2nd Alabama Cavalry
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2019
Not many are aware of the fact that the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Finis Davis, had a very profound affect on the U.S. Military as he improved and updated our armed forces during his time in office under the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce`s Administration from 1853 - 1857. The Irony of course being that the very military which he updated and drastically improved as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, he would fight against just 4 years later, as President of the Confederate States of America.
Secretary Jefferson Davis was the first to create and form U.S. cavalry regiments in the U.S. army, these coming to be known as the "Jeff Davis Regiments" as he was the one that petitioned Congress to approve and fund their formation. Before they were designated as U.S. cavalry under Secretary Jefferson Davis, they were known as the U.S. dragoons and mounted rifles. Secretary Davis specifically formed the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiments in 1855, then giving the United States of America a total of 2 dragoon regiments, 1 regiment of mounted rifles and the 2 newly formed cavalry regiments regarding our horsemen and mounted riflemen.
Basically at the close of the Mexican War (1846-1848) the 'mounted troops' (dragoons / mounted rifles) of the United States army were reduced to just three regiments, designated respectively as the First and Second regiment`s of dragoons and a regiment of mounted riflemen. A few years of campaigning to control the western frontier, which extended from the Rio Grande in Texas to the Canadian border, and to keep watch over the numerous wagon trails leaving the east and heading west, served to convince a very reluctant Congress that enlarging the mounted arms of the regular army was badly needed.
This resulted in Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, lobbying President Franklin Pierce for approval and the formation of said forces. Davis and Pierce had served with many of the regiments’ officers in the then recent war with Mexico (1846-1848). But then-President James K. Polk, having won a victory in the Mexican War and increased the nation’s size by more than one million square miles, reduced the army’s size to its congressionally mandated peacetime size of 13,821 men. By June 1853, five years after the Mexican War and just 3 months after Jefferson Davis became the U.S. Secretary of War, the army had fewer than 7,000 men on active duty in protecting western expansion out on the frontier, which averaged just 124 soldiers for each of the army’s 54 western outposts (on the frontier). This was the situation that Jefferson Davis inherited when he was confirmed as the 23rd Secretary of War while serving in that position from 1853 - 1857.
In his first annual report to Congress early in 1854, Secretary Jefferson Davis complained bitterly about the reduced numbers.
“We have a sea-board and foreign frontier of more than 10,000 miles, an Indian frontier, and routes through Indian country, requiring constant protection of more than 8,000 miles,” he noted, “and an Indian population of more than 400,000, of whom probably 40,000 warriors are inimical and only want the opportunity to become active enemies.”
Secretary Davis petitioned for more soldiers, which was met with immediate opposition in Congress, led primarily by Senators Sam Houston (Texas) and Thomas H. Benton (Missouri), who fought an increase in the military for a number of reasons, specifically their fear that such an army would be Southern-dominated, this coming at a time when the whisper of secession had just began to be heard across our great nation.
However, opposition to Davis’s request weakened after the August 1854 massacre of a troop of dragoons by Sioux warriors at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. When Lt. John L. Grattan led his men into a Sioux village demanding restitution for the tribe’s slaughter of a local milk cow. Conquering Bear, The Sioux chief, asked Lt. Grattan to give him time to make restitution, but Lt. Grattan, convinced that he could defeat the Indians with a single howitzer and a small number of men, refused. During an attack his howitzer misfired, and Lt. Grattan along with his men panicked and fled for their lives. The Sioux Warriors followed and massacred them all. Even though Lt. Grattan had instigated the fight against the Sioux, Davis described the altercation as:“a deliberately forced plan” by the Indians to raid government stores. He renewed his demand to both President Pierce and Congress for additional troops to police the frontier using the massacre as an example of why we needed extra men to secure and protect our ever increasing western expansion as a nation.
Because of the massacre and the message that it sent, Secretary Jefferson Davis got what he wanted from Congress and President Franklin Pierce. On March 3, 1855, Congress passed a bill mandating four new army regiments, two infantry and two cavalry, to be formed. Davis set to work immediately to fill the officer vacancies in the cavalry regiments, his particular pride and joy being a former dragoon commander and former Indian fighter on the American frontier himself. Command of the First U.S. Cavalry Regiment went to Colonel Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner, with Lt. Colonel Joseph E. Johnston as his 2nd in command and understudy. Selected to lead the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment was Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a longtime Davis friend and a veteran Indian fighter in Florida and Texas, with Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee as his 2nd in command and understudy.
