedition, for the transport of men carrying full field packs. The mounts traveled at the rate of nine miles per hour at a trot and four miles an hour at a walk. Marching at those rates requires expert training of horses, whose normal gaits may not reflect those times, as well as superior discipline in regulating speed along the route.


http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/twilight.htm