A cool account

I have to admit I'm a bit unclear on why McClellan would assign nine volunteer regiments of cavalry to the corps he planned to take to the Peninsula, plus another two brigaded with the regulars in his Cavalry Reserve. Eleven volunteer and three regular regiments seems a lot to just carry messages and act as videttes, but makes a lot more sense if they're for screening and direct combat.
 
Indeed, and it's worth looking at what they actually did on the Peninsula.

For example, some make the case that these orders mean Stoneman didn't command. However, we have many orders and examples assigning Stoneman to take command on the field. Such as these on 25th June essentially assigning to him to command the entire cavalry force north of the Chickahominy; the Cavalry Reserve and the 8th Illinois Cavalry.

GO110 was written when McClellan expected to have 6 brigades of cavalry with the army as laid out in SO89:

1st Corps Bde (BG Hatch): 1st NY and 2nd NY Cav
2nd Corps Bde (BG ?): 3rd NY and 8th Illinois Cav
3rd Corps Bde (Col Averill as senior): 3rd Pa and 1st NJ Cav
4th Corps Bde (Col Bayard as senior): 1st Pa, 5th Pa and 4th NY Cav
Cavalry Reserve (BG St. Geo. Cooke)
1st Bde (BG Emory): 5th US, 6th US and 6th Pa Cav
2nd Bde (Col Blake): 1st US, 8th Pa, McClellan Dragoons and Oneida Coy

Given GO110's language, and the actual practice, it is clear that Stoneman was expected to command any large concentration of cavalry in person.

There is essentially no effective difference after the Cavalry Corps is formed, aside from there just being more cavalry.
 
... GO110 was written when McClellan expected to have 6 brigades of cavalry with the army as laid out in SO89:

1st Corps Bde (BG Hatch): 1st NY and 2nd NY Cav
2nd Corps Bde (BG ?): 3rd NY and 8th Illinois Cav
3rd Corps Bde (Col Averill as senior): 3rd Pa and 1st NJ Cav
4th Corps Bde (Col Bayard as senior): 1st Pa, 5th Pa and 4th NY Cav
Cavalry Reserve (BG St. Geo. Cooke)
1st Bde (BG Emory): 5th US, 6th US and 6th Pa Cav
2nd Bde (Col Blake): 1st US, 8th Pa, McClellan Dragoons and Oneida Coy
I'm confused - I thought that at this time Bayard was commanding a cavalry brigade attached to McDowell's corps in the Fredericksburg vicinity, not on the Peninsula? He accompanied Shields' division when it recaptured Front Royal and was subsequently attached to Fremont's command which he then led up the Valley at the end of May and beginning of June fighting Stonewall Jackson's rearguard under Ashby all the way to Harrisonburg.
 
There is a huge amount wrong with this section.
You state much the same in your "Union Cavalry Come of Age", and both times you're badly misquoting what actually happened.

I have to say this because I can't be the only one thinking it: despite all the craziness of 2020 I would have never guessed I would see someone tell Eric Wittenberg he doesn't know what he's talking about with regard to Union cavalry in Virginia.

And of course it's because Everyone Hates George McClellan.
 
I'm confused - I thought that at this time Bayard was commanding a cavalry brigade attached to McDowell's corps in the Fredericksburg vicinity, not on the Peninsula? He accompanied Shields' division when it recaptured Front Royal and was subsequently attached to Fremont's command which he then led up the Valley at the end of May and beginning of June fighting Stonewall Jackson's rearguard under Ashby all the way to Harrisonburg.
That's because McDowell's corps was intended to come onto the Peninsula when the orders were written; McDowell's corps was detached after McClellan began the move onto the Peninsula.

To be specific McDowell's corps was detached along with their accompanying brigade (1st and 2nd NY) but the order detaching them also detached Bayard's brigade, which was the 4th Corps brigade (1st PA, 5th PA, 4th NY). The 1st NJ and 3rd NY were send to the defences of Washington, which meant that McClellan lost about half his cavalry.

I have to say this because I can't be the only one thinking it: despite all the craziness of 2020 I would have never guessed I would see someone tell Eric Wittenberg he doesn't know what he's talking about with regard to Union cavalry in Virginia.

And of course it's because Everyone Hates George McClellan.
Well, if Mr. Wittenberg knows what he's talking about in that regard, it should be easy to specify what the cavalry was doing on the Peninsula (i.e. which regiments were attached to infantry brigades as he said).
 
