Chapter 1

FORMATION OF THE CAVALRY CORPS

Army of the Potomac, February 1863

In September 1862, just before the Battle of Antietam, Brigadier General John Buford, a thirty-six-year-old West Pointer, received orders to report to the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters at Rockville, Maryland. Buford and his weary brigade of horse soldiers had just completed an arduous season of scouting and fighting during the Second Bull Run Campaign, and Buford had received a painful knee wound on August 30, 1862, in the closing action of the Second Battle of Bull Run. Buford reported to headquarters, recounted his activities during the Second Manassas Campaign, and then received a surprise when Major General George B. McClellan, the commander of the Army of the Potomac, appointed him the army’s chief of cavalry.¹

While technically the chief of all cavalry operations for the Army of the Potomac, this position did not carry field command of the mounted troops. Instead, it was a staff assignment devoid of authority to command troops in the field. When McClellan created the position of chief of cavalry of the Army of Potomac at the end of March 1862, the order stated, “The duties of the chiefs of artillery and cavalry are exclusively administrative, and these officers will be attached to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.” The chief of cavalry inspected the troops as necessary and made certain that they were properly armed and equipped. However, the chiefs of cavalry were not to “exercise field command of the troops or their arms unless specially ordered by the commanding general, but they will, when practicable, be selected to communicate the orders of the general to their respective corps.” Regular supply requisitions and reports of the various elements of the cavalry flowed through the office of the chief of cavalry.² Brigadier General George Stoneman Jr. of New York, McClellan’s friend and West Point classmate, served as the Army of the Potomac’s first chief of cavalry until he took command of an infantry division, leaving the post of chief of cavalry vacant.

During the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, Confederate cavalry commanded by Major General J.E.B. Stuart rode all the way around the Army of the Potomac, to great fanfare and the everlasting embarrassment of Stuart’s father-in-law, Brigadier General Philip St. George Cooke, field commander of McClellan’s horse soldiers. Stuart actually escaped the Federal cavalry, which arrived too late to stop him, and a great hue and cry went up throughout the North. Although he was commonly known as the “Father of the United States Cavalry,” General Cooke was relieved of command and never led horse soldiers in the field again. That fall, after the Battle of Antietam, Stuart led his horsemen on a second ride around McClellan, venturing into south-central Pennsylvania. Again, the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry could not stop the ride, but the Federal horsemen gave a good account of themselves in scattered fighting in the Loudoun Valley of Virginia once McClellan advanced into the Old Dominion in late October. In spite of that solid performance, the country still perceived that the Confederate mounted arm was far superior to that of the Federals. “Our organization was so incomplete that the operations of the cavalry during the Antietam campaign were almost insignificant,” recalled an officer of the 5^th U.S. Cavalry years later, “so much so that at that time in our history it was a joke to offer a reward for a dead cavalryman.”³

There were legitimate reasons for that feeling. McClellan believed that it required two years to adequately train volunteer cavalry, and few in 1861 expected that the rebellion would last that long. Consequently, the Federal high command vigorously debated the question of how to properly use and arm the many volunteer cavalry regiments raised after the defeat at Bull Run. McClellan was biased against volunteer cavalry and believed in late 1861 that “for all present duty of cavalry in the upper Potomac volunteers will suffice as they will have nothing to do but carry messages & act as videttes.” A week later, McClellan requested that no more volunteer cavalry regiments be raised throughout the North, as their role was unclear and questions remained about the army’s ability to mount and arm the new recruits.⁴

Theater of Operations, Spring 1863.

The traditional role of saddle soldiers was well defined, even if McClellan did not make good use of it. “Reliable information of the enemy’s position or movements, which is absolutely necessary to the commander of an army to successfully conduct a campaign, must be largely furnished by the cavalry,” wrote Brigadier General William Woods Averell, a West Point graduate, in defining the traditional role of cavalry in the conventional doctrine taught at the Military Academy and as practiced at the beginning of the war. “The duty of the cavalry when an engagement is imminent is specially imperative—to keep in touch with the enemy and observe and carefully note, with time of day or night, every slightest indication and report it promptly to the commander of the army. On the march, cavalry forms in advance, flank and rear guards and supplies escorts, couriers and guides. Cavalry should extend well away from the main body on the march like antennae to mask its movements and to discover any movement of the enemy.”

Brigadier General William Woods Averell commanded a division under Stoneman. He was known for a haughty personality that rubbed many the wrong way and stunted his career. Averell was said to mirror the overly cautious nature of Major General George McClellan, often losing momentum because of a penchant for treating a battlefield like a chessboard. Library of Congress.

Averell continued, “Cavalry should never hug the army on the march, especially in a thickly wooded country, because the horses being restricted to the roads, the slightest obstacle in advance is liable to cause a blockade against the march of infantry.” Moreover, “in camp it furnishes outposts, vedettes and scouts. In battle it attacks the enemy’s flanks and rear, and above all other duties in battle, it secures the fruits of victory by vigorous and unrelenting pursuit. In defeat it screens the withdrawal of the army and by its fortitude and activity baffles the enemy.” Averell concluded, “In addition to these active military duties of the cavalry, it receives flags of truce, interrogates spies, deserters and prisoners, makes and improves topographical maps, destroys and builds bridges, obstructs and opens communications, and obtains or destroys forage and supplies.”⁵ Although these functions were well defined, McClellan did not use his saddle soldiers for all of them, meaning that the cavalry was not used as effectively as it might have been.

