To people of the mid-nineteenth century, horses and mules were at least as important as automobiles and motorcycles are to us today. There were, according to the census, slightly more than six million horses and slightly more than one million asses and mules in the United States in 1860. That seems as if it would be plenty to mount all the Union and Confederate forces, but the majority was still needed at home to plow the fields. The states that were the most fortunate in having a surplus were Illinois (575,000 horses), Indiana (409,000 horses), and New York (503,000 horses). In terms of mules, the states that were the most flush were Alabama (108,000), Kentucky (117,000), Mississippi (112,000), and Tennessee (119,000).