I was curious this afternoon what cavalrymen were paid monthly during the Civil War. Several times over the last week, I have seen references to someone being paid “as a corporal of cavalry”, with nary a mention of what that amount might be. So I turned to the bookshelf, and found some help from Robert M. Utley’s Frontiersmen in Blue on page 36.

Privates were paid $11a month in the infantry and artillery, $12 a month in the cavalry
There was no mention of corporals, but sergeants earned a whopping $17 a month. Longevity pay was introduced in 1854, providing $2 extra a month during the second (five year) enlistment, and an additional $1 for each enlistment after that. In addition, they received their uniforms, rations and quarters.

I’ll feel much better when payday rolls around in a couple of days after reading that.

The first year of the war was a period of chaos for the veteran troopers of the Regular cavalry. Resignations were followed by promotions and reassignments. Regiments were fully assembled from widespread, remote commands, for the first time in years in some cases. Once assembled, there were battles to fight and integration with volunteer forces to contend with. And, in the midst of all of this, newly-assigned officers must hurry to learn their craft before the next battle or promotion. The purpose of the next series of essays is to illustrate the turmoil among the officers of the Regular cavalry regiments over the course of 1861. The 1st (later 4th) US Cavalry will serve as an example.

These essays focus on officer strength for a simple reason – I don’t yet have the muster rolls for any of the regiments for 1861. What I do have are the War Department General Orders from the first two years of the war, which detail every officer assignment, appointment, transfer, resignation, dismissal and retirement for all of the branches. While contained in the OR, my source is General Orders of the War Department, embracing the years 1861, 1862 & 1863, Volume I, by Thomas O’Brien and Oliver Diefendorf (New York: Derby & Miller, 1864). Using these reports, I have located every officer assigned to the regiment by company and duty position, save two. Captain Henry B. Davidson was assigned to either Company H or I, and I don’t yet know who the captain was assigned to the other company.

Listed below are the 34 officers assigned to the regiment in January, 1861. By year’s end, eighteen of them will resign their commissions. Only two companies, E and F, would not lose at least one officer. Three of those who remain will be general officers of volunteers, and several more will be assigned to other duties outside the regiment at the end of the year. But as we start down the road to war, these are the officers of the First US Cavalry:

Colonel Edwin V. Sumner
Lt Col William J. Hardee*
Maj William H. Emory*
Maj John Sedgwick
Adjutant (1Lt) Albert V. Colburn

Company A
Capt William N.R. Beall*
1st Lt Eugene W. Crittenden
2nd Lt Charles S. Bowman
Company B
Capt William D. Saussure*
1st Lt Philip Stockton*
2nd Lt Oliver H. Fish*
Company C
Capt Thomas J. Wood
1st Lt Alfred Iverson, Jr*
2nd Lt John R.B. Burtwell*
Company D
Capt James McIntosh*
1st Lt David S. Stanley
2nd Lt Lunsford L. Lomax*
Company E
Capt Samuel D. Sturgis
1st Lt Frank Wheaton
2nd Lt Tillinghast L’Hommediu
Company F
Capt Delos R. Sackett
1st Lt Elmer Otis
2nd Lt John A. Thompson
Company G
Capt William S. Walker*
1st Lt James E.B. Stuart*
2nd Lt George D. Bayard
Company H
Capt (Henry B. Davidson?)
1st Lt Robert Ransom*
2nd Lt Eli Long
Company I
Capt (unknown)
1st Lt James B. McIntyre
2nd Lt Edward Ingraham*
Company K
Capt George H. Steuart*
1st Lt Richard H. Riddick*
2nd Lt Joseph H. Taylor

In order to better understand the upcoming entries on officer assignments within the First (later Fourth) US Cavalry over the course of 1861, I will first examine the organization of cavalry companies and regiments before the war began.

