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Regular Cavalry in the Civil War

Regular Cavalry in the Civil War

Category Archives: training

Carlisle Barracks and the Mounted Recruiting Service, part 1

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by dccaughey in 1861, 1st U.S. Cavalry, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, cavalry, manning, officers, recruiting, training

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1st U.S. Cavalry, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, Carlisle Barracks, cavalry, Civil War, david H. Hastings, Lawrence P. Graham, recruiting

While I’ve covered bits and pieces of regular cavalry recruiting in the past, an in depth look at the post returns for Carlisle Barracks during the war revealed a wealth of information on how and where this recruiting was accomplished.  This not the be-all, end-all for this topic.  It’s a blog post, after all, not a journal article.  There are several bits of information that could be of tremendous help, such as the location of the recruiting station in Buffalo, and any newspaper coverage of it.  But I think it is the most comprehensive examination of the process to date.

The theory behind cavalry recruiting changed little with the advent of the war.  The process was relatively simple.  Mounted regiments were tasked to provide officers, noncommissioned officers and sometimes musicians to man recruiting stations at selected cities in the United States.  Periodically these recruits were forwarded from the recruiting stations to Carlisle Barracks.  Here the “Permanent Company,” a training cadre, provided them basic instruction as a cavalryman.  Once the troopers could demonstrate a reasonable aptitude in both the mounted and dismounted tasks of the “School of the Trooper,” as defined in the Cavalry Tactics manual, they were dispatched in detachments to their designated regiments.  This movement was frequently supervised by the same officers and soldiers who originally recruited them.  While this process did not change noticeably in substance during the war, it changed significantly in scope.

Whereas prior to the war only one or two recruiting stations were active at a time, during the course of the Civil War nineteen different cities had stations active at various times.  These were in addition to the stations utilized for the initial recruiting of the twelve companies of the 6th U.S. Cavalry in 1861, which did not fall in the purview of Carlisle Barracks.  It also did not cover the recruiting of volunteers in their camps which occurred near Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Theater in October 1862.  It did, however, include the additional companies, usually designated L and M, added to existing regiments during the war, as well as companies consolidated within the regiments and sent to Carlisle to refit.

Recruiting for the mounted regiments was the responsibility of the “Mounted Recruiting Service.”  This was a purely administrative command, as Congress had not authorized such an organization outside the scope of the existing regiments.  As with all such taskings, the required officers and soldiers were taken “out of hide” from the regiments in the field.  The post commander of Carlisle Barracks had the additional title and responsibilities of the “Superintendent, Mounted Recruiting Service.”  Before the war, this was a major’s position, but during the war it was held by a captain and briefly by a lieutenant.

The commander at the outbreak of the war was Major Lawrence Pike Graham of the 2nd Dragoons.   Graham was something of a legend in the mounted forces.  He was appointed a second lieutenant in the 2nd Dragoons in 1837, and spent the next several years in the Seminole Wars in Florida.  During the Mexican War, he commended the other company in Captain Charles May’s squadron during the famous charge at Resaca de la Palma.  During the Sioux campaign of 1854-55, he commanded a squadron of his own.

Other than the post commander, only the surgeon and the chaplain were permanently assigned to the post.  Surgeon Burton Randall served as the post surgeon until September 1861, when he was assigned to a hospital in Annapolis.  A Maryland native, Randall graduated as a physician from University of Pennsylvania in 1828.  He entered service as an assistant surgeon in 1832, and was promoted to surgeon in 1838.  He served as one of the principal military surgeons of the Mexican War while assigned to the 5th U.S. Infantry.  Surgeon and assistant surgeon were ranks for doctors, and this denoted pay grade, not level of skill or ability.  A civilian physician, D.A. Mahon, served as post surgeon until May 1862, when he was replaced by Assistant Surgeon Joseph Jefferson Burr Wright.  J.J.B. Wright was appointed an assistant surgeon in 1833, and served as the medical director for the Department of Missouri prior to his assignment to Carlisle Barracks.  James A. Ross served as the post chaplain throughout the war.

At least two lieutenants were placed on extra duty from their regiments and assigned temporarily to Carlisle Barracks.  One of these normally served in charge of the permanent company, and the other was in charge of the current group of unassigned.  Equally important, and probably consuming far more of their time, were their additional duties.  One served as Acting Assistant Quartermaster and Acting Assistant Commisary of Subsistence for the post, while the other served as the post adjutant.

1861 was a relatively quiet year for the depot.  The regiments were too busy trying to reach their assigned destinations to worry about replacements, and there were too few experienced officers and noncommissioned officers present to detach many for recruiting duty.  Three recruiting stations were opened in 1861, Boston, Cincinnati and New York City.  Training at the depot continued and small detachments were forwarded once trained.  Only three events of significance took place at Carlisle.

The first was the arrival of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry in April following their exodus from Texas.  They spent April and part of May remounting the regiment and filling their ranks, gaining 174 recruits from the depot in April.  They temporarily emptied the depot, but it put a nearly full strength cavalry regiment into the field near Washington D.C.