I'm confused - I thought that at this time Bayard was commanding a cavalry brigade attached to McDowell's corps in the Fredericksburg vicinity, not on the Peninsula? He accompanied Shields' division when it recaptured Front Royal and was subsequently attached to Fremont's command which he then led up the Valley at the end of May and beginning of June fighting Stonewall Jackson's rearguard under Ashby all the way to Harrisonburg.
Large portions of the assigned cavalry never boarded ship. Whilst McClellan had assigned Bayard's 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry to Keyes' 4th Corps, they were pulled and reassigned to 1st Corps.

Only the Cavalry Reserve, the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry and the 3rd Bn, 6th NY Cavalry (assigned as the escort of 2nd and 4th Corps) landed by mid-April, and it seemed McClellan wouldn't get any more. He managed to get the 1st NY and 8th Illinois Cavalry assigned when Franklin's division arrived.

The 2nd NY and 1st Pa was reassigned to the Dept of the Rappahannock and stayed there. The 3rd NY went to Burnside and the 4th NY went with Blenker. The 5th Pa was with the Dept of the Rappahannock, but was relieved in May and sent to garrison Fort Monroe, Norfolk etc., and was replaced by the 1st NJ Cav, which had been retained in Washington.
 
Large portions of the assigned cavalry never boarded ship. Whilst McClellan had assigned Bayard's 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry to Keyes' 4th Corps, they were pulled and reassigned to 1st Corps.

Only the Cavalry Reserve, the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry and the 3rd Bn, 6th NY Cavalry (assigned as the escort of 2nd and 4th Corps) landed by mid-April, and it seemed McClellan wouldn't get any more. He managed to get the 1st NY and 8th Illinois Cavalry assigned when Franklin's division arrived.

The 2nd NY and 1st Pa was reassigned to the Dept of the Rappahannock and stayed there. The 3rd NY went to Burnside and the 4th NY went with Blenker. The 5th Pa was with the Dept of the Rappahannock, but was relieved in May and sent to garrison Fort Monroe, Norfolk etc., and was replaced by the 1st NJ Cav, which had been retained in Washington.
That's pretty much what I thought - so that also means the table of organization was only projected rather than actual, therefore Mac didn't have use of all the mounted forces indicated.
 
I have to say this because I can't be the only one thinking it: despite all the craziness of 2020 I would have never guessed I would see someone tell Eric Wittenberg he doesn't know what he's talking about with regard to Union cavalry in Virginia.

And of course it's because Everyone Hates George McClellan.

I second that!
 
That's pretty much what I thought - so that also means the table of organization was only projected rather than actual, therefore Mac didn't have use of all the mounted forces indicated.
Well, they were all part of The Army Of The Potomac at the time the table of organization was laid out - they just got transferred out afterwards. But yeah, having half the cavalry he intended did kind of impact the use of cavalry on the Peninsula a bit...
 
I have to admit I'm a bit unclear on why McClellan would assign nine volunteer regiments of cavalry to the corps he planned to take to the Peninsula, plus another two brigaded with the regulars in his Cavalry Reserve. Eleven volunteer and three regular regiments seems a lot to just carry messages and act as videttes, but makes a lot more sense if they're for screening and direct combat.

From Steven Z. Starr's The Union Army In The Civil War: From Fort Sumter To Gettysburg, 1861-63:
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The regiments you are talking about are also often far from full strength. Starr sees them as the equivalent of 9 and a half regiments when he adds things up. (8 regiments plus 16 companies drawn from five different regiments according to Starr.) In addition, McClellan had ordered his cavalry to leave behind any unsound horses; the sick and dismounted men to also be left behind, with the sick either sent to hospital or discharged.
 
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From Steven Z. Starr's The Union Army In The Civil War: From Fort Sumter To Gettysburg, 1861-63:

The thing that I'm not seeing from this is cases of actual assignment of regiments or sub-regimental organizations to infantry brigades - we're told that it happens, but not given examples (unless of course I've missed something about what Starr has said).*

I am aware that what's going on here is that Starr is reading the fact that SO 90 doesn't assign a brigadier to the cavalry attached to the 2nd, 3rd or 4th Corps as evidence that McClellan didn't intend to brigade them at all, but the fact that there's a space for a BG to be assigned to command Sumner's cavalry seems to indicate that he was thinking in terms of appointing BGs.

