At the beginning of the war there were only three remount depots in the United States—at Front Royal, Virginia, Fort Keogh, Montana, and Fort Reno, Oklahoma—together with auxiliary depots at Fort Bliss and Fort Sam Houston in Texas, but with the rapid expansion of the forces it was found necessary to establish an auxiliary remount depot adjacent to each of the thirty-three camps and cantonments of the National Guard and the National Army. This naturally necessitated an enormous increase in the Remount Service personnel, which shortly before the Armistice numbered 400 officers and 19,000 enlisted men. As the war progressed it became increasingly difficult for the Remount Service to meet the demands made by the auxiliary depots for officers, for the available supply of amateur horsemen who had volunteered their services quickly became exhausted, many of them going into other branches of the army. In order to meet this demand camps were organized at Camp Joseph E. Johnston, near Jacksonville, Florida, and at Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where enlisted men who possessed the necessary qualifications were trained for commissions as officers. There was also established at Camp Johnston a mobilization camp for the organization and training of Field Remount Depots, but as this organization did not prove sufficiently flexible, there was authorized a smaller unit, known as a Field Remount Squadron, consisting of 6 officers and 157 enlisted men, it being estimated that one squadron would be required for every replacement of 400 animals. And replacements were, of necessity, frequent, it having been estimated that the average life of a horse in France was only sixteen days. There were organized at Camp Johnston a total of sixty-three Field Remount Squadrons, three wagon companies, and twelve pack-trains, of which all but seventeen squadrons saw service abroad. The enlisted personnel of these squadrons consisted of drafted men who were carefully selected because of their knowledge of horses, most of them having been farmers, ranchmen, cow-punchers, and, in a few cases, jockeys. Provision was also made for training the enlisted specialists attached to each squadron, schools being established for horse-shoers, saddlers, farriers, teamsters, and squadron clerks. Indeed, there was no more interesting sight at a cantonment than the Remount Depot, where bronco-busters, fresh from the ranges, could be seen breaking unruly horses in the “bull-pens,” while veteran packers and plainsmen gave instruction to classes of raw recruits in the art of harnessing and driving a six-horse “swing” or of throwing the “diamond hitch.” * * * * *