In the selection of officers for these two regiments the War Department, then headed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, took its pick from the field and line of the whole army, including staff corps, engineers, artillery and infantry, as well as some of the most accomplished officers from the 3 mounted regiments which were already in the service, who were then transferred or promoted to higher rank in the new organization. All of the field officers of the new regiments, were seasoned veterans who had "won their spurs" in the regular or volunteer service during the war with Mexico, or even previously during the War`s against the Blackhawk and Seminole nations. The names of many of these men were destined to become famous during the Civil War.
The two U.S. cavalry regiments thus formed were known as "the Jeff Davis regiments," for the reason that Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War, personally selected nearly all of the officers from other regiments or arms of the service for transfer and promotion in the new organizations. Secretary Davis had been an officer of dragoons in his younger years, and later, as colonel of a regiment of Mississippi volunteers during the Mexican War, he had ample opportunity to become more or less familiar with the ability, character and standing of nearly every officer considered and later chosen for a commission in the new cavalry regiments. Jefferson Davis served in the U.S. army dragoons from 1824-1835 on the American frontier as an Indian fighter and then again he served during the Mexican War (1846 - 1848), both of his terms of service under Zachary Taylor (future 12th President of the United States), who was his immediate officer in command during the Blackhawk War, the 2nd Seminole War and the Mexican-American War. So he knew the dragoons and based on his personal experience was more than qualified to form new cavalry regiments during his term as the 23rd Secretary of War from 1853 - 1857.
Out of the "Jeff Davis regiments" came a remarkable number of future Union and Confederate generals who fought Indians together as friends and comrades on the western plains before fighting each other as "frenemies" on numerous battlefields back east a few years later during the American Civil War. Included on the rosters of the First and Second U. S. Cavalry Regiment`s were such future luminaries as; Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, Fitzhugh Lee, Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner, George H. Thomas, George Stoneman, George B. McClellan, William H. Emory, John Sedgwick, Samuel Sturgis, John Bell Hood, Edmund Kirby Smith, Earl Van Dorn, William J. Hardee and Charles Field, to mention a few of the more prominent names handpicked for this assignment personally by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis himself. All of whom became seasoned and experienced Indian fighters on the western frontier as they were protecting American expansion. A stray arrow here or there, during this time, might well have changed the entire course of the Civil War which was to be fought by these men a few years later.
Out of the 176 U.S. officers in the original 5 horse regiments which existed before the Civil War (2 regiment`s of dragoons, 1 regiment of mounted rifles and 2 regiments of cavalry) 104 cast their lot with the Confederate army. Out of those, 29 officers from the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiments alone would become generals in the Civil War, representing five of the eight total "four star" generals which made up the Confederate States Army (one from the First U.S. Cavalry and four from the Second U.S. Cavalry). Those being Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Edmund Kirby Smith and John Bell Hood respectively.
Both the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment`s became very well known but it was the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment, known as: "Jeff Davis` Own" which really became notorious and gained fame for its service on the western frontier, specifically in Texas fighting the Comanche and Apache, as our great nation expanded westward.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment, "Jeff Davis` Own":
Even though the First U.S. Cavalry Regiment did great service under the command of Colonel Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner and Lt. Colonel Joseph E. Johnston, to include Lt. J.E.B. Stuart, it was the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment who really went on to gain great notoriety and fame during the their fighting against the Comanche and Apache on the Texas frontier under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee and George H. Thomas. After being formed by Secretary Jefferson Davis in 1855, the men of the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment went to Texas to fight Indians. After 5 years of serving and fighting by each others side, they returned home to fight each other during the American Civil War.
