Importance of Cavalry

Sheridan and Oach! Custer, did a pretty good job as well. As others have noted, Southern s were better horseman, and had better horses from the get go. The North eventially closed that gap.
I don't disagree with this. The removal of Pleasanton was a huge step in the right direction.
 
4. After his Elkhorn Tavern victory, General Curtis was unable to capture Arkansas's state capital at Little Rock as directed because of difficulties and raids on his supply line. Instead, he took his army to Helena on the Mississippi River where it did nothing but engage in cotton trade for about a year.

Speaking to point number 4, that was more of Curtis's supply difficulties operating on wagon trains that had to pass through the Ozark Plateau with guerillas rather than actual Confederate cavalry. The only organized Confederate forces to defend the Confederate capital were green Texas Cavalry and a few Arkansas conscript infantry under Brig. Gens. John Roane and Albert Rust under the overall command of Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman. Rust's brigade of Texans attacked Curtis just south of Cotton Plant and was soundly whipped.

Curtis attempted to rendezvous with the Federal navy along the White River for re-supply, and when he missed his rendezvous, he then decided to march to Helena, where he would be ordered back to Missouri and most of his army would be ordered to join the Army of the Tennessee (and were replaced with newly organized troops in the garrison).
 
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not to "hijack thread", but among cavalry chiefs, how do they rank (Stoneman, Pleasonton, Sheridan ) ?? Didn't the whole "mission" of the Cavalry corps improve under Sheridan ?
 
not to "hijack thread", but among cavalry chiefs, how do they rank (Stoneman, Pleasonton, Sheridan ) ?? Didn't the whole "mission" of the Cavalry corps improve under Sheridan ?


I think he (Sheridan) did such a great job that many people hate him for doing it.....

I would think there are more reasons to disparage Quadrille and Forrest as far as war atrocities go.
 
not to "hijack thread", but among cavalry chiefs, how do they rank (Stoneman, Pleasonton, Sheridan ) ?? Didn't the whole "mission" of the Cavalry corps improve under Sheridan ?
It did. Only largely due to attrition in the confederate ranks. The Union Cavalry continued to improve while the Confederates suffered from attrition in both officers and horse fleash.
 
Confederates effectively used cavalry, especially in the west, to disrupt Union army supply lines, as in the following examples:
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4. After his Elkhorn Tavern victory, General Curtis was unable to capture Arkansas's state capital at Little Rock as directed because of difficulties and raids on his supply line. Instead, he took his army to Helena on the Mississippi River where it did nothing but engage in cotton trade for about a year.

Nothing you say below contradicts point number four above. As may be observed, I specifically avoided writing that Curtis's supply problems were entirely due to armed interference.

Speaking to point number 4, that was more of Curtis's supply difficulties operating on wagon trains that had to pass through the Ozark Plateau with guerillas rather than actual Confederate cavalry. The only organized Confederate forces to defend the Confederate capital were green Texas Cavalry and a few Arkansas conscript infantry under Brig. Gens. John Roane and Albert Rust under the overall command of Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman. Rust's brigade of Texans attacked Curtis just south of Cotton Plant and was soundly whipped.

There were other skirmishes with an assortment of regular, and irregular, Confederate troops. One example was Searcy Landing, which disrupted Curtis's foraging operations and ended his closest approach to Little Rock. Another was the action at St. Charles, which ended a supply expedition for Curtis up the White River.

Curtis attempted to rendezvous with the Federal navy along the White River for re-supply, and when he missed his rendezvous, he then decided to march to Helena, where he would be ordered back to Missouri and most of his army would be ordered to join the Army of the Tennessee (and were replaced with newly organized troops in the garrison).

You fail to mention, however, the reason that Curtis was a day late was the very action you cited above at Cotton Plant. Despite being a Rebel defeat it prompted Curtis to march to Helena instead of Little Rock, his designated objective.

The question of whether Rebel raids prevented Curtis from taking Little Rock is resolved by judging whether Curtis could have established a supply depot on the White River at either Clarendon or DeVall's Bluff if there had been no opposition. Since you note that he missed the rendezvous with a relief flotilla by a single day it seems logical to assume he could have otherwise established the required depot.