These organizations are described in General Orders, No. 15, May 4, 1861, as part of President Lincoln’s call for volunteers. The organization of a company of cavalry at this time consisted of:

Captain (1)
1st Lieutenant (1)
2nd Lieutenant (1)
1st Sergeant (1)
Company Quartermaster Sergeant (1)
Sergeants (4)
Corporals (8)
Buglers (2)
Farriers and Blacksmiths (2)
Saddler (1)
Wagoner (1)
Privates (56-72)

As stated in a previous entry, two companies composed a squadron, with no further personnel assigned. Regular regiments at the outbreak of the war were each composed of five squadrons, or a total of ten companies. The personnel assigned to the regimental headquarters in each regiment consisted of:

Colonel (1)
Lieutenant Colonel (1)
Major (2)
Adjutant (1 lieutenant)
Regimental Quartermaster and Commisary (1 lieutenant)
Assistant Surgeon (1)
Sergeant Major (1)
Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant (1)
Regimental Commisary Sergeant (1)
Hospital Steward (1)
Chief Buglers (2)
Musicians for Band (16)

Maximum total strength for a ten company regiment at this time is 978 — 34 officers and 944 noncommissioned officers and enlisted men. With the addition of two more companies to each regiment once the 6th US Cavalry was formed later in the year, a third major was authorized for each regiment. The regimental bands were later disbanded (no pun intended), but this is where the regiments stood if at full strength at the outbreak of the war.

I found something last night in Rodenbough’s The Army of the United States that I’d never seen and am not sure I understand. It was on page 203, in the 3rd US Cavalry history section.

“In consequence of the retirement of Colonel Simonson, September 16, 1861, Marshall S. Howe was promoted colonel of the regiment under the new system, which , however, did not repeal the law which made promotion lineal in the regiment. But appeal and protest were alike in vain.”

LtCol Howe was promoted and assigned from the 2nd US Cavalry, where he’d served as second in command to Col Philip St. George Cooke since 1858. The new system that is referred to is the renumbering of the regiments in August 1861. It’s the “law which made promotion lineal within the regiment” part that I’m unsure about. I’ve found several instances of promotion across regiments prior to the Civil War, generally as lieutenants and occasionally as captains or majors. Perhaps there was a tradition or law that regimental commanders were promoted from within the regiment. Howe, for instance, had served for ten years in the 2nd as a major, prior to promotion to LtCol in 1858. I doubt this would have been practical at the beginning of the war, as some regiments (the 5th US, for example) were literally decapitated.

Today’s entry on Hoofbeats and Cold Steel led me to pore through William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, which in turn led me to a chapter on muster rolls, which led me to think about how to acquire them for the Regular cavalry regiments during the war.

An email and a couple of phone calls from a very helpful lady at the national Archives later, I learned the following:
1. Muster rolls for all six Regular cavalry regiments are contained in the Archives and are available.
2. They are only available on microfilm, as once records are put on microfilm they’re no longer available for paper copies. Once you have the roll, you can take it to the local public or college library to make hardcopies.
3. There are separate rolls on each regiment by date. In order to cover the entire Civil War, the 1st and 6th US Cavalry are each on one roll, while the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th US Cavalry’s records are on two rolls per regiment (8 total).
4. Price per roll is $65 each.
5. The rolls aren’t scheduled for digitization any time soon.

Hmm, this could take a while and be a pretty expensive venture….

One of the most serious issues facing the Regular cavalry regiments throughout the war was their numerical strength, both of horses and personnel. The Regulars were chronically short of both officers and enlisted men throughout the war, though generally due to different factors. The next several entries will focus on why personnel strength was such an issue. The 2nd Dragoons/2nd US Cavalry will be used for examples. While I plan to focus this project on all six of the regiments, the 2nd is the one that I currently have the most information on and am the most familiar with.

An additional note: for easier understanding, I will refer to the regiments by their designations following the reorganization of the regiments in August 1863.

In order to understand shortages, it is helpful to first understand what the regiments would look like at full strength. Prior to the war, each regiment was composed of ten companies. Early in the war, a company on paper consisted of 100 men and included a captain, a first lieutenant and two second lieutenants. The regiment was habitually divided into five squadrons of two companies each. A squadron consisted solely of the two companies and was assigned no additional officers assigned. It was commanded by the senior company commander. Each regiment was commanded by a colonel, and additionally contained his staff of a lieutenant colonel, three majors, two surgeons, an adjutant, quartermaster, commisary and a noncommissioned staff (sergeant major, chief bugler, etc). The 6th US was formed in 1861 with 12 companies, and the older regiments later added the two additional companies, but to keep the numbers round we’ll still call it an overall strength of 1,000. Part I of this essay will focus on enlisted shortages, officer numbers will be addressed in Part II.