On the Peninsula, McClellan parsed out his volunteer cavalry regiments to specific infantry brigades, primarily using the horsemen as messengers and orderlies. This was a poor use for an expensive arm of the service like cavalry. The government invested millions of dollars into raising and equipping its mounted units, and McClellan frittered them away. However, McClellan wisely formed the Cavalry Reserve, consisting of most of the Regular Army mounted units. “As to the regular Cavalry,” wrote McClellan, “I have directed all of it to be concentrated in one mass that the numbers in each company may be increased & that I may have a reliable and efficient body on which to depend in a battle.”⁶ McClellan relied heavily on the Cavalry Reserve during the Peninsula Campaign. His Regulars captured the first Confederate flag taken in combat, and they made a magnificent but disastrous charge into Southern infantry at Gaines’s Mill, saving the V Corps from destruction. The Regulars performed well, foreshadowing better days to come for the Northern horsemen. The spectacle of Stuart’s escape overshadowed their solid service.

The Army of the Potomac’s volunteer cavalry regiments did not have an opportunity to serve together as a cohesive command until the Maryland Campaign that fall. McClellan had to incorporate Pope’s beaten, demoralized army into the Army of the Potomac, and he had to reorganize the army’s command structure while it marched to meet Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Maryland. With Buford as chief of cavalry and Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton in tactical command of the horse soldiers, they performed competently if not spectacularly. Better things clearly lay ahead if inspired leadership emerged.

Buford served as chief of cavalry throughout the fall of 1862 and still filled that role during the December 1862 Fredericksburg Campaign. During Buford’s tenure as chief of cavalry, the mounted arm faced significant obstacles. While the troopers were competent in the performance of their duties, the high command of the Army of the Potomac chose not to use these men in the most efficient or effective way. In McClellan’s case, his belief that it would take too long to train volunteer cavalry units doomed these men to mundane tasks. However, he allowed his cavalry to operate in cohesive units during the Army of the Potomac’s slow advance into Virginia that fall, and the horsemen performed very well, giving Stuart and his cavalry battle in the Loudoun Valley on several occasions. Further, the combination of terrain and tactical situations prevented McClellan and his successor, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, from making effective use of their mounted forces.

As an example, during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, the Army of the Potomac suffered nearly thirteen thousand casualties, but only twenty-eight of them were in the cavalry. Burnside, who had no background in the effective use of horse soldiers, assigned cavalry forces to each of his Grand Divisions, which consisted of two infantry corps, at least a brigade of cavalry, and artillery batteries—meaning that each Grand Division was a separate combined-arms army. The organization of the Army of the Potomac’s mounted forces during Burnside’s tenure in command of the army is found in Appendix A.

During the equally bloody Battle of Fredericksburg in December, the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry suffered only two killed and six wounded. Unfortunately, one of those two was Brigadier General George D. Bayard, a promising and dashing young officer who, with Buford, had capably commanded a cavalry brigade in Pope’s Army of Virginia. Bayard was sitting on his horse at the headquarters of Major General William B. Franklin, commander of the Left Grand Division, and received a mortal wound when a fragment of an artillery shell struck him.⁷ Bayard, who had great promise, was a tremendous loss to the Army of the Potomac’s mounted arm.

The Army of the Potomac’s cavalry was never used efficiently or effectively during the first two years of the war. This system placed the cavalry “at the disposal of generals without experience, who still further divided it, so that each brigade, almost, was provided with its troop or squadron whose duty it was to add to the importance of the general by following him about, to provide orderlies for dashing young staff officers and strikers for headquarters.”⁸ As one Federal officer recalled, “The smallest infantry organization had its company or more of mounted men, whose duty consisted in supplying details as orderlies for mounted staff officers, following them mounted on their rapid rides for pleasure or for duty, or in camp acting as grooms and bootblacks.” He continued, “It is not wonderful that this treatment demoralized the cavalry.”⁹ A trooper of the 1^st Maine Cavalry summed up the feelings of the Northern horse soldiers quite effectively. They served “a little here, and a little there,” leading the men to wonder aloud, “Whose kite are we going to be tail to next?”¹⁰ Since McClellan himself had held a captain’s commission in the cavalry and designed the so-called McClellan saddle (the primary saddle used by Union horsemen), his ineffective use of his horse soldiers was a mystery to all.

The Army of the Potomac’s poor utilization of the cavalry quite naturally bred unhappiness among the ranks of the soldiers, officers, and politicians responsible for funding the war effort. Because of the need to acquire, equip, and feed horses, cavalry was the most expensive arm of the military service, and the government had invested tremendous sums of money into raising the cavalry.¹¹ The Confederate cavalry had rather literally ridden rings around McClellan, much to the embarrassment of all involved, and now little was being done to change the perception that the cavalry was not good for much beyond serving as messengers and orderlies. For the first year and a half of the war, the government had not received much in the way of results for its investment, and the White House and the War Department were growing impatient and increasingly unhappy not only with the performance of the cavalry but also with its misuse. Both President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton made their displeasure abundantly clear to all those who cared to listen.