Finally, you offer no comment about the dubious cotton trading in Helena that was uninterrupted by any fighting by the Union garrison for nearly a year after Curtis occupied the town. Curtis accused of personally profiting from such trade. Lincoln's Attorney General Bates accused him of depositing $100,000 in a Chicago bank. Illinois Senator Orville Browning echoed the accusation, but put the amount was $150,000.
 
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...The uninformed are quick to claim the US had an enormous advantage, at Gettysburg in particular, because of repeaters. The ...only repeaters present were Spencer rifles...[that were not among Buford's cavalry when they] acted as mounted infantry delaying the CS advance.

Are you suggesting that Buford's breech-loading equipped troops had no man-to-man rapid fire advantage against the muzzleloader-armed Rebels? Even though Buford's breech-loaders (mostly Sharps) loaded one shell at a time they could be fired three times faster than muzzleloaders.*

*Robert Bruce Lincoln and the Tools of War, 111

...the idea of every CS Cav trooper with 4-6 pistols is almost pure Hollyweird moonshine.

While a multi-sidearm equipped trooper may have been "moonshine" among the regular CSA Cavalry, it was common among partisan rangers. Many of Mosby's men carried up to four pistols. The practice was even more common in among guerrillas. In one Missouri incident after Federal cavalry killed six Rebel guerrillas they collected 30 pistols off of the bodies. Even Federal troops in such areas often purchased additional pistols beyond those they were issued.**

The informed can appreciate the authenticity of movies, like Ride With the Devil, that portray guerrillas as carrying more than a single pistol as opposed to disparaging them as "Hollyweird" creations.

**Joe Bilby Civil War Firearms, 168-170

The idea made popular by the uninformed that Cav didn't use long arms is also so much smoke. The reality is that large numbers of on both sides utilized long arms other than carbines.

Please show where anyone in this thread made such a claim. Nonetheless, the use of long arms was far more common among Confederate Cavalry than Federal. By the end of the War the Federals had procured over 400,000 single-shot breechloaders and repeaters, the Confederacy only 4,000 single shot breech-loaders.***

By the fall of 1864 the new Union Chief of Ordnance, A. B. Dyer, called for all Union soldiers to be armed with breech-loaders.****

***Paddy Griffth Battle Tactics of the Civil War, 80
****Earl Hess, The Rifled Musket in Civil War Combat, 56

...Another mistake often made by the uninformed is that man fired their carbines from horseback... something that rarely happened.

As a presumably informed commenter perhaps you meant to write breech-loader instead of breach-loader.

...In the spring of 65 Wilson proved the CS was a broken shell with little left to oppose well armed Cavalry and while the Spencer was part of that it was only part of it. A Spencer does no good if there are no willing men to issue it out to.

Maybe Wilson himself gave the Spencer more credit than you do.

There is no doubt that the Spencer carbine is the best firearm put into the hands of the solider...our best officers estimate one man armed with it [is] equivalent to three with any other type of arm.*****
*****Robert Bruce Lincoln and the Tools of War, 290
 
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Forrest, Hampton & Stuart for the CS and quite frankly Minty, Grierson & Wilson in the west are all good starting points for the study of Cav use during the ACW. But the reality is that neither side really used Cav in the way of the Europe instead using Cav more as either light Cav or mounted infantry.
I am confused about the different use of terms here. What is the difference between cavalry, light cavalry and mounted infantry since they all seem to involve men on horseback carrying guns? It's an honest question which I hope you can find the time to answer. Thanks.
 
Cavalry was also used for screening... that is trying to hide what the rest of the army was doing from the enemy. ..... Grant also had to go through the Wilderness because Mosby would have otherwise attacked his supply line and otherwise harassed his army. (according to my understanding of what was said in the book: "A Civil War Treasury" by Nofi)
What do you mean by screening? I'm not sure I understand the term as it relates to cavalry...
 
Were cavalry not used to screen, protect the armies flanks and gather intelligence. When performed correctly they were invaluable. Stuart was a prime example of what efficient cavalry operations could accomplish.
And what could happen when they went missing...
 
I am confused about the different use of terms here. What is the difference between cavalry, light cavalry and mounted infantry since they all seem to involve men on horseback carrying guns? It's an honest question which I hope you can find the time to answer. Thanks.
Quick and dirty answer... Basically, Cavalry makes the grand sabre charges that smash an opponent as used in the Napoleonic Wars smashing infantry, overrunning arty and routing the enemy. There just was not the room to maneuver on most battlefields in the US that there was in Europe. Cavalry doesn't function well in forests and the battlefields of the ACW were dominated by forests. Cav was basically broken up into three groups: Light, medium/standard & Heavy Cav w/ sub groups like Lancers, Hussars, Dragoons etc.

