|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||
|
17371 - UNION CAVALRY CAPTAIN AND GUIDON BEARER,
1861-1865
(Click here to go back) |
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
| At the start of the American Civil War,
the U.S. Army possessed five mounted regiments, the 1st and 2nd Dragoons,
the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen, and the 1st and 2nd Cavalry. On
May 4, 1861, General Order No. 16 created the 3rd U.S. Cavalry Regiment.
Unlike the five older mounted units, which contained ten companies
apiece, the 3rd Cavalry received twelve.
When northern governors first offered to recruit volunteer cavalry regiments to quell the Southern rebellion, the Union War Department refused. Cavalry cost twice as much as infantry, and professional soldiers believed it took at least two years to fully train a cavalryman. Confident that the war would be a short one, Union leaders convinced themselves it was not necessary to provide their forces with a large mounted arm. The successes scored by Confederate horsemen early in the conflict caused the War Department to reverse this short-sighted policy. Between 1861 and 1865, the loyal states raised 272 full cavalry regiments, forty-five separate battalions, and seventy-eight independent companies. These volunteer regiments followed the table of organization established for the 3rd U.S. Cavalry in July 1861. A colonel and a lieutenant colonel commanded each regiment, with a staff consisting of an adjutant, a quartermaster, a commissary, a surgeon, an assistant surgeon, and two chief buglers. Each of the regiment's twelve companies was to have one captain, two lieutenants, five sergeants, eight corporals, two musicians, two farriers, one saddler, one waggoner, and seventy-two privates. Two companies made a squadron, and four a battalion. A major, who was assisted by an adjutant, a quartermaster, a commissary, and six sergeants, led each of the regiment's three battalions. This table of organization gave each Union cavalry regiment a paper strength of 1,278 officers and men. During active campaigning, however, a regiment rarely mustered more than 400 to 600 effectives at any one time. Union cavalry organization underwent minor changes as the war progressed. On August 3, 1861, Congress stripped regular mounted regiments of their old numbers and titles, and re-designated them all as "Cavalry." Renumbered according to seniority, the 1st Dragoons became the 1st U.S. Cavalry; the 2nd Dragoons, the 2nd Cavalry; the Mounted Rifles, the 3rd; the 1st Cavalry, the 4th; the 2nd Cavalry, the 5th; and the 3rd Cavalry, the 6th. |
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
