If I remember rite he killed 13 men in "Hand to Hand" combat Had 29 horses shot out from under him,,,wounded 8? times, He led from the front... If I remember rite he killed 13 men in "Hand to Hand" combat Had 29 horses shot out from under him,,,wounded 8? times, He led from the front...In fact, the number of enemy he killed in close combat exceeded the number horses he had shot out from underneath him by one (most likely 31 enemy killed and 30 horses shot) leading him in later life to claim that he was “one up”.
I inherited a picture from my grandfather of then-Colonel Irwin Rommel when he was visiting the United States in 1937/38 to study the cavalry tactics of the Civil War. From what my grandfather could remember, Rommel concentrated on Forrest, Morgan, Wheeler, and Stewart.
At the time, my grandfather was a sergeant in the Mississippi National Guard (he later accepted a commission in the regular Army) and his horse-drawn artillery was conducting maneuvers with some other horse units in Western Tennessee and Rommel and several other German officers were observers during these maneuvers.
Years later, in the early 1950's, my grandfather commanded an ACR battalion on the East-West German border and became good friends with a German officer who had been Rommel's aide during that study tour and he gave my grandfather the picture to remember the event.