The second was the assignment of newly appointed cavalry officers to Carlisle Barracks to undertake their initial training as well.  New subalterns who were experienced noncommissioned officers remained with their regiments, while those appointed from civilian life reported for various lengths of time to receive their initial training as well.  While veterans like John Mix, Thomas Dewees and Samuel Whitside stayed in the field, others like Theophilus Rodenbough, Isaac Dunkelberger and George Sanford were put through their paces by the permanent company.

The third event was the first wartime change of command at Carlisle Barracks.  On September 4, 1861, Major Graham was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers, and reassigned to Washington.  He was succeeded by Captain David H. Hastings of the 1st U.S. Cavalry.  Hastings was another seasoned veteran.  An Irish immigrant, he enlisted in 1837 and worked his way through the ranks to serve as a first sergeant in infantry, artillery and engineer companies prior to receiving a commission in the 1st Dragoons in 1848.  Severely wounded near Mexico City and again severely injured when his horse fell pursuing Indians in New Mexico in 1857, Captain Hastings was of far more use to the Army for his mind than his body at this point in his career.

Recruit Training — Mounting Up

29 Saturday Sep 2007

Posted by dccaughey in training

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I found this account of initial recruit training and thought it worth sharing. The recruits at this point had completed several weeks of dismounted drill, and had just been introduced to their mounts. The author was somewhat small of stature, to the point of initially being enlisted as a bugler and not a regular trooper.

“The riding school was simply a large ring marked out on the ground and a trail following the outside margin in which the horses should always move while marching. Our riding outfit was simply a blanket strapped on the horse’s back with a surcingle and a bridle and then a pair of the small sharp pointed cavalry spurs on the heels. Stirrups were not used with beginners. They had to learn to mount their horses by a vault. Not like the farmer or others generally do by springing up and throwing the breast over the horse’s back and then the legs. In a cavalry vault the right leg must pass over the horse’s back before the cavalryman’s breast passes over the horse’s shoulder. That was not easy for a small fellow like me to do, as Uncle Sam’s horses are of the largest size.

“We kept up the vaulting exercise for several days with tolerably good success, as we supposed, but apparently not quite satisfactorily to our drill-master. The sharp pointed spurs we were obliged to wear gave us endless trouble. To complete the training in vaulting we were finally issued saddles, but without the stirrups and from then on we had to vault into the saddle, which made it even more difficult, and at last we were ordered to appear on drill under arms, with waist belt, cartridge box, saber, carbine and sling belt, and from that time on we had to vault into the saddle with all the rig that belongs to a cavalryman except the revolver, which had not yet been issued.

“If the vaulting exercise had been difficult before, it was now still more so; in fact, it had reached its climax. The heavy carbine was attached to the sling belt by an iron swivel and hung, muzzle down, when the trooper was mounted, but when dismounted and standing to horse ready to mount, it was thrown over the right shoulder and hung down his back. The saber was attached to the waist belt by two narrow straps, one a little longer than the other and always hung loose in them except when worn on foot drill, when it was hooked up on the waist belt.

“With that rig, and in the style just described, we stood the day after the order was given, by our horses, ready to mount if we could, but it certainly didn’t look like it was possible. We had to overcome the difficulties in vaulting into the saddle and believed ourselves well on the way to perfection in that part of mounted drill, but when I stood by the side of my horse that morning looking at the long saber by my left side, the lower part of the scabbard resting on the ground about two and one-half feet behind me and the upper part of the scabbard wit the hilt of the saber projecting out at least one foot in front of me, and the carbine hanging down the middle of my back with the butt end just opposite the back of my head, I wondered if it was possible for me to make a spring with such force as to bring myself and those loose and dangling weapons up on the back of my horse.

“That there was fun on the drillground that morning when the first sergeant, after having explained the rules in the new exercise, gave the necessary commands to mount, can be imagined. Few, if any of us expected to be able to execute the command in proper style, and when the command fell there followed a scramble and a terrible rattling of sabers along the line, but only a few could be seen on top of their horses when the commotion was over. The others were either lying on the ground or standing by their horses with a disgusted look on their faces, I being among the last named. It took several days fo that kind of vaulting exercise before Sergeant O’Connel allowed us to begin exercise in the riding ring. Even then we had to turn out “under arms” at every drill hour and make several vaults with the whole rig on before we were allowed to take off our belts, “stack” carbines and take the ring.” (James Larson, Sergeant Larson, 4th Cav., pgs 96-97)

If this sounds amusing to you, as it did to me, I urge you to attempt the cavalry vault if you have the opportunity. I’m tall and reasonably athletic, and was able to successfully complete the vault without equipment after a few attempts on a well-broken horse. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be in full equipment. The saber Larson describes sounds like the Model 1840 heavy cavalry saber, known as the “Old Wristbreaker”, not the lighter and shorter Model 1860 cavalry saber. The Model 1840 was 42” long overall, and weighed just over 5 pounds. The carbine mentioned was the Sharps, which at least one battalion of the regiment had received during fall of 1860. It was 39” long overall, and weighed 8 pounds. The horses, while broken to the saddle, were not yet trained cavalry mounts and undoubtedly thought little of the exercise.

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A 28-year Army veteran takes to the Appalachian Trail to contemplate a life well served & the road ahead

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A Writer's On-Going Search for Just the Right Words

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