Each of the cavalry organizations attached to a corps has a colonel for each regiment, and there's a senior colonel; based on the way McClellan did things before the formation of corps (with multiple DCs reporting to a single DC) it seems at least plausible that McClellan was intending to not formally elevate someone to brigadier general or give them formal corps command until he knew which of his untried cavalry commanders was actually capable. (Hatch is already a BG(V) so he gets a brigade command.) Yes, McClellan appoints people to command brigades and divisions despite not having the experienced men to do so, but the largest formation of infantry you're going to see is the corps; the largest formation of cavalry you're likely to see is a brigade or possibly division, so it's those men you need to be the most careful about picking.

For Starr to describe Hatch's brigade as "simply a training organization" seems to me to be incorrect, or at least to not be something related to McClellan - he explicitly specifies Hatch as a brigade commander in SO 90, albeit of a different brigade (1st NY, 2nd NY) which he plans to take to the Peninsula (but doesn't get to because they're assigned to 1st Corps and stripped away from him when that force is), and the 1st VT and 5th NY are both assigned to Banks (i.e. to the same subsidiary command).

It's also the case that, whether or not Stoneman's official role was meant to be administrative-only, as a matter of fact he commands the cavalry in the field at Williamsburg and subsequently operates the Advance Guard on the move up the Peninsula. So it seems likely that his role was meant to be cavalry field commander when that was needed.

In SO 90 McClellan has given each corps 2-3 regiments and grouped the rest as a consolidated two-brigade formation. If McClellan had consolidated all the cavalry at that time (March 1862) he'd have been literally the first Union commander to do so, because even Pope hadn't done it yet; given that at this time Stuart wasn't commanding a consolidated cavalry formation he may well have been the first Civil War commander to do it full stop.
I think that criticizing McClellan for not consolidating all his cavalry into one formation is a bit unfair, on that basis; if it were already standard practice then maybe, but at this time (Island Number Ten ORBAT) Pope's cavalry consists of:

- One regiment attached to 3rd Division
- Two companies attached to 4th Division
- Two regiments formed into a Cavalry Division
- One cavalry regiment, plus one organization of four companies and one of three companies, all unattached.

So it's clearly not yet standard practice, while Napoleon's infantry corps each contained multiple cavalry regiments as standard (on top of cavalry corps as consolidated formations of cavalry alone).

Of course, on the Peninsula McClellan simply doesn't have enough cavalry to form a brigade per corps and have some left over for consolidated action, so those corps brigades don't get any commanders assigned because they don't exist.


The regiments you are talking about are also often far from full strength. Starr sees them as the equivalent of 9 and a half regiments when he adds things up.
Is he adding up in PFD or in terms of the number of companies? Most Civil War units aren't at full establishment strength for most of the war, but I'm pretty sure the company totals in many of the regiments are 10 or 12 companies in general; if of course Starr is counting while on the Peninsula then of course it's going to be a smaller total, many of the 14 regiments never made it.




Of course, it's possible I've misunderstood here. But the fundamental question which I'd like to see answered - which is "how was McClellan's cavalry actually assigned and what was it actually doing on the Peninsula, in numerical terms" - doesn't seem to be covered.

* note that if a brigade of infantry is doing something and has a squadron of cavalry seconded to it for support on a temporary basis, that is actually appropriate because it avoids divided command in the small unit action and because committing a whole regiment to a small unit action is overkill. If a brigade of infantry has a squadron of cavalry attacked on a permanent basis, that is a problem.
 
Is he adding up in PFD or in terms of the number of companies? Most Civil War units aren't at full establishment strength for most of the war, but I'm pretty sure the company totals in many of the regiments are 10 or 12 companies in general; if of course Starr is counting while on the Peninsula then of course it's going to be a smaller total, many of the 14 regiments never made it.
You seem to be indicating he is right, but want to include the cavalry that was not sent so you can have a higher number.