Ordered to operate against and engage the Native American tribes whose raids were interfering with the western expansion of the United States, the officers of the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment were also unknowingly preparing to fight each other a few years later. The Texas frontier was their initial battleground, and the warriors of the Comanche, Apache and other hostiles were their foes. During this time the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment schooled themselves in innovative tactics and strategies regarding mobile desert warfare, tutored by a skilled and tireless adversary, primarily the Comanche and Apache. These improvements were put in place by the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis as he updated and improved the U.S. army and cavalry regarding how they were to operate, patrol and fight from 1853 - 1857. And then continued by his successor the 24th Secretary of War under President James Buchanan Jr., Secretary John B. Floyd who served from 1857 - 1861 and himself resigned his position to become a Brig. General in the Confederate States Army and fight under Robert E. Lee in Virginia during the American Civil War.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment, "Jeff Davis` Own", produced more general officers of Civil War fame than any other, they received their due coverage and went down in history as one of the best cavalry regiments ever in the recorded history of our great nation. It was an elite organization and its men were very much a family whom would be torn from one another at the outset of the American Civil War. The troopers rode the finest horses and were issued the latest equipment and firearms. The regiment was known for the outstanding quality of the sixteen general officers it produced in the 6½ years of its existence. Eleven of these who became Confederate generals.
The Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment remained in Texas until the initiation of the American Civil War. During its stay in the Lone Star State, companies of the regiment were involved in some forty engagements along the western and northern frontiers of Texas and along the Rio Grande, fighting Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and Mexican marauders. Various companies of the regiment also conducted scores of scouting expeditions into West and Northwest Texas, sometimes for durations as long as five and six weeks. Using Texas as a base of operations, the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment staged two major raids against the Comanche villages north of the Red River in Kansas Territory, one in October 1858 and the other in May 1859. The most significant engagement fought by the regiment in Texas was the battle of Devils River, July 20, 1857.
On that date Lt. John Bell Hood, with a detachment of twenty-five men from Company "G", fought a combined force of Comanches and Lipan Apache warriors. It was estimated that of a party of fifty warriors nine Indians were killed and at least double that number injured. The cavalrymen counted seven casualties. Hood himself suffered a painful wound when an arrow pinned his hand to his saddle. As a result of South Carolina seceding from the Union and 6 other Southern States soon seceding as well, the regiment was ordered out of Texas in late February 1861. Upon its return north the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment, then under the command of Maj. George H. Thomas, was assigned to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment had five years of distinguished service on the Texas frontier and border. It had driven the Indians far beyond the fringes of settlement and had attacked and defeated the Comanches deep in their heartland. It had also helped the Texas Rangers to combat Juan N. Cortina and other Mexican marauders, and brought peace to the lower Rio Grande valley. Thorough in reconnaissance, persistent in pursuit, and successful in battle, the Second United States Cavalry Regiment made a significant contribution to Texas frontier history. It was the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment that built the frontier fortification known as Fort Worth and were garrisoned there, which later grew into what we know now as the Fort Worth / Dallas region of Texas.
Below is a list recording the eight total full "four star" generals of the Confederate States Army, five of whom resigned their positions as U.S. officers with the First and Second United States Cavalry Regiment`s when hostilities were exchanged between the Northern and Southern States, which initiated the American Civil War.
1)- Samuel Cooper
2)- Albert Sidney Johnston (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
3)- Robert E. Lee (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
4)- Joseph E. Johnston (1st U.S. Cavalry)
5)- Pierre G.T. Beauregard
6)- Braxton Bragg
7)- Edmund Kirby Smith (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
8)- John Bell Hood (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
Albert Sidney Johnston was the only to serve as a general in three different Armies; The Texan Army, the United States Army and the Confederate States Army.
Others who went on to resign from the U.S. army and become generals in the Confederate army were: Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Mexican War), Pierre G. T. Beauregard (Mexican War), James Longstreet (Mexican War), Joseph Wheeler (1st Dragoons / Regiment of Mounted Rifles), William Hicks Jackson (Regiment of Mounted Rifles), Samuel Wragg Ferguson (2nd Dragoons), George Pickett (Mexican War), A. P. Hill (Mexican War), Stephen D. Lee (4th U.S. Infantry), to name a few...
If you would like to learn more about this timeline in our U.S. history in general or specifically more about the Second United States Cavalry Regiment, known as "Jeff Davis` Own", I highly recommend the book: "Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier", by Author James R. Arnold. A great read and a very informative body of work.