At the beginning of the war, most of the regiments were already understrength. Losses from resignations to join the Confederate Army, a dearth of recruiting and losses from various fights on the frontier had depleted all the regiments to some extent. Four of the five cavalry regimental commanders at the outbreak of the war resigned their commissions to fight for the South, for example (Brackett, History of the United States Cavalry, pg 211). My attempts to find information on enlisted men leaving service to join the Confederacy have thus far been unsuccessful. I suspect there were few, however, as they were bound by the terms and period of their enlistments and didn’t have the luxury of resigning their commissions.

Recruiting was the major problem affecting enlisted strength, for two reasons. First, it is my understanding that there were no cavalry recruiting stations about the country where a young farmer from New York, for example, might go to enlist. To enlist in the 2nd Cavalry, one had to go find the 2nd Cavalry and sign up. General enlistments were handled by the Army as a whole, with recruits assigned as needed to units at the lowest strength. At the conclusion of the Peninsula Campaign, for example, “the regiment had not received a detachment of recruits in four years, and was now reduced to nine officers and 240 enlisted men present for duty. Other regiments were in a similar depleted condition,” (Lambert, One Hundred Years With The Second Cavalry, pg 65). True, these numbers only include seven companies, as C, G, and I companies were still making their way east to rejoin the regiment. If one generously assumes all three companies were at their full complement of 100 men each, that still leaves the regiment just above 50% strength. In the case of the 2nd Cavalry, this was addressed at the conclusion of the campaign by breaking up A, B, and D companies. Their privates were divided up amongst the remaining companies present for duty, and their officers, noncommissioned officers and buglers were sent on recruiting duty (Lambert, pg 65). This leads to the second issue of recruiting incentives.

There was little incentive to join Regular units during the war save their reputation. The Federal government did not attempt to compete with the lavish bonuses offered by states to fill their volunteer regiments. Let’s say a young Pennsylvania man decides to ride off to glory in the cavalry. He has two options, volunteer service or the Regulars. His first option is to join one of the regular army regiments, with a low enlistment bonus and set duration of enlistment no matter how long the war lasts. His second option is to join the company being raised in his home county, where he’ll serve with his neighbors and receive up to a $150 bonus for enlisting for a period of three years or the end of the war, which ever comes first. Which is he more likely to choose?

As if this wasn’t enough, current troopers’ enlistments were running out over the duration of the war, providing another drain on personnel. A veteran’s decision to re-enlist or join a volunteer is similar to that of our friend from Pennsylvania above, with the added consideration of a promotion in the volunteer unit due to his army experience. I haven’t seen the muster rolls for all of the regiments yet, but it is doubtful they were ever at full strength. (The only likely exception would be the 6th, raised in 1861, which may explain why they seem to have seen more action than the other regiments). This leads us to our last problem of attrition through casualties.

In my example of the 2nd Cavalry from the Peninsula Campaign, casualties were not a factor. To that point, the regiment had seen very little action, and had not sustained more than a handful of casualties. As the war progressed, however, they did see a good deal of action, and lost a number of men and horses. Numbers remained low. At Brandy Station, 225 men of the 2nd were engaged, according to Merritt in Rodenbough’s From Everglade to Canyon (pg 290). This is somewhat less than our optimum, especially considering 11 of 12 companies were now present. Worse, of the 225 engaged, 68 were killed or wounded, as well as 73 horses (Ibid). Major Robert Smith of the regiment recalls that following the battle of Cedar Creek in October 1864, “the Second Cavalry, now reduced to a skeleton regiment and without an officer to command it, was joined to the First Cavalry, under the command of Captain Baker” (Rodenbough, pg 366).

I actually located the specific entry in the Official Records for my initial post on cavalry veterinary surgeons yesterday vs the National Archives entry (OR, Series III, Volume 3, pgs 605-6). Curiously, General Orders, No. 259 dated August 1, 1863 states that “Veterinary surgeons of cavalry, under the act of March 3, 1863, will be selected by the chief of the Cavalry Bureau upon the nomination of the regimental commanders.” Since the Cavalry Bureau wasn’t created until July 28th, how were they selected between March 3rd and August 1st?

The orders further state that the nominations were to be recommended to the regimental commander from a board of officers, wh would then nominate them to the chief of the Cavalry Bureau, who would submit them to the Secretary of War for appointment. Rather a cumbersome process, and I would assume it was primarily a rubber stamp. I can’t imagine how Major General Stoneman would determine the competence of the town vet in Maine who just volunteered to assist the 1st Maine Cavalry when the previous vet died of disease.