Light Cav was your recon, pursuit, screening, flanking etc. units. Frankly, almost all Cav in the US was Light Cav... because that is what it took to catch and defeat the plains tribes and it worked well. By the end of the war there were European observers that viewed the US Cav as the finest light cav in the world.

Mounted Infantry was literally just that, Infantrymen mounted on horses or mules for mobility sake, they dismounted to fight. When given rifled carbines all Cav could be used as mounted infantry and most were. This is particularly useful when using Cav to secure bridges, crossroads etc. Typically Cav could take territory but could not be expected to hold it. Largely because cav units were smaller than infantry formations. Also a typical horse will only carry a couple hundred pounds, when you subtract the man it limits how much gear is available to the individual Cavalryman.
 
Quick and dirty answer... Basically, Cavalry makes the grand sabre charges that smash an opponent as used in the Napoleonic Wars smashing infantry, overrunning arty and routing the enemy. There just was not the room to maneuver on most battlefields in the US that there was in Europe. Cavalry doesn't function well in forests and the battlefields of the ACW were dominated by forests. Cav was basically broken up into three groups: Light, medium/standard & Heavy Cav w/ sub groups like Lancers, Hussars, Dragoons etc.

Light Cav was your recon, pursuit, screening, flanking etc. units. Frankly, almost all Cav in the US was Light Cav... because that is what it took to catch and defeat the plains tribes and it worked well. By the end of the war there were European observers that viewed the US Cav as the finest light cav in the world.

Mounted Infantry was literally just that, Infantrymen mounted on horses or mules for mobility sake, they dismounted to fight. When given rifled carbines all Cav could be used as mounted infantry and most were. This is particularly useful when using Cav to secure bridges, crossroads etc. Typically Cav could take territory but could not be expected to hold it. Largely because cav units were smaller than infantry formations. Also a typical horse will only carry a couple hundred pounds, when you subtract the man it limits how much gear is available to the individual Cavalryman.
Thank you. That's a great explanation which pretty much covers what I was looking for.
 
Think of mounted infantry, like Wilder's Lightning brigade, as an early form of motorized infantry. The horse get them from a to b, but they fight dismounted.

(Not that is was anything new. Back in the 17th century Dragoons was mounted infantry...
But the new thing was that with the repeating firearms Wilders men carried they now had the firepower to fight larger infantry forces to a standstill.,.. until they got infantry support)
 
Since the Spencer carbine didn’t go into mass production until September 1, 1863 and that only about five prototypes of it existed as of July 1, 1863. http://civilwarcavalry.com/?p=35 What model of repeater was the cavalry using in June '63?
I have read in several places that the 5th Michigan Cavalry was armed with Spencers at the Battle of Hanover on June 30, 1863. If the Spencer did not go into mass production until September, this couldn't be true.
 
Whilst the sabre went out of fashion in the early war, by the late war it had made a major comeback. The problem was that it takes several years to really season cavalry to charge home properly and the inexperienced volunteers of the early war weren't really capable of it. By mid-1863 some Federal commanders had started using la arme blanche again, with stunning results. Rebel cavalry without sabres simply couldn't stand the shock.

By 1864 Federal cavalry was making large scale charges with the sabre against rebel cavalry and consistently overthrowing them. By 1865 (Five Forks) Federal cavalry actually charged entrenched infantry and were successful....
 
I have read in several places that the 5th Michigan Cavalry was armed with Spencers at the Battle of Hanover on June 30, 1863. If the Spencer did not go into mass production until September, this couldn't be true.

I believe they had spencer rifles. Bee is talking about the spencer carbines.

Exactly. Even in some of the very mainstream books on Gettysburg, the description of "Spencer's" are general. l have learned to look for the word "carbine" to be specifically mentioned, before I call foul.
 
Exactly. Even in some of the very mainstream books on Gettysburg, the description of "Spencer's" are general. l have learned to look for the word "carbine" to be specifically mentioned, before I call foul.
Thanks!
 
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