In the fall of 1862, when President Lincoln intervened in a dispute over providing additional mounts to the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry, the president, known for his biting, acid wit, inquired, “Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam to fatigue anything?”¹² Wesley Merritt, who was the final commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps in 1865, summed things up nicely when he observed that McClellan had demonstrated “ignorance of the proper use of cavalry” and utterly failed to provide “a fit management of this important arm of the service.”¹³

Buford inherited a daunting task when he assumed the role of chief of cavalry. Having just completed the Second Bull Run Campaign, he knew the wretched state of the cavalry horses of his own brigade. The mounts of Bayard’s and Colonel John Beardsley’s brigades were in equally poor condition. The Army of the Potomac’s cavalry horses had fared no better on the Peninsula and during the march north. The new chief of cavalry had to locate adequate numbers and quality of horses for a cavalry force already pursuing Lee’s army into Maryland.

Well after the end of the campaign, McClellan complained, “When I marched this army from Washington on the 8th day of September, it was greatly deficient in cavalry horses, the hard service to which they had been rendered in front of Washington having rendered about half of them unserviceable.” He pointed out that most of the horses received during the fall of 1862 merely replaced unserviceable mounts but also noted that he had not received enough new mounts to provide for his entire mounted arm. Instead, wrote McClellan, the entire Army of the Potomac had received only 1,964 horses as of November 1862—after the conclusion of the Antietam Campaign. Those horses were “much inferior to those first obtained, and are not suitable for the hard service of cavalry horses.”¹⁴

McClellan stated the dilemma facing John Buford very succinctly in his official report of the Battle of Antietam: “My cavalry did not amount to one-twentieth part of the army, and hence the necessity of giving every one of my cavalry soldiers a serviceable horse. Cavalry may be said to constitute the antennae of the army. It scouts all the roads in front, on the flanks, and in the rear of the advancing columns, and constantly feels the enemy.”¹⁵ Without adequate mounts, McClellan’s cavalry could not fulfill the mission he ascribed to it.

After Antietam, Buford joined the fray with the War Department to obtain more and better horses for the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry. McClellan bitterly argued with Chief Quartermaster Montgomery Meigs regarding the number and quality of horses sent to him during the Maryland Campaign. On October 15, 1862, Buford wrote to Meigs, “From my own experience I am satisfied that we are daily reporting horses as inserviceable which if rested, cared for and fattened would render more hard service a second time than had they never been used.” Buford observed, “[W]e have many good horses that came to us young and unbroken which from bad horsemanship and mismanagement, are almost worn out before they are called upon to do any severe work.” Buford opined that much of the army’s problem with horses breaking down resulted from improper care and the lack of adequate forage. He closed the letter by stating, “I respectfully recommend that the horses which have proved themselves to be good ones, but are unserviceable at present, be put into the hands of some responsible persons to be recuperated, instead of being sold at auction.”¹⁶ The War Department rejected this suggestion as uneconomical. Unfortunately, many good cavalry horses were wasted, and good advice was rejected.¹⁷

On December 1, 1862, Pleasonton penned a detailed memorandum regarding the state of Burnside’s cavalry. This document, which may have been Pleasonton’s single most important contribution to the Union cause, accurately reflects the problems handicapping a cavalry commander’s understanding of the role and mission of his combat arm. After examining the organizational structure of the Confederate cavalry, Pleasonton suggested that the cavalry be organized into brigades and divisions and that the army’s commanding general issue orders directly to the commanders of the cavalry divisions. Further, Pleasonton suggested that the cavalry be formed into a corps, under a single commander.

A strong organization, observed Pleasonton, was crucial for the cavalry in order to ensure the uniformity of the intelligence and scouting reports forwarded to the commanding general and to alleviate the rivalries and confusion faced by independent commanders in the field. “Our cavalry can be made superior to any now in the field by organization,” he stated. “The rebel cavalry owe their success to their organization, which permits great freedom and responsibility to its commanders, subject to the commanding general.” Finally, Pleasonton recommended that eight batteries of horse artillery be assigned to the nascent cavalry corps.¹⁸ While these points had great merit, Pleasonton had a transparent motive—he obviously manipulated the system in order to be named commander of the proposed cavalry corps, succeeding Buford, as chief of cavalry, in the process.

Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton was known to be something of a showoff and a self-promoter. Nonetheless, he demonstrated competence at administration and command at a time when the Cavalry Corps was in desperate need of a leader. Pleasonton’s memorandum suggesting the subsequently enacted reorganization of the cavalry into one corps was probably his greatest contribution to the service. Library of Congress.

