I’m doing research for a Western genre screenplay and I’m trying to find out about the reliance on horses by the cavalry and dragoons of the Mexican army around 1840-45. Just pre-Mexican-American War era.

I’m particularly interested in the amount of horses they had, where the horses were housed, what infectious diseases the horses contracted in close proximity, if they were any outbreaks in humans transmitted from the horse diseases? Just how important horses were to the Mexican Army and how the Mexican Army would manage if a large majority of horses were out of commission?

Any help in finding out where data or information on the Mexican Army and its horses could be located would be most welcome. I’d love it to be in English but if there are Spanish sources that detail such information I’d be interested in that as well.