Hussar Yeomanry
Sergeant
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2017
- Location
- UK
Part One:
As the circus that was The Army of Northeastern Virginia saunters south towards Manassas, that relatively unimportant place that few had previously heard of, General McDowell must have been despairing. This proud career army man with twenty five long years service finally gets his own command.
And what a command it was.
Impressive to behold... or at least colorful to look at... its commander must have known its brittleness. Perhaps comprising 35,000 men (the standard number quoted but almost certainly a guestimate) or thereabouts it was an army in flux. Units arriving and units leaving (the 4th Pennsylvania Volunteers deciding that they would go home now their 90 days were up) it was also an army in a hurry for approximately 31% of the infantry appear to be ninety day men whose service would similarly soon be up.
That means use them or lose them.
Lincoln knew that. McDowell knew that and only severe prodding from the President seems to have spurred McDowell into action and yet the army still isn't ready. The fourth Division of the five has no brigade structure and seems almost an afterthought... and yet the parlous state of the infantry isn't what I wish to focus on here.
No. Let us look at the Cavalry. A branch of the army that seems almost invisible at Bull Run and as it turns out there is a reason for that. Its size. At Gettysburg the Union AoP will have three Cavalry Divisions in an army maybe three times the size so the ANV at Bull Run should have a Division or thereabouts. By Gettysburg that is two (or in one case three) brigades comprising maybe 1,500 men in each. So, does the ANV have 3,000 cavalrymen?
Including the company guarding McDowell it has but seven companies [Query is a Cavalry Company larger than an Infantry Company. The latter is 100 men and it looks like a Cavalry Company is the same but I have found no conclusive proof on this. But at the moment it looks like instead of 3,000 men it has c.700]. Comprised of two US Regular Companies, One US Dragoon and Four more from the United States Battalion Cavalry only the latter seem to have been deployed together.
As to the United States Battalion Cavalry I can find little on them. They don't seem to be Regulars but seem to be pretty much the only Cavalry available to McDowell.
By contrast the Confederate AoP alone has a minimum of 17 Companies (and probably quite a lot more, there another 12 with the Army of the Shenandoah). That is a 7 to 29 or worse deficit and while it is often claimed (with some justification) that it takes more time to train cavalry than it does infantry the Confederates have managed it. So why has the ANV and McDowell failed so abysmally?
Any thoughts?
How much of this did McDowell know? What could he have done about it? Should he have used what little he had better?
Over to you folks.
As the circus that was The Army of Northeastern Virginia saunters south towards Manassas, that relatively unimportant place that few had previously heard of, General McDowell must have been despairing. This proud career army man with twenty five long years service finally gets his own command.
And what a command it was.
Impressive to behold... or at least colorful to look at... its commander must have known its brittleness. Perhaps comprising 35,000 men (the standard number quoted but almost certainly a guestimate) or thereabouts it was an army in flux. Units arriving and units leaving (the 4th Pennsylvania Volunteers deciding that they would go home now their 90 days were up) it was also an army in a hurry for approximately 31% of the infantry appear to be ninety day men whose service would similarly soon be up.
That means use them or lose them.
Lincoln knew that. McDowell knew that and only severe prodding from the President seems to have spurred McDowell into action and yet the army still isn't ready. The fourth Division of the five has no brigade structure and seems almost an afterthought... and yet the parlous state of the infantry isn't what I wish to focus on here.
No. Let us look at the Cavalry. A branch of the army that seems almost invisible at Bull Run and as it turns out there is a reason for that. Its size. At Gettysburg the Union AoP will have three Cavalry Divisions in an army maybe three times the size so the ANV at Bull Run should have a Division or thereabouts. By Gettysburg that is two (or in one case three) brigades comprising maybe 1,500 men in each. So, does the ANV have 3,000 cavalrymen?
Including the company guarding McDowell it has but seven companies [Query is a Cavalry Company larger than an Infantry Company. The latter is 100 men and it looks like a Cavalry Company is the same but I have found no conclusive proof on this. But at the moment it looks like instead of 3,000 men it has c.700]. Comprised of two US Regular Companies, One US Dragoon and Four more from the United States Battalion Cavalry only the latter seem to have been deployed together.
As to the United States Battalion Cavalry I can find little on them. They don't seem to be Regulars but seem to be pretty much the only Cavalry available to McDowell.
By contrast the Confederate AoP alone has a minimum of 17 Companies (and probably quite a lot more, there another 12 with the Army of the Shenandoah). That is a 7 to 29 or worse deficit and while it is often claimed (with some justification) that it takes more time to train cavalry than it does infantry the Confederates have managed it. So why has the ANV and McDowell failed so abysmally?
Any thoughts?
How much of this did McDowell know? What could he have done about it? Should he have used what little he had better?
Over to you folks.