Photo below: Jefferson Finis Davis, the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, circa 1853, soon after he was first confirmed to that position and served in President Franklin Pierce`s Administration from 1853 - 1857.
Secretary Jefferson Davis was the first to create and form U.S. cavalry regiments in the U.S. army, these coming to be known as the "Jeff Davis Regiments" as he was the one that petitioned Congress to approve and fund their formation. Before they were designated as U.S. cavalry under Secretary Jefferson Davis, they were known as the U.S. dragoons and mounted rifles. Secretary Davis specifically formed the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiments in 1855, then giving the United States of America a total of 2 dragoon regiments, 1 regiment of mounted rifles and the 2 newly formed cavalry regiments regarding our horsemen and mounted riflemen.
Basically at the close of the Mexican War (1846-1848) the 'mounted troops' (dragoons / mounted rifles) of the United States army were reduced to just three regiments, designated respectively as the First and Second regiment`s of dragoons and a regiment of mounted riflemen. A few years of campaigning to control the western frontier, which extended from the Rio Grande in Texas to the Canadian border, and to keep watch over the numerous wagon trails leaving the east and heading west, served to convince a very reluctant Congress that enlarging the mounted arms of the regular army was badly needed.
This resulted in Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, lobbying President Franklin Pierce for approval and the formation of said forces. Davis and Pierce had served with many of the regiments’ officers in the then recent war with Mexico (1846-1848). But then-President James K. Polk, having won a victory in the Mexican War and increased the nation’s size by more than one million square miles, reduced the army’s size to its congressionally mandated peacetime size of 13,821 men. By June 1853, five years after the Mexican War and just 3 months after Jefferson Davis became the U.S. Secretary of War, the army had fewer than 7,000 men on active duty in protecting western expansion out on the frontier, which averaged just 124 soldiers for each of the army’s 54 western outposts (on the frontier). This was the situation that Jefferson Davis inherited when he was confirmed as the 23rd Secretary of War while serving in that position from 1853 - 1857.
In his first annual report to Congress early in 1854, Secretary Jefferson Davis complained bitterly about the reduced numbers.
“We have a sea-board and foreign frontier of more than 10,000 miles, an Indian frontier, and routes through Indian country, requiring constant protection of more than 8,000 miles,” he noted, “and an Indian population of more than 400,000, of whom probably 40,000 warriors are inimical and only want the opportunity to become active enemies.”
Secretary Davis petitioned for more soldiers, which was met with immediate opposition in Congress, led primarily by Senators Sam Houston (Texas) and Thomas H. Benton (Missouri), who fought an increase in the military for a number of reasons, specifically their fear that such an army would be Southern-dominated, this coming at a time when the whisper of secession had just began to be heard across our great nation.
However, opposition to Davis’s request weakened after the August 1854 massacre of a troop of dragoons by Sioux warriors at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. When Lt. John L. Grattan led his men into a Sioux village demanding restitution for the tribe’s slaughter of a local milk cow. Conquering Bear, The Sioux chief, asked Lt. Grattan to give him time to make restitution, but Lt. Grattan, convinced that he could defeat the Indians with a single howitzer and a small number of men, refused. During an attack his howitzer misfired, and Lt. Grattan along with his men panicked and fled for their lives. The Sioux Warriors followed and massacred them all. Even though Lt. Grattan had instigated the fight against the Sioux, Davis described the altercation as:“a deliberately forced plan” by the Indians to raid government stores. He renewed his demand to both President Pierce and Congress for additional troops to police the frontier using the massacre as an example of why we needed extra men to secure and protect our ever increasing western expansion as a nation.
Because of the massacre and the message that it sent, Secretary Jefferson Davis got what he wanted from Congress and President Franklin Pierce. On March 3, 1855, Congress passed a bill mandating four new army regiments, two infantry and two cavalry, to be formed. Davis set to work immediately to fill the officer vacancies in the cavalry regiments, his particular pride and joy being a former dragoon commander and former Indian fighter on the American frontier himself. Command of the First U.S. Cavalry Regiment went to Colonel Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner, with Lt. Colonel Joseph E. Johnston as his 2nd in command and understudy. Selected to lead the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment was Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a longtime Davis friend and a veteran Indian fighter in Florida and Texas, with Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee as his 2nd in command and understudy.
