I disagree (with Wade, but not with Foote). Charge! is a specific command with a very specific meaning not ambiguous at all because of training. Troops were (and are) drilled to respond to it in a particular way, and it's been standard among all English-speaking infantry and cavalry for several centuries. Roosevelt was not a professional soldier, and actually had very little (almost no) military training -- he was a lifelong politician who got appointed to lead a brigade, basically as a political appointment. If the troops followed him, it was because of his body language, not because of his innovative terminology.
As for Shelby's opinion, sure enough, the sword was obsolescent as a weapon during the Civil War -- but it was a frequently-used weapon as late as a few decades earlier, even in naval battle, when the capture of a ship was often accomplished by boarding; and when mounted cavalry fought infantry in the Napoleonic wars, the cavalry sword (and the horse itself) were fearsome weapons indeed. A pikeman and a cavalryman were approximately an even match. The advantage of cavalry was that it was mobile and could easily be concentrated. The disadvantage of cavalry was that cavalry was expensive to maintain and deploy.
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-- Carl
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