  • On the 1st US Cavalry (old 1st Dragoons), companies D and G are in New Mexico for Peralta on April 27, 1862.
  • On the 2nd US Cavalry (old 2nd Dragoons), most of that regiment has arrived in Washington by December 1861. Company C is in Tennessee, including Shiloh, and never does come East. Companies G and I (sometimes given as L) are in New Mexico and Kansas for most of 1862 and arrive in Washington in late November 1862. So the 2nd US is short 3 companies in the East -- and two of the companies down in the Peninsula are attached to McClellan's HQ.
  • On the 4th US Cavalry (old 1st Cavalry), most of that regiment is in Tennessee or further west in 1862; four of the companies are at Shiloh. Down in the Peninsula you have:
    • Companies "A" and "E" in the Defences of Washington, D.C., May, 1861. Attached to Heintzelman's Division, Army of Northeast Virginia, to August, 1861. Headquarters. Army Potomac, to November, 1862. Advance on Manassas, Va., July 16-21, 1861. Peninsula Campaign April to August, 1862. Siege of Yorktown April 5-May 4. Seven days before Richmond June 25-July 1. Gaines' Mill June 27. Malvern Hill July 1. Maryland Campaign September 6-22. Battle of Antietam September 16-17. Joined Regiment in Tennessee November, 1862. (From Dyer's Compendium)​
  • On the 11th Pennsylvania ("Rush's lancers, 13 companies): Companies "A," "E," "G," "H" and "L" were sent to Suffolk in June. Companies "B," "C," "D," "F," "I" and "K" were sent to White House, where they were involved with Stuart's Raid June 13-15, then left to picket White House. The only mention I see of Company M has it in Newport News from March-May.
  • On the 1st NY Cavalry, they were broken up into detachments as soon as they landed and did not reassemble as a regiment until they united to be shipped to Washington from the Peninsula four months later.
 
From Steven Z. Starr's The Union Army In The Civil War: From Fort Sumter To Gettysburg, 1861-63:
Some "interesting" assertions in there. For example, that each Corps had a Chief-of-Cavalry (no, the order referenced is for only Stoneman*), and that Stoneman had no command authority (spoiler, he did command the massed cavalry in the field consistently).

The major issues were that the War Dept struggled to horse and equip cavalry, and the treasury balked at the expense. Hence there were a bill before the House in January '62 to disband large parts of the cavalry. McDowell's testimony was that only 10 regiments were required for the whole Army of the Potomac, a figure others like Wadsworth considered extravagant. Casey thought 10 regiments plus the regulars was plenty, and that the cavalry wouldn't do any fighting. Franklin opined that they had too much cavalry, and if it were up to him them needed only 2,000 cavalry (plus all six regular regiments). Heintzelman recommended getting rid of half the cavalry they had. Richardson recommended getting rid of all the volunteer cavalry, selling off the horses and only having 4 regular regiments with the army.

Morell and Smith refused to play ball, stating that the army needed more cavalry. Porter objected to the idea of reducing the cavalry. Blenker stated he didn't have enough. McCall and Slocum considered one regiment enough for their divisions.

McClellan fought his corner, and managed to avoid massive disbandments of the mounted cavalry. However, he'd recommended 25 regiments of cavalry accompany the active army (i.e. a ratio of a cavalry regiment per 9 infantry regiments or 10%). In March '62 the equivalent of 21 mounted regiments only were with the army (folding fractional regts into full ones), of whom McClellan had to arrange to leave a third behind and operate with a planned 14, of whom:

3 Regts and a battalion were with the army at Yorktown
4 Regts and a regiments worth of detachments joined late in April
Another regiment was in the process of joining in late June, but only 1 sqn joined the army

The Peninsula was fought with a very small cavalry force, which wasn't McClellan's doing. McClellan adopted the only really sensible combat organisation possible.


* It says "chiefs of artillery and cavalry" referring implicitly to Barry and Stoneman. Starr had a brain-fart.
 
You seem to be indicating he is right, but want to include the cavalry that was not sent so you can have a higher number.
Are we talking about the cavalry that McClellan wanted to take or the amount he got? When I said 14 regiments I meant the amount McClellan wanted to take; I freely agree that McClellan got a lot less cavalry than that, and much of it in fragmentary units.

But to blame McClellan for that is incorrect, because he took everything he was still allowed to take and was asking for more.
 
To count out the strengths of the units McClellan intended to take to the Peninsula, the organization given is:



1st Corps Brigade (BG Hatch)
- 2nd NY Cavalry (Col Davis)
- 1st NY Cavalry (Col Reynolds)

2nd Corps Brigade (intended to have a BG, but who is unspecified)
- 3rd NY Cavalry (Col Van Alen)
- 8th Illinois Cavalry (Col Farnsworth)
- 1 sqn, 6th NY Cavalry (Col Devin)

3rd Corps
- 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry (Col Averell)
- 1st New Jersey Cavalry (Col Wyndham)

4th Corps
- 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry (Col Bayard)
- 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry (No col)
- 4th NY Cavalry (Col Dickel)

Cavalry Reserve Division (BG St. Geo. Cooke)
1st Brigade (BG Emory)
- 5th US Cavalry
- 6th US Cavalry
- 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry (Col Rush)
2nd Brigade (Col Blake)
- 1st US Cavalry
- 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry (Col Gregg)
- Barker's Illinois Squadron & Oneida Coy


The list of 14 amounts to:
1st NY (1)
2nd NY (2)
3rd NY (3)
8th IL (4)
3rd PA (5)
1st NJ (6)
1st PA (7)
5th PA (8)
4th NY (9)
5th US (10)
6th US (11)
6th PA (12) - this is Rush's Lancers, the 11th PA is Harlan's Light Cavalry
1st US (13)
8th PA (14).

