Editing Second Boer War (section)

=== Horses ===
[[File:Horses on board ship - a guide to their management-page69.jpg|thumb|A horse destined to serve in the war, being offloaded in [[Port Elizabeth]]]]

The number of horses killed in the war was at the time unprecedented in modern warfare. For example, in the relief of Kimberley, French's cavalry rode 500 horses to their deaths in a single day. The wastage was particularly heavy among British forces for several reasons: overloading of horses with unnecessary equipment and saddlery, failure to rest and acclimatise horses after long sea voyages and, later in the war, poor management by inexperienced mounted troops and distant control by unsympathetic staffs.{{sfn|McElwee|1974|pp=223–229}}<ref>[[Sydney Frederick Galvayne]], War horses present & future: or, Remount life in South Africa. 1902.</ref> The average life expectancy of a British horse, from the time of its arrival in Port Elizabeth, was around six weeks.<ref name="Hayes1902">{{Cite book|last=Hayes |first=Matthew Horace |year=1902 |title=Horses on board ship: a guide to their management |publisher=Hurst and Blackett |location=London |pages=213–214 |url=https://archive.org/details/horsesonboardshi00haye}}</ref>{{rp|213–214}}

Most of the horses and mules brought to South Africa during the war came from the United States. In total, 109,878 horses and 81,524 mules were shipped from New Orleans to South Africa in 166 voyages from October 1899 to June 1902. The cost of these animals and their transport was an average of US$597,978 per month. A significant number of horses and mules died during the transit across the Atlantic; for example, during the [[Manchester Liners#Initial operations 1898–1914|SS ''Manchester City'']]{{'s}} 36-day passage, 187 of her 2,090 mules died.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Homan |first=Philip A. |date=Spring 2016 |title=American Horses for the South African War, 1899–1902 |url=http://www.environmentandsociety.org/node/7418/ |access-date=2024-07-10 |magazine=Arcadia |language=en |issue=2 |doi=10.5282/RCC/7418 |issn=2199-3408}}</ref>

Horses were slaughtered for their meat when needed. During the sieges of Kimberley and Ladysmith, horses were consumed as food once the regular sources of meat were depleted.{{sfn|Davis|1900|p=34}} The besieged British forces in Ladysmith also produced ''chevril'', a [[Bovril]]-like paste, by [[boiling down]] the horse meat to a jelly paste and serving it like beef tea.{{sfn|Watt|1982}}{{sfn|Jacson|1908|p=88}}

The [[Horse Memorial]] in Port Elizabeth is a tribute to the 300,000 horses that died during the conflict.{{sfn|Pocock|1917|p=viii fn. 11}}