> How credible is Darcy’s claim of the average travel-time by horse and carriage being a little more than a half day?
Not very, unless you can afford frequent changes of horse. A horse's natural walking pace is not much faster than a person's, and you can figure on 25 miles being the limit for a day's easy travel by horse, less probably if it's pulling a carriage, less still if the roads are not excellent.
To do 80-90 miles in a day as he suggests would require a team of horses travelling at faster than walking speed (trotting, probably), which means you would need to stop periodically to exchange the horses at wayside inns/posts, further adding to the expense of the journey.
For someone who could not afford to change horses, the journey by carriage would probably take 2-3 days.
I will check the literature on this from ancient Rome, which is a good test on the best speeds for horse-based travel, though modern horses are larger and stronger than ancient horses. Arthur Freemantle claimed that the stage coach journey from San Antonio to Alleyton, TX during the Civil War took about 46 hours (140 miles quoted). But we should not assume that TX roads were good. Stage service implied frequent changes of horse teams, which were also used as refreshment breaks for passengers and drivers.
> How credible is Darcy’s claim of the average travel-time by horse and carriage being a little more than a half day?
Not very, unless you can afford frequent changes of horse. A horse's natural walking pace is not much faster than a person's, and you can figure on 25 miles being the limit for a day's easy travel by horse, less probably if it's pulling a carriage, less still if the roads are not excellent.
To do 80-90 miles in a day as he suggests would require a team of horses travelling at faster than walking speed (trotting, probably), which means you would need to stop periodically to exchange the horses at wayside inns/posts, further adding to the expense of the journey.
For someone who could not afford to change horses, the journey by carriage would probably take 2-3 days.
I will check the literature on this from ancient Rome, which is a good test on the best speeds for horse-based travel, though modern horses are larger and stronger than ancient horses. Arthur Freemantle claimed that the stage coach journey from San Antonio to Alleyton, TX during the Civil War took about 46 hours (140 miles quoted). But we should not assume that TX roads were good. Stage service implied frequent changes of horse teams, which were also used as refreshment breaks for passengers and drivers.