ARMOR-CAVALRY: Part 1; Regular Army and Army Reserve/War of 1812 to Civil War

by Mary Lee Stubbs and Stanley Russell Connor

• By 1808 war with England was again threatening, and Congress increased the Regular Army by eight regiments-one each of light dragoons, light artillery, and riflemen and five of infantry. The dragoon regiment of eight companies constituted the only cavalry in the Regular establishment until 1812, when a second regiment was authorized. The two regiments were the cavalry force of the Regular Army during the War of 1812, and at no time were they at full authorized strength. Detachments from the regiments took part in a number of actions during 1812 and 1813-at Mississineway River in the Indiana Territory in December 1812, at the siege of Fort Meigs at the mouth of the Maumee River in Ohio the next spring, and later in Canada.

• Early in 1814 Congress enacted legislation to improve the structure of the Army. By an act of 30 March the two dragoon regiments were consolidated into an 8-troop command designated the Regiment of Light Dragoons. Although the consolidated regiment seldom operated as a single unit and a year later was disbanded, detachments saw action at Lundy's Lane, Fort Erie, and Bladensburg.

• Mounted militia companies throughout this period were a familiar sight in all the frontier campaigns and, when called upon, gave good account of themselves. Johnson's Kentucky Mounted Volunteers, for example, were at the Battle of the Thames River in Canada in 1813, and General Coffee's mounted Tennessee militia fought under Andrew Jackson in Alabama in 1814.

• The Regiment of Dragoons was disbanded on 15 June 1815, and for seventeen years the Regular establishment again had no cavalry. Despite the arguments in Army circles for a small mounted force, Congress stood firm in its dedication to economy and a minimum standing Army.

• During these years the western frontier moved well beyond the Allegheny Mountains, across the Mississippi River, up the Missouri, Arkansas, and Red Rivers, and into the plains area where the Indian was at home on horseback. By 1830 seven Army posts-scattered for 800 miles from Fort Snelling on the upper Mississippi to Fort Gibson on the Arkansas and garrisoned by detachments of Regular infantry and artillery-formed the only bulwark against Indian attack.

• On occasion, mounted militia were called out to reinforce the Regulars. Although these volunteers were called cavalrymen, their horses usually were the same ones with which they had plowed the field and dragged logs for the new cabin. Despite poor military organization, the mounted volunteers were generally effective and constituted the only semblance of a cavalry force, but the reports of money spent to equip and pay them were later used by the advocates of cavalry to argue that a Regular force would be less expensive.

• In 1813 uprisings by the Menominees at Prairie du Chien in the Northwest Territory and by Black Hawk's band at Rock Island, Illinois, provided tangible evidence of the need for an Army capable of tracking down and pursuing the Indians beyond their usual haunts. Finally, in June 1832, Congress authorized the organization of a Battalion of Mounted Rangers for defense of the frontier. Some 600 hardy frontiersmen were brought together. Experience with this battalion proved the value of a mounted force, but it also indicated the importance of having the force properly trained and disciplined. As a result, on 2 March 1833 Congress authorized a regiment of dragoons in lieu of the Battalion of Mounted Rangers. The new organization, the Regiment of United States Dragoons, was an answer to advocates of a mounted force as well as to the economy minded. It would be mounted for speed, yet trained and equipped to fight both mounted and dismounted.

• The regiment, made up of a field and staff (headquarters) and 10 companies, had 34 officers and 714 men, many of whom were formerly in the Battalion of Mounted Rangers. The Ranger commander, Maj. Henry Dodge, was promoted to colonel and given command of the new regiment. Among others on the commissioned staff were a number of experienced infantrymen who were to become famous as cavalrymen. Lt. Col. Stephen Watts Kearny entered from the 3d Infantry, Lt. Jefferson Davis from the 1st Infantry, and Lt. Philip St. George Cooke from the 6th Infantry. The combination of Regulars and Rangers gave to the new regiment some officers with a thorough knowledge of military principles and others well acquainted with the type of action that all were soon to experience. None, however, were schooled in cavalry tactics. The officers of the regiment themselves practiced drilling in squads in order to be able to teach the men.

• The Army then in the field consisted of 4 regiments (36 companies) of artillery, 7 regiments (70 companies) of infantry, and a regiment (10 companies) of dragoons. The total of 4,282 actually in field service manned some 50 posts scattered over the country.

• While most of the Eastern Department had been cleared of Indians, three major tribes (Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee) remained in the southeast. The most troublesome were the Seminoles in Florida, and in 1835 eleven companies of artillery and infantry were sent south to subdue them. Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, who commanded the force, reported on 29 January 1836 that no mounted troops would be needed, but later wrote that horsemen would be essential to the campaign, adding that two mounted Regular companies would be worth twice that number of foot. Meanwhile, the states were called upon for mounted troops.