In the selection of officers for these two regiments the War Department, then headed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, took its pick from the field and line of the whole army, including staff corps, engineers, artillery and infantry, as well as some of the most accomplished officers from the 3 mounted regiments which were already in the service, who were then transferred or promoted to higher rank in the new organization. All of the field officers of the new regiments, were seasoned veterans who had "won their spurs" in the regular or volunteer service during the war with Mexico, or even previously during the War`s against the Blackhawk and Seminole nations. The names of many of these men were destined to become famous during the Civil War.
The two U.S. cavalry regiments thus formed were known as "the Jeff Davis regiments," for the reason that Jefferson Davis, who was then Secretary of War, personally selected nearly all of the officers from other regiments or arms of the service for transfer and promotion in the new organizations. Secretary Davis had been an officer of dragoons in his younger years, and later, as colonel of a regiment of Mississippi volunteers during the Mexican War, he had ample opportunity to become more or less familiar with the ability, character and standing of nearly every officer considered and later chosen for a commission in the new cavalry regiments. Jefferson Davis served in the U.S. army dragoons from 1824-1835 on the American frontier as an Indian fighter and then again he served during the Mexican War (1846 - 1848), both of his terms of service under Zachary Taylor (future 12th President of the United States), who was his immediate officer in command during the Blackhawk War, the 2nd Seminole War and the Mexican-American War. So he knew the dragoons and based on his personal experience was more than qualified to form new cavalry regiments during his term as the 23rd Secretary of War from 1853 - 1857.
Out of the "Jeff Davis regiments" came a remarkable number of future Union and Confederate generals who fought Indians together as friends and comrades on the western plains before fighting each other as "frenemies" on numerous battlefields back east a few years later during the American Civil War. Included on the rosters of the First and Second U. S. Cavalry Regiment`s were such future luminaries as; Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, Fitzhugh Lee, Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner, George H. Thomas, George Stoneman, George B. McClellan, William H. Emory, John Sedgwick, Samuel Sturgis, John Bell Hood, Edmund Kirby Smith, Earl Van Dorn, William J. Hardee and Charles Field, to mention a few of the more prominent names handpicked for this assignment personally by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis himself. All of whom became seasoned and experienced Indian fighters on the western frontier as they were protecting American expansion. A stray arrow here or there, during this time, might well have changed the entire course of the Civil War which was to be fought by these men a few years later.
Out of the 176 U.S. officers in the original 5 horse regiments which existed before the Civil War (2 regiment`s of dragoons, 1 regiment of mounted rifles and 2 regiments of cavalry) 104 cast their lot with the Confederate army. Out of those, 29 officers from the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiments alone would become generals in the Civil War, representing five of the eight total "four star" generals which made up the Confederate States Army (one from the First U.S. Cavalry and four from the Second U.S. Cavalry). Those being Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Edmund Kirby Smith and John Bell Hood respectively.
Both the First and Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment`s became very well known but it was the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment, known as: "Jeff Davis` Own" which really became notorious and gained fame for its service on the western frontier, specifically in Texas fighting the Comanche and Apache, as our great nation expanded westward.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment, "Jeff Davis` Own":
Even though the First U.S. Cavalry Regiment did great service under the command of Colonel Edwin Vose "Bull Head" Sumner and Lt. Colonel Joseph E. Johnston, to include Lt. J.E.B. Stuart, it was the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment who really went on to gain great notoriety and fame during the their fighting against the Comanche and Apache on the Texas frontier under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee and George H. Thomas. After being formed by Secretary Jefferson Davis in 1855, the men of the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment went to Texas to fight Indians. After 5 years of serving and fighting by each others side, they returned home to fight each other during the American Civil War.