At the end of December, Brigadier General William Woods Averell, who commanded the cavalry brigade assigned to the Army of the Potomac’s Center Grand Division, proposed a daring cavalry raid on Richmond.¹⁹ Averell wanted 1,500 of the Army of the Potomac’s best mounted elements to demonstrate along the upper Rappahannock River while he led an expedition of 1,000 men selected from a variety of units, including the U.S. Regular cavalry regiments. He wanted to cross the Rappahannock River at Kelly’s Ford, advance to the Rapidan, cross it at Raccoon Ford, and then cross the upper James River. He expected to destroy the railroads, bridges, and telegraph lines between the Army of the Potomac’s position and Richmond and intended to live off the land during his raid.²⁰ Averell wanted to dash to the crucial railroad junction at Petersburg and then on to Suffolk, disrupting lines of communication and supply in the Confederate rear. In the meantime, while Averell’s horsemen wreaked havoc in the Southern rear, Burnside would take the main body of the army, cross the river, and either sever Lee’s lines of supply or defeat him in battle. Averell proposed the North’s first large-scale cavalry raid of the Civil War.

Major General Ambrose E. Burnside’s lack of experience in the handling of cavalry forces and his dispersion of them among his “Grand Divisions” continued the inefficiencies begun under Major General George B. McClellan. The Union cavalry was completely ineffective in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Antietam and throughout the first two years of the war. Library of Congress.

Burnside enthusiastically approved the plan and instructed Averell to make the necessary preparations. However, Stuart had set out on a raid of his own, the Christmas 1862 raid on Dumfries, near the army’s rear. President Lincoln told Burnside to call off Averell’s raid, stating, “I have good reason for saying you must not make a general movement of the army without letting me know.” Lincoln may have scotched the planned raid in order to make certain that adequate mounted forces remained to chase after Stuart.²¹ Averell devised a bold and dashing plan that planted the seed for future raids on Richmond by the Union cavalry. Stuart’s Christmas raid would cost the Union cavalry the initiative, and instead of a glowing triumph, the Federal army faced another embarrassment at the hands of its plumed rival, Stuart.²² However, Averell’s audacious plan marked an important first for the mounted forces assigned to the Army of the Potomac. If accepted, Averell’s proposal would have taken an aggressive stance, not something that the Union cavalry had done to date. It also marked the beginning of a long-term dream of the Federal cavalry: the idea of a large-scale cavalry raid on the Confederate capital.

President Abraham Lincoln had been dissatisfied with the organization and use of the mounted arm since McClellan’s failure to make an aggressive pursuit after Antietam. He had stated his displeasure in no uncertain terms in addressing the brouhaha over replacement mounts, and his complaints went unheeded. Then, in the wake of Stuart’s Christmas raid, the president, struggling to find a more effective way of using his expensive horse soldiers, suggested the formation of a “reserve cavalry corps of, say, 6,000 for the Army of the Potomac,” to be culled from the cavalry detachments of the 11^th and 12^th Army Corps. Because the War Department and the president were unhappy with the performance of the army’s mounted arm, change became inevitable.²³

The stagnant and defeated army’s morale plummeted. “1862 gone! 1863—the present is ours! Ours. What for?” inquired a trooper of the 3^rd Indiana Cavalry.²⁴ “Oh, I wish this war would end, so we could all return home once more,” complained Thomas M. Covert of Company A, 6^th Ohio Cavalry, on January 2. “It makes me feel sick at heart when I think of the prospects of the war, for it does not look any nearer a close than it did when I enlisted.”²⁵ A few days later, he wrote, “We have had reverses enough to discourage most any one and then the men that the army had the most confidence in is removed from command and next there is a great deal to many Foreigners in command of our army and last and greatest of all there is so many Traitors in the army, and many of them in command. I never look for any great victory from the Army of the Potomac as long as it is organized as it is.”²⁶

On January 5, Lieutenant Thomas B. Lucas of the 1^st Pennsylvania Cavalry observed, “There will be an end to this war sometime. A constant dripping will wear away the hardest stone and, although we can see no visible results one way or the other from the many hard fought fields of the last year, yet it is against the nature of things to suppose that they will not have an effect either for or against us. The terrific slaughter and unprecedented expense will eventually wear both governments down, and the one with the greater resources with proper care and management will certainly conquer.”²⁷ Lucas had no idea how accurate his predication would prove.

“We could live here very comfortably all winter if the powers that be would only suffer us to remain inactive for so long a time,” groused a trooper of the 1^st Pennsylvania Cavalry. “But the country is still clamorous for a forward movement of this army, and our rulers, not being able or not having the moral courage to resist the clamors of the dominant party, will of course do something to check the criticism of the press, if nothing to suppress the rebellion. On to Richmond is the cry of the northern press still.”²⁸ Discontent festered.