• Congress on 23 May 1836 authorized the raising of 10,000 volunteers and a second regiment of dragoons. The volunteers could be either foot or mounted and the dragoon regiment was to be a duplicate of the regiment of dragoons already in the service. To get the organization of the new Regular regiment started, a detachment of the 1st Regiment of Dragoons, already in Florida, was reorganized as a company of the 2d Regiment of Dragoons and recruiting stations were opened at various places in the Eastern Department. In December 1836 five companies, organized in New York and South Carolina, sailed for Savannah where they left their ships, mounted the horses brought to Georgia for their use, and proceeded to Florida. The men of the remaining companies were more fortunate; they went to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where the regimental commander opened a school of instruction for them. In October 1837 the trained companies joined the others in Florida, traveling 1,200 miles overland in 55 days.

• In the Florida war, the 2d Dragoons fought mounted less frequently than dismounted. The swamps, marshes, and rivers that separated the hummocks where the Indians had built their villages were almost impassable on foot, and the horse was often an encumbrance.

• Besides the Regular cavalry, many mounted volunteers entered the Federal service during the Seminole War. In the first year, 152 companies, totaling 10,712 men, were accepted from the nearby states, and a regiment of friendly Creek Indians was organized. A South Carolina regiment, the Indian regiment, and 35 additional companies served in Florida. The others were employed in Creek and Cherokee country and on the southwestern frontier, mainly to discourage other tribes from helping the Seminoles.

• At the end of the Seminole War, the Army was greatly reduced, and the dragoons were hit hard. First, the strength of the company was reduced by 10 privates; next, the number of horses in a company was cut to 40; finally, effective 4 March 1843, the 2d Dragoons were dismounted and reorganized as the Regiment of Riflemen. To turn dragoons into riflemen, only three major changes in the regimental organization actually took place: horses were eliminated, rifles replaced carbines, and the farriers and blacksmiths were discharged. Nevertheless, by this act the mounted force of the U.S. Army was again reduced to one regiment.

• No sooner were the dragoons dismounted than agitation for remounting them began. It was argued that at least two mounted regiments should be stationed on the western frontier and maintained there in readiness for swift offensive action. If action were not needed, the mounted force should make a show of strength at least once a year by marching into the Indian country. In 1844, as a result of these arguments and pressure from the frontier states for a greater number of mounted Regulars in that area, Congress passed legislation to remount the riflemen and to restore to the regiment its original designation. Instead of moving to the western frontier, however, the 2d Dragoons joined Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor in Texas in 1845.

• In 1846, after war with Mexico had begun, the mounted force was further increased. Legislation passed in May of that year to strengthen the entire Army included provision for seven regiments of cavalry manned by 12-month volunteers, a Regular regiment designated the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen, and an increase in the number of privates in each cavalry company.

• The Regiment of Mounted Riflemen was constituted to help establish a military road to the Oregon Territory. For a number of years the opening of the road, part of it through unexplored territory, had been discussed. Money was finally appropriated and a plan developed calling for forts from the Missouri to the Columbia. That there ought to be military protection for the project was evident, and for once a mounted force appeared to be the most economical solution.

• Debates in Congress on organizing this new force brought out the point that mounted troops could be used to carry the mail, as messengers, and to guard settlers going west. One member of Congress said he would vote for raising the regiment just to restore a rifle regiment to the Army. Although the United States had once been the rifle country of the world, he contended, it had fallen behind the European nations. There was not one rifle regiment in the establishment. He further stated that the unit should be mounted because, he thought, it was idle to send infantry against Indians who would be on horseback.

• Headquarters of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen was established at Jefferson Barracks in October 1846. The companies, organized at Fort McHenry, Maryland, in Columbus, Ohio, and at Jefferson Barracks, were concentrated at the barracks by the end of the year. But, instead of going to Oregon as intended, the unit joined General Scott's force in Mexico. 'In crossing the Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans to Point Isabel, Texas, the horses were washed overboard during a storm and the regiment, except for two companies mounted on captured Mexican horses, had to fight as infantry.

• The regiment was armed with the Model 1841 rifle and a flintlock pistol. Through the efforts of Capt. Samuel H. Walker of the regiment and inventor Samuel Colt, the War Department purchased 1,000 Colt single-action, 6-shot revolvers for the regiment. More than 200 of the revolvers reached Vera Cruz before the end of the war, but there is no record that the unit used them in the Mexican War campaigns.

• As first organized, each company of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen had 64 privates; in 1847 the number was increased to 70, equalizing that of the dragoons. At this time, too, the regiments of dragoons and riflemen were each authorized an additional major, to be promoted from among the captains.

• When, because of the Mexican War, the Regular establishment was further increased by 10 new regiments in 1847, 9 were infantry, and the tenth was designated the 3d Regiment of Dragoons. Even though classed as Regular, these. 10 units were formed only for the duration and were disbanded at the close of the war.

• The Mexican War afforded U.S. mounted Regular troops the first opportunity since the Revolution to engage mounted troops of a foreign organized army, and American cavalrymen took part in all of the major campaigns of the war. The 2d Dragoons were in every battle from Palo Alto to Chapultepec. The Mounted Riflemen, fighting dismounted at Chapultepec, earned from General Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the Army, the compliment that became their motto: "Brave Rifles! Veterans! You have been baptized in fire and blood and have come out steel."