Ordered to operate against and engage the Native American tribes whose raids were interfering with the western expansion of the United States, the officers of the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment were also unknowingly preparing to fight each other a few years later. The Texas frontier was their initial battleground, and the warriors of the Comanche, Apache and other hostiles were their foes. During this time the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment schooled themselves in innovative tactics and strategies regarding mobile desert warfare, tutored by a skilled and tireless adversary, primarily the Comanche and Apache. These improvements were put in place by the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis as he updated and improved the U.S. army and cavalry regarding how they were to operate, patrol and fight from 1853 - 1857. And then continued by his successor the 24th Secretary of War under President James Buchanan Jr., Secretary John B. Floyd who served from 1857 - 1861 and himself resigned his position to become a Brig. General in the Confederate States Army and fight under Robert E. Lee in Virginia during the American Civil War.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment, "Jeff Davis` Own", produced more general officers of Civil War fame than any other, they received their due coverage and went down in history as one of the best cavalry regiments ever in the recorded history of our great nation. It was an elite organization and its men were very much a family whom would be torn from one another at the outset of the American Civil War. The troopers rode the finest horses and were issued the latest equipment and firearms. The regiment was known for the outstanding quality of the sixteen general officers it produced in the 6½ years of its existence. Eleven of these who became Confederate generals.
The Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment remained in Texas until the initiation of the American Civil War. During its stay in the Lone Star State, companies of the regiment were involved in some forty engagements along the western and northern frontiers of Texas and along the Rio Grande, fighting Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and Mexican marauders. Various companies of the regiment also conducted scores of scouting expeditions into West and Northwest Texas, sometimes for durations as long as five and six weeks. Using Texas as a base of operations, the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment staged two major raids against the Comanche villages north of the Red River in Kansas Territory, one in October 1858 and the other in May 1859. The most significant engagement fought by the regiment in Texas was the battle of Devils River, July 20, 1857.
On that date Lt. John Bell Hood, with a detachment of twenty-five men from Company "G", fought a combined force of Comanches and Lipan Apache warriors. It was estimated that of a party of fifty warriors nine Indians were killed and at least double that number injured. The cavalrymen counted seven casualties. Hood himself suffered a painful wound when an arrow pinned his hand to his saddle. As a result of South Carolina seceding from the Union and 6 other Southern States soon seceding as well, the regiment was ordered out of Texas in late February 1861. Upon its return north the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment, then under the command of Maj. George H. Thomas, was assigned to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
The Second United States Cavalry Regiment had five years of distinguished service on the Texas frontier and border. It had driven the Indians far beyond the fringes of settlement and had attacked and defeated the Comanches deep in their heartland. It had also helped the Texas Rangers to combat Juan N. Cortina and other Mexican marauders, and brought peace to the lower Rio Grande valley. Thorough in reconnaissance, persistent in pursuit, and successful in battle, the Second United States Cavalry Regiment made a significant contribution to Texas frontier history. It was the Second U.S. Cavalry Regiment that built the frontier fortification known as Fort Worth and were garrisoned there, which later grew into what we know now as the Fort Worth / Dallas region of Texas.
Below is a list recording the eight total full "four star" generals of the Confederate States Army, five of whom resigned their positions as U.S. officers with the First and Second United States Cavalry Regiment`s when hostilities were exchanged between the Northern and Southern States, which initiated the American Civil War.
1)- Samuel Cooper
2)- Albert Sidney Johnston (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
3)- Robert E. Lee (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
4)- Joseph E. Johnston (1st U.S. Cavalry)
5)- Pierre G.T. Beauregard
6)- Braxton Bragg
7)- Edmund Kirby Smith (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
8)- John Bell Hood (2nd U.S. Cavalry)
Albert Sidney Johnston was the only to serve as a general in three different Armies; The Texan Army, the United States Army and the Confederate States Army.
Others who went on to resign from the U.S. army and become generals in the Confederate army were: Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Mexican War), Pierre G. T. Beauregard (Mexican War), James Longstreet (Mexican War), Joseph Wheeler (1st Dragoons / Regiment of Mounted Rifles), William Hicks Jackson (Regiment of Mounted Rifles), Samuel Wragg Ferguson (2nd Dragoons), George Pickett (Mexican War), A. P. Hill (Mexican War), Stephen D. Lee (4th U.S. Infantry), to name a few...
If you would like to learn more about this timeline in our U.S. history in general or specifically more about the Second United States Cavalry Regiment, known as "Jeff Davis` Own", I highly recommend the book: "Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier", by Author James R. Arnold. A great read and a very informative body of work.
Photo below: Jefferson Finis Davis, the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, circa 1853, soon after he was first confirmed to that position and served in President Franklin Pierce`s Administration from 1853 - 1857.
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