Trying to redeem himself after the crushing repulse at Fredericksburg, Burnside attempted a winter campaign along the Rappahannock. The Army of the Potomac would try to flank Lee out of his strong positions above Fredericksburg. However, the campaign quickly bogged down in the horrendous January weather. “Mud up to horses’ knees. Army stuck in the mud,” observed Captain Isaac Ressler of the 16^th Pennsylvania Cavalry.²⁹ “An indescribable chaos of pontoons, wagons and artillery…supply wagons upset by the roadside, artillery stalled in the mud, ammunition trains mired by the way,” recalled a member of the 6^th Pennsylvania Cavalry. “Horses and mules dropped down dead, exhausted with the effort to move their loads.…A hundred and fifty dead animals, many of them buried in the liquid muck, were counted in the course of a morning’s ride.”³⁰ As the Confederates watched and waited for the Army of the Potomac to slog through the mud, they had a good laugh at the expense of the Northerners. Near army headquarters at Falmouth, the Rebels posted a banner with the inscription, “Burnside’s army stuck in the mud six miles above Falmouth.”³¹

“On the other side of the river, the Rebels enjoyed themselves immensely at the sight, shouting helpful advice across the stream, offering to come over and help, and putting up hastily lettered signs pointing out the proper road to Richmond,” reported a bitter Pennsylvanian.³² “The jovial Rebels on picket at the fords, seeing the plight we were in, kindly volunteered to ‘come over and help us,’” glibly noted an officer of the 1^st U.S. Cavalry. “The conditions favorable to a surprise were evidently not present.”³³ Apparently, nobody in Washington had the moral courage to resist the calls for the Army of the Potomac to press on toward Richmond, no matter what the consequences for doing so.

The sullen and angry Northerners felt humiliated. Burnside himself wrote, “I moved the greater part of the command, with a view to crossing above, but owing to the severe storm which began after the concerted movement commenced, we have been so much delayed that the enemy has discovered our design. The roads are almost impassable, and the small streams are very much swollen. I shall try not to run any unnecessary risks. It is most likely that we will have to change the plan.” A second storm soon followed, and more than six inches of snow covered the ground, making the movement of an army impossible.³⁴ Instead, the Army of the Potomac settled back into the tedium of its winter encampment.

Morale in the Federal cavalry reached its nadir after the Mud March. The men sank into the depths of despair when they realized that they were being misused and wasted. “Army matters in general appear blue,” reported Captain George N. Bliss of the 1^st Rhode Island Cavalry. “There have been 10,000 deserters from the army since the battle of Fredericksburg. Some of our leading generals appear determined to ruin General B[urnside] at any cost. It is always darkest just before day, ergo our day ought to be near at hand. Every dog has his day, I hope we have not had ours.”³⁵ A trooper of the 3^rd Indiana Cavalry ominously noted in his diary, “A dissatisfaction making its appearance in the North which promises serious results.”³⁶

Captain Charles Francis Adams Jr. of the 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry, grandson and great-grandson of American presidents, inherited the Adams family talent for the written word. “The Army of the Potomac…will fight yet, but they fight for defeat, just as a brave, bad rider will face a fence, but yet rides for a fall,” he reported on January 26. “There is a great deal of croaking, no confidence, plenty of sickness, and desertion is the order of the day. This arises from various causes; partly from the defeat at Fredericksburg and the failure, but mostly from the change of commanders of late. You or others may wonder or agree, as you choose, but it is a fact that McClellan alone has the confidence of this army. They would fight and rally under him tomorrow and under him only. Burnside has lost, and Hooker never had their confidence.”³⁷

Sergeant Nathan Webb, a young theology student, kept a diary of his service with the 1^st Maine Cavalry. “There is no disguising the fact that the Army of the Potomac is of very little consequence about this time,” he noted. “Even among ourselves it is regarded as of little account.…Yet out of this all, from our seeming bitterness and apathy, I hope an army shall grow which shall ultimately crush the Rebellion. As I have said before all we want is a leader.”³⁸ The words of one trooper of the 6^th U.S. Cavalry sum up the attitudes of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry at the end of the January 1863: “I am actually beginning to lose hope. The army seems to be disheartened.…Large numbers of the married men receive letters from home describing the destitute conditions of their families. The army has not been paid for some six or eight months.…The old soldiers curse and growl about politicians generally.”³⁹ A sergeant of the 12^th Illinois demonstrated the depths of his despair. “Mother, I am very sorry to say that our Army is becoming very much demoralized,” wrote William H. Redman on January 20, “and that our once glorious Union must be severed. I say, and fearless of any contradiction too, that the South will yet establish her independence. Mother, I would vote today to give her what she wants.”⁴⁰

Rumors flew. The men still adored McClellan and enthusiastically embraced even the slightest hint that he might return. In mid-January, a trooper of the 16^th Pennsylvania Cavalry noted, “It is reported that Genl. McClellan had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Armies.”⁴¹ Just the name sent electric chills up the collective spines of the Northern soldiers. However, the high command had other ideas for the army.

On January 26, at his own request, Burnside was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac. “I have a great deal of sympathy for General Burnside. I think he deserves no blame,” observed Sergeant Webb. “Although he may not be capable of handling 150,000 men to the best advantage, yet he is an honest man, one who tries to quench this Rebellion, which cannot be said of all the Generals we have had in this Army.” He concluded, “What we want is a mighty man, who will cut adrift from Washington and lead this Army to glorious victory. We may not have the man in this nation, or if we have it may take years of war yet to show the one. Here is as fine a body of men as ever formed an army.” And so it was. All it needed was the right leadership.⁴²

