Beginning in 1846, he went to the Academy of Fine Arts Munich where he was a student of the history painter, Joseph Anton Rhomberg, but left him after a short period and attempted to learn drawing on his own.

After leaving the academy, he studied with more enthusiasm in the studios of Albrecht and Franz Adam and Julius Lange.

He eventually decided to devote himself exclusively to war paintings, and began by doing sketches of horses at the Royal Stables in Stuttgart.

The following year, he was part of a military campaign in Chechnya and participated in an attack on the headquarters of Imam Shamil, exposing himself to enemy fire.

A projected return to the Caucasus was thwarted by the start of the Franco-Prussian War and Horschelt died of diphtheria nine months later.