I did not count the Illinois Squadron, Oneida company, 2nd US, or the squadron of the 6th NY (Sumner's escort) in this list. I also did not count the detachment of the 4th US.


The 1st US is missing two companies.
The 2nd US is missing three companies.
However, the Illinois Squadron is 2 companies, the Oneida Company is one company, the 2nd US is 9 companies on the Peninsula (it's mostly attached to the provost guard and would have been taken but not counted as available combat cavalry), the 6th NY squadron is 2 companies. (Keyes and Sumner both had 2 companies of the 6th NY as their escort, so this is possibly four; Heintzelman had 2 companies of the 2nd US; I've not tracked down what McDowell's intended escort was.)
Some of the regiments are 10 company not 12 company, but that's their establishment.

So the 14 regiments I counted off were missing five companies, but McClellan also planned to take 14 or more companies in fragmentary regiments. Total 14.5 regiments, of which the typical corps HQ escort was intended to be about two companies (which is all doing useful jobs) and the provost about half a regiment.

If you deduct out all the companies attached to HQs rather than formed as front-line fighting cavalry then you get about 13 to 13.5 regiments (2 companies per HQ, plus one for the orderlies of the Oneida Company, plus possibly two more in the Illinois Squadron, and the provost which was the rest of the 2nd US not used as escorts). So if you count that way you're down to 13, though that's because these are jobs that need to be done.


Of course, what actually got to the Peninsula was considerably less. But that's not what I was counting - I was counting what McClellan intended to take.
 
Are we talking about the cavalry that McClellan wanted to take or the amount he got? When I said 14 regiments I meant the amount McClellan wanted to take; I freely agree that McClellan got a lot less cavalry than that, and much of it in fragmentary units.

But to blame McClellan for that is incorrect, because he took everything he was still allowed to take and was asking for more.

As I said, you seem to know the truth of what Starr wrote, but you want to talk about something else while pooh-poohing his work.

McClellan was in charge. One of the things anyone reading the posts that you and 67thTigers present is that neither of you ever points to McClellan as the one responsible for anything that did not work out.

For most of the time from August 1861 on, McClellan was in total charge of everything related to the organization of the Army of the Potomac. He was the one organizing and training that force. If McClellan is not responsible for how his cavalry was being organized and used, for how it was parceled out, who was?

Added Later:
On the misidentification of "Rush's Lancers" -- thanks for pointing that out. I went back to add that just before I clicked Submit and put in on the wrong line.
 
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As I said, you seem to know the truth of what Starr wrote, but you want to talk about something else while pooh-poohing his work.
I think we need to go back to look at why you brought Starr up, which I'll do at the end of this post. But first:


For most of the time from August 1861 on, McClellan was in total charge of everything related to the organization of the Army of the Potomac. He was the one organizing and training that force. If McClellan is not responsible for how his cavalry was being organized and used, for how it was parceled out, who was?
It's obviously clear that the reason why McClellan was not responsible for how much cavalry got taken to the Peninsula is that the Secretary of War, Stanton, cut orders transferring the 1st NY, 2nd NY (with 1st Corps), 1st PA, 5th PA (with "Bayard's brigade") and 4th NY (with Blenker) away from McClellan's army. He may also have been responsible for others, but those are the ones I'm sure of; the fact McClellan was asking for more cavalry as early as May (and had to go through Stanton) should serve notice that Stanton was the one keeping McClellan from getting all the originally earmarked cavalry.