Major General Joseph Hooker succeeded Burnside. Lieutenant Lucas observed, “Burnside, my especial favorite, has been taken from us. Still I don’t grumble at that. McClellan, the soldier’s friend, was taken from us, but his place was filled. I didn’t grumble. But who, now, will fill the place of Burnside? ‘Old Joe’ is emphatically a fighting man but has to prove his ability yet to command the Army of the Potomac. I hope, sincerely hope, that he will prove himself equal to the task.”⁴³ Captain Bliss, a lawyer by training, had a keen eye. “A new broom sweeps clean and Hooker appears to be moving with vigor but whether he is competent to command so large an army time alone can show,” he noted a few days after Hooker’s appointment.⁴⁴

That remained to be seen. Joseph Hooker, grandson of a Revolutionary War captain, was forty-eight years old in the winter of 1863. He graduated midway in the West Point class of 1837 and had an outstanding career in the Regular Army. He demonstrated both leadership and administrative abilities and received brevets of all grades through lieutenant colonel for gallant and meritorious service in the war with Mexico, a record not surpassed by any first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. After the end of the Mexican-American War, he served as assistant adjutant general in the Pacific Division of the Army and finally resigned his commission in February 1853. Regretting this decision, he unsuccessfully sought reinstatement five years later. On August 6, 1861, he received a commission as brigadier general of volunteers, making his date of rank senior to that of even U.S. Grant.

The following spring, during McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, Hooker’s division fought several hard battles, and Hooker received the moniker “Fighting Joe,” taken from a newspaper headline. During the coming months, Hooker demonstrated solid leadership skills and commanded a corps at Antietam and a Grand Division at Fredericksburg. In the aftermath of the Mud March, Hooker led a cabal scheming for the removal of Burnside as army commander. When he learned of the cabal’s efforts, Burnside preemptively tried to relieve Hooker. When that failed, Burnside requested that he be removed from command, a request quickly and happily granted by Lincoln and Stanton.⁴⁵

Major General Joseph Hooker succeeded Burnside in command and, implementing a plan advocated by Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton, consolidated the cavalry into a single corps under the command of Major General George Stoneman. Library of Congress.

The new army commander was brash, brave, and arrogant. Hooker was a gifted administrator who understood the importance of logistics. He firmly believed that the nation needed him to lead it to victory, and he energetically set about overhauling the Army of the Potomac for a grand campaign to end the war that spring. “Fighting Joe” immediately instituted sweeping reforms. He made sure that the men had ample rations, including fresh bread and vegetables, and they also received all of the clothing they needed. He instituted a system of furloughs, allowing the men to go home and see their families for a few precious days, and he made a strong effort to recruit replacements to fill the ranks of regiments depleted during the brutal fighting of 1862. He eliminated Burnside’s ponderous Grand Divisions system and instituted corps badges to develop esprit de corps in the ranks. Army hospital facilities improved dramatically, and the new commanding general held frequent inspections and reviews to restore the men’s pride. He ordered that regular drills be held, and soon, the morale of the entire Army of the Potomac soared. “Our new commander took hold of the reins with a firm hand, and the army, if not united in believing his nomination to the position the best that could have been made, was at least ready and anxious to obey his orders, and to do its whole part in the solutions of the problems all were called upon to face,” observed a Regular cavalry officer.⁴⁶

“‘Old Fighting Joe’ appears to be running this ‘Machine’ now pretty much to the liking of soldiers generally,” reported a contented officer of a Pennsylvania cavalry regiment.⁴⁷ “I believe the general tone and feeling of the army to be improving and can see much improvement which is due entirely to Hooker. I begin to feel a great deal of faith in Hooker,” announced Captain George N. Bliss, less than two weeks after proclaiming his skepticism at “Fighting Joe’s” appointment to command, “and hope he will give the rebels hell one of these days.”⁴⁸

Rumors swirled through the army. “It is reported here that you will be made new chief of cavalry in this army,” wrote an officer to Averell on February 3. “I hope it is so if you would prefer it. The brigade cannot spare you because it does not know when it can get a commander.”⁴⁹ Another rumor held that the Army of the Potomac would be broken up and its horse soldiers sent to South Carolina. A few days later, Averell received a letter from his old friend Captain William Redwood Price stating, “General Rosecrans’s [Army of the Cumberland] is greatly in need of Cavalry. I thought it might be of interest to you under existing circumstances. If the Army of the Potomac is to be divided up, you might feel inclined to make efforts to come to the Western Army.”⁵⁰ Fortunately, Hooker put an end to the rumors, crystallized his plans, and announced them to the army. When he did, they changed everything within the Army of the Potomac’s mounted arm. Things would never be the same again.

