{"product_id":"9781543453249","title":"Westward Ho","description":"When the American Civil War began, it was quite possible that the only experience Jabez and William Challacombe had with horses was walking behind one as it pulled a plow. Certainly, Northern boys didn’t have the same equestrian tradition as Southern boys. They hadn’t been raised to ride high-spirited thoroughbreds on foxhunting or to have a romantic view of themselves as gallant warriors when sitting astride a horse. From a Northern farm boy’s point of view, a horse was a beast of burden, and there was nothing glamorous about that. When they did occasionally ride on the back of a horse, it would most likely be a big docile, slow-moving cold-blooded animal with large hooves, feathered pasterns, and a sway in its back that would eliminate the need of a saddle. Their objective in riding would be solely for transportation and only because it was faster and took less effort than walking. It might therefore seem a little strange that Jabez and William would enlist in the cavalry. Probably their choice of service was influenced by a slick recruiter telling them they didn’t have to walk to work in the cavalry; they could ride. Whatever the motivation, twenty-seven-year-old Jabez and his twenty-one-year-old brother, William, enlisted for three years as privates in Company H of the Second Ohio Volunteer Cavalry Regiment.","brand":"Xlibris US","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137281605872,"sku":"9781543453249","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781543453249_p0.jpg?v=1763749208","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781543453249","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}