• During the war the regiments were broken up and the companies scattered. As in the Seminole War they often fought as infantry, but their usual missions were reconnaissance and pursuit. Several small engagements, however, were decided by traditional cavalry charges- horses at the gallop, sabers slashing. A good example was the action at Morena Bridge, near Vera Cruz, on 25 March 1847, when Col. William S. Harney placed his dismounted dragoons and infantry on the right and left of the bridge, holding mounted dragoons in reserve. After a few rounds of artillery from two cannon, the foot soldiers attacked. Once they had made some headway against the enemy, the mounted men joined in and, with their sabers swinging, drove the Mexicans across the bridge. The Mexicans reformed on the far side, but when the cavalry thundered over the bridge the enemy broke once again, and the dragoons pursued.

• While Generals Scott and Taylor with most of the Regular Army and the Volunteers were winning battles in Mexico, the commands of Col. Stephen Watts Kearny and Capt. John C. Fremont were securing California and New Mexico for the United States. Colonel Kearny's force, principally mounted, consisted of his own 1st Regiment of Dragoons, the 1st Regiment of Missouri Volunteer Cavalry under Col. Alexander W. Doniphan, a mounted company from St. Louis known as the Laclede Rangers, two batteries of artillery, two small companies of volunteer infantry, and some Indian guides. Fremont had a very small command consisting principally of mounted frontiersmen.

• When the war with Mexico came to an end and the usual postwar reductions of the Army began, the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen was retained as a part of the Regular establishment. All the other new regiments were mustered out, and the Volunteers were discharged and returned home.

• The Regiment of Mounted Riflemen was at once ordered overland to Oregon, but many of its members took advantage of a wartime law that permitted Regulars to receive discharges at the conclusion of hostilities. As a result, the depleted regiment had to wait for recruits at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On 10 May 1849 it started its 2,000-mile trek westward, but still its organizational problems continued. After reaching the Oregon Territory the riflemen deserted in droves to go to California and join in the search for gold. In 1851 a mere skeleton of the regiment returned to Jefferson Barracks. It was again brought up to strength and then sent to the Department of Texas where, to implement the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it tried to keep the Indians of Mexico out of the United States and those of the United States in.

• By 1853 the Army of 15 regiments- 4 artillery, 8 infantry, and 3 cavalrywas thinly distributed over a greatly expanded country. Artillerymen garrisoned the forts of the eastern and southern coastal areas and along the Canadian border, while infantry and cavalrymen in companies and, troops dotted the area westward from the Mississippi River. Seldom were more than two cavalry troops stationed together.

• Although by that time the strength of the Army had been increased by some 3,000 to provide additional privates to companies then in the Indian country, arguments for further increases continued. The Secretary of War asked especially that more cavalry be organized for service in the Pacific Department and between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada Range. In his report of 4 December 1854 he proposed that the horse regiments be brought under one arm:

The cavalry force of our army being all required for active service of the same kind, there appears no propriety in making a permanent distinction in the designation and armament of the several regiments; it is, therefore, proposed to place all the regiments of cavalry on the same footing in these respects, and to leave it in the power of the executive to arm and equip them in such manner as may be required by the nature of the service in which they may be employed.

• In 1855 the mounted force grew by two regiments. This time the new organizations were called cavalry. The 1st and 2d Cavalry were constituted on 3 March 1855 not by an act expressly dealing with Army organization, but by an addition to an appropriations bill. The two regiments were organized in the same manner as existing horse regiments but, contrary to the Secretary's recommendation, General Orders prescribing their organization made them a distinct and separate arm. Thus, the mounted force consisted of dragoons, mounted riflemen, and cavalrymen.

• The 1st and 2d Cavalry were provisionally armed and equipped with available weapons. A board composed of the field officers of the two commands met in Washington in early 1855 and recommended that parts of their regiments be furnished experimental arms and equipment for trial purposes. As a result, the companies received various types of carbines, including a Springfield that was muzzle-loading, and the Merrill and the Perry, both of which loaded at the breech. Their pistols were Navy-pattern Colt revolvers and their sabers the Prussian type used by the dragoons. The dragoons remained armed with their Mexican War weapons- the Hall carbines, sabers, and horse pistols. The mounted riflemen had their Colt revolvers and percussion rifles, but they were not issued sabers. Although the rifles could be fired from horseback, the riflemen were expected to do most of their fighting dismounted.

• For the Army, the years between 1848 and 1860 were marked by a succession of marches, expeditions, and campaigns against the Indians. The Army also provided protection for the settlers' wagon trains, and it explored and Surveyed the hostile Indian country. In this period, too, the slavery problem increased in intensity. When open warfare broke out in Kansas Territory between slavery and antislavery factions, nearly all the 1st Cavalry and the 2d Dragoons, together with some infantry companies, were sent there to keep the peace. They succeeded in stopping the fighting, but soon thereafter these companies and 'the rest of the Army were involved in a major conflict that lasted four long years.