On February 6, 1863, Hooker issued his General Orders No. 6, which consolidated all of the Army of the Potomac’s horse soldiers into a single corps under the command of the army’s senior cavalry officer, Major General George Stoneman.⁵¹ Although “Fighting Joe” had no experience in the cavalry himself, he understood how important of a role it could play with a clearly defined mission and good leadership. “For the first time it was realized what a capital mounted force there was,” observed a captain of the 6^th Pennsylvania Cavalry. “Superb regiments seemed to creep out of every defile within the lines of the army.”⁵²

In forming the new Cavalry Corps, Hooker adopted nearly all of the recommendations made in Pleasonton’s December memorandum to Burnside, even though there is no evidence that Hooker had read Pleasonton’s memorandum or that he was guided by anything other than implementing ideas whose time had come.⁵³ This order had far-reaching implications for the balance of the Civil War. Two days later, Stoneman reported 8,943 cavalrymen and 450 horse artillerists present and fit for duty.⁵⁴ Captain George B. Sanford of the 1^st U.S. Cavalry noted that the Cavalry Corps “certainly owes to General Hooker a debt of gratitude, which it would be difficult to repay. From the date of its reorganization by him until the close of the war, its career was constantly growing more and more glorious, until the end of the rebellion nothing could stand before the rush of its squadrons.”⁵⁵ It also meant that the bypassing of Pleasonton set the stage for intriguing by the dapper cavalryman that continued for months.

Major General George Stoneman’s appointment in 1863 to command Fighting Joe Hooker’s Cavalry Corps was generally supported by the men under his command. Stoneman, an 1846 graduate of West Point and a career horse soldier, was a veteran of the Indian and Mexican-American Wars. Library of Congress.

Stoneman was a career horse soldier. An 1846 graduate of West Point, the crusty, hard-bitten Stoneman served with distinction in the Indian and Mexican-American Wars. He had spent his entire career in either the dragoons or the cavalry. “Lieutenant Stoneman was an universal favorite with all the officers,” recalled a fellow old army horse soldier, “and likewise beloved by the private soldiers…when a detachment was ordered out for scouting or other purposes, the men all wanted to go if Lieutenant Stoneman was in command.”⁵⁶ In 1846–47, Stoneman served as quartermaster for a battalion of five hundred Mormons who marched to California to assist in the U.S. war with Mexico. The Mormon Battalion made a monumental journey of two thousand miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, California—the longest infantry march in history. Arriving there, the Mormons were mustered out of service.

With the coming of war in 1861, Stoneman was the third ranking captain in the 2^nd U.S. Cavalry, later redesignated the 5^th U.S. Cavalry. This regiment included some of the most famous army officers of the era, including Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, then–Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, Major George H. Thomas, Captains Edmund Kirby Smith and Earl Van Dorn, then-Lieutenant Fitzhugh Lee, and Lieutenant John Bell Hood—all of whom became general officers during the Civil War and five of whom commanded armies. Stoneman immediately received a promotion to major, and after serving on the staff of his old friend and West Point classmate McClellan in West Virginia, Stoneman received an appointment as the Army of the Potomac’s first chief of cavalry. After the Peninsula Campaign, Stoneman took command of a division of infantry and led the III Corps at Fredericksburg. On November 29, 1862, Stoneman received a promotion to major general of volunteers, giving him rank equivalent to the responsibilities of a corps commander.⁵⁷

The Union horse soldiers generally approved of Stoneman’s appointment. He was a no-nonsense, rigid Regular with “an air of habitual sadness” and “an austere, dignified bearing that was somewhat repellant.”⁵⁸ He suffered from a severe case of hemorrhoids, a condition that made every moment spent in the saddle a living hell, perhaps explaining his dyspeptic nature. However, in spite of his off-putting manner, the men had great confidence in him. As a career saddle soldier, Stoneman understood cavalrymen, and he knew how to make the best use of their unique talents. “Stoneman we believe in,” wrote Captain Charles Francis Adams of the 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry. “We believe in his judgment, his courage and determination. We know he is ready to shoulder responsibility, that he will take good care of us and won’t get us into places from which he can’t get us out.”⁵⁹ “All cavalry are to be under command of Gen. Stoneman,” reported an Ohioan. “He can dispose of them as he sees fit.”⁶⁰

Stoneman set about organizing his new command, which consisted of three divisions and an independent reserve brigade made up of the regiments of Regular Army cavalry assigned to the Army of the Potomac. The 6^th Pennsylvania Cavalry, also known as Rush’s Lancers for their unique weapons (nine-foot-long wooden lances), would serve as an independent command attached to Cavalry Corps headquarters. “This will give [the 6^th Pennsylvania] a much better chance of seeing service than when attached to Headquarters, which is a lazy, loafing sort of duty,” announced Major General George G. Meade, whose son George served in the regiment.⁶¹ Stoneman also had a brigade of veteran horse artillery at his disposal, and these Regular Army cannoneers gave the Army of the Potomac a trump card to play in almost every engagement. All regiments, squadrons, and troops of cavalry scattered about the Army of the Potomac received orders to report to the division or brigade to which they had been assigned. From that moment on, each of the seven infantry corps would have assigned to it only one squadron of cavalry “to act as orderlies, messengers, &c.,” when whole regiments had previously performed the same duty.⁶²

Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton received the 1^st Division. Born in Washington, D.C., on July 7, 1824, Pleasonton attended local schools and received an appointment to West Point in 1840. He graduated seventh in the class of 1844 and was commissioned into the 2^nd Dragoons. In 1846, he received a brevet to first lieutenant for gallantry in the Mexican-American War and served on the Indian frontier and in Florida against the Seminoles. While serving in the West, Pleasonton met and befriended John Buford, who played a major role in the drama that unfolded in 1863. In 1861, while a captain, Pleasonton commanded the regiment on its march from Utah to Washington in September and October. In the winter of 1862, he was promoted to major and distinguished himself during the Peninsula Campaign. On July 18, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and had field command of the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry during the 1862 Maryland Campaign and at Fredericksburg.⁶³

