"Remington's cavalry" Topic

I did a Bing image search for 'Frederick Remington cavalry" and spent a long while looking at his paintings and sketches.

(a fair number of Mexican cavalry in the mix.)

One thing I noticed, as directly relevant to my painting, is his blues, tops and britches, vary widely in shade. I ASSUME he painted more or less accurately from what he saw. But it looks to me like I can have any shade of blue i like, more or less, and find one of his paintings to justify it.

Also, his horses in a given painting tend to be pretty much all the same color? Laziness? small palate? or what he saw?

When possible, troops/companies/squadrons tried to have the same horse color. Bays, browns, blacks, sorrels, etc.

79th, yes, thanks. I asked GROK and got this:

From the Civil War through the Indian Wars and into the Spanish-American War era that Remington depicted, U.S. Cavalry regiments routinely assigned horses by color to individual companies/troops for visual uniformity, easier identification in battle or dust, and regimental "smartness." Typical pattern (with some variation by regiment):

One troop all bays (or dark bays).
Another sorrels/chestnuts.
Another blacks or browns.
Grays often reserved for trumpeters (easy to spot) or specific "gray horse troops."
Officers might ride personal mounts that didn't match.
Examples include the 2nd Cavalry (post-Civil War), 1st Cavalry after Gettysburg, and famously the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn (A Company dark bays, B bays, C sorrels, D blacks, etc.). This practice carried forward; it wasn't universal on every campaign (replacements could mix things up), but it was a deliberate policy and gave troops a distinctive, cohesive look that soldiers themselves appreciated. Remington, who studied Cavalry drill and equipment closely, reflected this when painting a single troop or squadron.

(In one famous painting, Dismounted: The Fourth Troopers Moving the Led Horses (1890), the horses are varied—showing he could and did depict diversity when the scene called for it.)