Posted on 09/29/2012 4:43:22 PM PDT by Kolath
I have a few questions about Civil War Cavalry
1. What makes a cavalry sword different from a regular sword?
2. How big was a typical cavalry regiment?
3. What was the preferred horse rifle?
4. Did any units use lances?
5. What were the differences between light and heavy cavalry?
6. Most notable cavalry officers (North and South)?
Were there lances with the Color Guard or standard bearers? Or was it just a stick with the company banner on it?
The favorite weapon of the Reb Cavalrymen was the double barrel shotgun, when he could get one.
"stick" = Guidon
CC
“Were there lances with the Color Guard or standard bearers? Or was it just a stick with the company banner on it?”
Guidon staffs and such were not lances, though in a pinch one could be used as a weapon, just as a tree branch can be used as a weapon. But the US cavalry did not employ lances.
When the Confederacy was threatened with invasion by Federal forces in 1861 so many Volunteers flocked to her standard that many were turned away for lack of arms. The different state governments scoured the countryside in search of sporting rifles, old flintlock pistols and shotguns; any weapon that could aid in arming their Volunteers.
In a short and to the point note dated May 18th, 1861 Confederate Secretary of War wrote to Mississippi Governor Pettus, “Can you give me two regiments for twelve months, armed with heavy double barrel shotguns?”
A few days later Virginia Quartermaster M. O. Harmon wrote to Virginia Governor Letcher “The Greenbrier Cavalry, a fine body of men arrived today, and I send W. H. Peyton, esq., down to get army pistols, double barrel shotguns, or single barrel shotguns”
Virginia Colonel (at this time) Jubal A. Early writes to Virginia’s Adjutant General, “There are now eight companies of cavalry here, well mounted and in fine condition, but for the arms necessary for them, which are mostly wanting. Two companies are armed with double barreled shotguns, and two more will soon have them.” In a following letter Colonel Early writes “I have directed them to get all the double barrel shotguns they could.”
In July of 1861 Kentuckian Wm. T. Withers wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War, “Many Companies of cavalry have tendered their services, who propose to arm themselves with shotguns and revolvers.”
On July 2, 1861, the Governor of Tennessee tendered the provisional Army of Tennessee to the Confederate President. Offering “twenty-two regiments of infantry, two regiments of cavalry”…. “part of the cavalry armed with revolvers and sabers, the balance with double barrel shotguns.”
In January of 1862, Col. W. H. Jenifer, commanding five hundred men of the 8th Virginia Cavalry reported that his men were armed with “mostly old shotguns, bowie knives, and a few long range rifles.”
The Confederate Cavalry’s extensive use of shotguns is frequently attributed to the Confederacy’s severe shortage of firearms early in the war. However, this is not the only reason. As early as August of 1861 the shotguns long term use was foreseen; Captain of Ordnance Wm. R. Hunt wrote to the Secretary of War from Memphis, recommending that contracts be let for 10,000 sword bayonets for double barreled shotguns. Nearly a year later Hunt wrote to Secretary of War J. P. Benjamin, “Colonel Forrest, the most efficient cavalry officer in this department, informs me that the double barrel shotgun is the best gun with which the cavalry can be armed.” A more qualified endorsement of the shotguns use could not be desired; it was the most efficient short range arm used during the war. As late as July 24, 1863, South Carolina Governor Milledge Bonham opines to Confederate Secretary of War Seddon that South Carolina had turned over all of her shotguns to the Confederacy.
The Confederate Cavalry continued to employ the shotgun for the remainder of the war though with less frequency. The attrition of close-in combat took its toll; cavalrymen began to skirmish at longer ranges and eventually to fight primarily as mounted infantry.
Where are all those shotguns? I suspect that there aren’t many surviving that had been converted for military use because a sawed off shotgun was of little value after the War. One could hunt game with a rifle or musket, or even a full length shotgun but, a sawed off shotgun is only good for one thing, killing men.
The only reason this one survives is because it was picked up as a souvenir of the skirmish between Kilpatrick’s Cavalrymen and Confederate Cavalry under “Grumble” Jones and Beverly Robertson in Monterey pass after the battle of Gettysburg.
The shotgun in its original configuration is of British manufacture. It has been shortened to a carbine length. A sling swivel similar to the one found on Richmond two band Carbines screws into the butt stock; another is attached to the upper ramrod channel. The sling is original to the shotgun. Half of a period silver quarter serves as a front sight blade. Its original wooden ramrod has a ball puller permanently affixed to one end and a forged iron ferule reinforcing the opposite, swelled end.
I think he means The War for Southern Independence.
4. I’m sure I’ve seen mentioned that one Northern unit used them for a short time (perhaps never in actual battle). But lances were more a curiousity than a weapon of war in the US civil war.
(I’m not going through a few thousand pages for documentation unless it’s important)
This may be off topic, but Civil War “fans”? I think you mean Civil War buffs. No sane person could be a war “fan”, e3ven if the war is justified.
Bump.
I am a fan of the republic, states rights and the constitution. I am a “fan” of Civil War if it can return us to that state of affairs.
I don’t have any answers for you, but I have an observation of my own regarding Civil War Cavalry.
In the little town of Dillsburg, PA there is a historical marker to the July 1863 “visit” of J.E.B. Stuart and 6000 Confederate Cavalry.
Some of my daily hikes around town take me past that marker and I still cannot help shaking my head at the mental image of the amount of “fertilizer” that many horses would have left in the streets when they left to meet up with Lee in Gettysburg.
Though the light cavalry sword of 1960 was supposed to supplant the European make heavy cavalry sword of 1840, the earlier sword was much preferred through the war and for some time after.
The difference between light and heavy cavalry was mostly in application. Light cavalry was for reconnaissance, screening maneuvers, raids, pursuits and that sort of thing. Heavy cavalry was used for front breakthroughs and flank attacks to roll up an enemy front.
In many ways they functioned like chess pieces, and Napoleon and his generals brilliantly used them as such.
In this sense, light cavalry were used like bishops and heavy cavalry like knights. (Engineers were the rooks, still their symbol, Infantry was the Queen (”of battle”) and Artillery the King (”of battle”).
When looking at the US Civil War, it is important to examine the Napoleonic Wars as well as the Mexican American War. All the US and Confederate officers had studied the Napoleonic Wars, and many of them had participated in the Mexican American War.
Ironically, at about the same time as the US Civil War, and lasting much longer, was the enormous Taiping Rebellion in China, which is perhaps the second bloodiest war in human history, and dwarfed the US Civil War in many ways.
Rommel,Patton and Norman schwarzkopf studied Jeb Stuart
the south’s greatest cav officer
North had a few but the most famous would prob be Custer
(NOT EVEN IN THE SAME BALL PARK AS STUART!)
I would say Nat Forrest was a close second to JEB Stuart.
"Forrest ... used his horsemen as a modern general would use motorized infantry. He liked horses because he liked fast movement, and his mounted men could get from here to there much faster than any infantry could; but when they reached the field they usually tied their horses to trees and fought on foot, and they were as good as the very best infantry. Not for nothing did Forrest say the essence of strategy was 'to git thar fust with the most men'."[41]
Philip Sheridan and his mount, Rienzi. "Come on back, boys!Give 'em hell, God damn 'em! We'll make coffee out of Cedar Creek tonight!"
I agree....
HEY!!! Yes, there were Lanacers in the Civil War. “Rush’s Lancers” aka the 6th Pennsylvania cavalry did carry the long steel tipped spears.
Ca.., ca.., can’t we all get along?
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