As for "the truth of what Starr wrote", let's look at the sequence of conversation. I said:

I have to admit I'm a bit unclear on why McClellan would assign nine volunteer regiments of cavalry to the corps he planned to take to the Peninsula, plus another two brigaded with the regulars in his Cavalry Reserve. Eleven volunteer and three regular regiments seems a lot to just carry messages and act as videttes, but makes a lot more sense if they're for screening and direct combat.
Which is talking about the amount that was planned to take to the Peninsula (i.e. the structure in SO 90).
And you brought up Starr in a reply to this post, replying:

The regiments you are talking about are also often far from full strength. Starr sees them as the equivalent of 9 and a half regiments when he adds things up. (8 regiments plus 16 companies drawn from five different regiments according to Starr.)
Which (as is now clear) is counting the amount of cavalry that actually did reach the Peninsula. In this he seems to be talking about early June.

So I was talking about the amount of cavalry McClellan planned to take to the Peninsula, and you replied with Starr's assesment of the amount McClellan did take to the Peninsula. Which is the cause of the confusion - you cited Starr talking about thing B in response to my talking about thing A, and now you're saying that I want to talk about "something else" when I defend my initial assessment of thing A.

I agree that the amount of cavalry McClellan actually got to take to the Peninsula was substantially less than 14 regiments. But this is because Stanton assigned that cavalry away from McClellan's army, and indeed the colonel of the 5th Pennsylvania cavalry was arrested when McClellan ordered him onto the Peninsula and he began to comply with the order.
Starr apparently also says at one point that McClellan "could probably have taken as much cavalry as he needed", but in light of the arrest of a regimental colonel for obeying McClellan's order to embark this seems to be incorrect, though Starr likely simply didn't encounter or realize the significance of the arrest.


There is "the amount of cavalry McClellan wanted to take onto the Peninsula", and there is "the amount of cavalry McClellan was not blocked from taking onto the Peninsula by Stanton etc." If we want to know what McClellan thought of the Volunteers we need to look at the first one, which is what I was doing.
 
Reading through histories of the 1st New York Cavalry is paying dividends. They were taken as HQ escort during the early days of the Seven Days, and a personal account tells us what happened at Gaines Mill.

All the histories of the 1st NY Cavalry agree that McClellan rode across the Chickahominy on the afternoon of the 27th, and took personal command of the battle. This account is from one of the troopers left at GHQ, and he says McClellan left Franklin at GHQ to deal with matters and be McClellan's link-man to the rest of the army. Franklin however, became so concerned with Magruders demonstration that he left GHQ and rode to Smith's front. This left no-one at GHQ to action McClellan's order to send Slocum over, and a staff officer had to go and find Franklin to get him to do his job.
 
Whatever. You lack credibility with me. Sorry.
Over a week ago, you were asked to justify your presumption thus:

Out of interest, if 67th is incorrect on the distribution of cavalry on the Peninsula then what was the distribution, by regiment? Which cavalry regiments were attached to infantry brigades, for example?

I note you have not done so. Is this because you are unwilling or unable to defend your position?

Further on reading North and South (vol 2, no. 2, pg 66) I find that your 2003 statement is in fact already modified from your 1999 statement:

"[McClellan] kept his word-with the exception of the Regular cavalry, the volunteer units were split up and served with individual regiments of infantry, usually assigning a company of cavalry to the foot soldiers." (emphasis mine)

So clearly, your position is open to modification, since you've already modified it once.
 
I owe you nothing. You are getting what I deem you worthy of deserving: nothing.
For my part I'm genuinely interested in the actual distribution of cavalry on the Peninsula. I can understand logically why the % of cavalry allocated to escorts and carrying messages would have to be higher, but for example in reading on the reaction to Stuart's ride...



In Rush's report of the 15th June he is clearly considered an integral part of Emory's brigade - Rush gets moving straight away to follow the 5th and 6th US cavalry when a signal is given from the "Cavalry Reserve HQ", and it's only after this is countermanded that he goes with Warren (by orders). Emory's report of the same date also includes the Lancers as part of his force, explicitly describing "...having with me the only part of my brigade then left me; that is, four squadrons Sixth Pennsylvania Lancers".

So there's at least one brigade which is able to react.
They scatter all over the place to try and find where Stuart has gone, then find the trail (it's part of the Lancers which do so) and pursue. They're not fast enough to catch up, though.


The reason I mention this one is that the only case I'm aware of offhand where a regiment of cavalry is described as directly attached to a brigade of infantry is Rush's Lancers, but it's clear from this information that the attachment was temporary.

So I'm wondering what your notes give as the distribution of cavalry on the Peninsula assigned to various tasks. It looks based on this like thre's a formed brigade in quick-reaction, but your books assert that the cavalry is largely frittered away in attachments and detachments (I believe the term "frittered away" is explicitly used) and I'm wondering how this is determined.
 
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