Many believed Pleasonton to be a conniver and a manipulator, a man desperate to advance his own cause. Active and energetic, he swaggered like a bantam rooster, exuding self-confidence. He was something of a dandy, preferring fancy uniforms, a straw hat, kid gloves, and a cowhide riding stick. “Pleasonton is small, nervous, and full of dash,” reported a war correspondent, “dark-haired and finely featured with gray-streaked hair.”⁶⁴

Pleasonton’s courage in battle was suspect; he was “notorious” among those “who have served under him and seen him under fire.”⁶⁵ Captain Charles Adams, who possessed the acid pen of his great-grandfather John Adams, correctly noted, “Pleasonton…is pure and simple a newspaper humbug.…He does nothing save with a view to a newspaper paragraph.”⁶⁶ In spite of these unattractive personality traits, Alf Pleasonton had demonstrated competence in the field, and the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps badly needed competence and experience.

Pleasonton’s division had two brigades. Thirty-one-year-old Colonel Benjamin F. “Grimes” Davis commanded the 1^st Brigade. Davis, born in Alabama and raised in Mississippi, had five brothers and a sister. He was a cousin of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who also hailed from Mississippi. Two of Davis’s brothers served in the 11^th Mississippi Infantry during the Civil War, and both were killed in battle before war’s end. When young Benjamin’s parents died, probably as a result of an outbreak of smallpox, he became the ward of a wealthy uncle who lived in Aberdeen, Mississippi. Another uncle was involved in politics and arranged an appointment to West Point for Davis, who entered the academy in 1850. “He was a youth of exceptional character and fine abilities, and…he had good size, pleasing appearance, strictly brave, and every way honorable.” He received the nickname “Grimes” at the academy and served as captain of the cadets during his senior year. Along with Jeb Stuart, Davis graduated in the class of 1854.⁶⁷

Colonel Benjamin F. “Grimes” Davis of Mississippi was a cousin of Confederate President Jefferson Davis but remained loyal to the Union. He served as a brigade commander in Pleasonton’s division and was mortally wounded in the opening minutes of the Battle of Brandy Station. USAHEC.

Upon graduation, Davis joined the 5^th U.S. Infantry but transferred to the 1^st Dragoons in 1855. In 1857, he suffered a wound while fighting Indians on the Gila River Expedition. Davis spent most of his Regular Army career in New Mexico and California. He was promoted to first lieutenant in January 1860. At the beginning of the war, he sought and obtained a commission as colonel of the 1^st California Cavalry but deserted his unit to rejoin the Regulars when they marched east.⁶⁸ On July 31, he was promoted to captain of Company K of the 1^st Dragoons, which had been redesignated as the 1^st U.S. Cavalry. He first drew the attention of his superiors during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign when, at the Battle of Williamsburg on May 2, his squadron charged a larger force of Confederate cavalry and routed it, drawing the praise of his superiors.⁶⁹

In spite of his Southern roots, “Col. Davis was emphatically a son of the Union.”⁷⁰ “He was a gallant man, an ambitious soldier, a courtly gentleman,” recalled Wesley Merritt, who had a distinguished forty-three-year career in the Regular Army. “A Southerner…he stood firm by the flag under which he had received his qualifications and commission as an officer.”⁷¹

As a result of his good service on the Peninsula, Davis received an appointment as colonel of the 8^th New York Cavalry in July 1862. He became famous in the aftermath of Jackson’s capture of Harpers Ferry during the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Refusing to surrender, Davis led 1,500 Union cavalry on a dangerous escape, capturing Major General James Longstreet’s wagon train along the way. This feat led to his appointment to brigade command, and he served in that capacity with distinction.⁷²

Davis was a veteran Regular and not afraid to lead men into a fight.⁷³ “When Colonel Davis found the rebels, he did not stop at anything, but went for them heavy,” recalled a member of the 8^th New York Cavalry. “I believe he liked to fight the rebels as well as he liked to eat.”⁷⁴ The hard-fighting colonel was also a martinet. “Davis was a…proud tyrannical devil,” recalled the regimental surgeon of the 3^rd Indiana Cavalry.⁷⁵ Another Hoosier recalled Davis as “a strict disciplinarian. Prompt in the performance of his own duties and exacting of his inferiors. Brave and audacious. Much esteemed by his own regiment and respected by the whole command.”⁷⁶ His veteran brigade consisted of the 8^th New York Cavalry, the 9^th New York Cavalry, the 8^th Illinois Cavalry, and six companies of the 3^rd Indiana Cavalry.

Colonel Thomas C. Devin of New York commanded Pleasonton’s 2^nd Brigade. Devin was a house painter prior to the war and received his military training in the New York militia, where he commanded a company of cavalry. Two days before the First Battle of Bull Run, Devin mustered into the Federal service as a captain in the 1^st New York (Lincoln) Cavalry. He was commissioned colonel of the 6^th New York Cavalry, also known as the 2^nd Ira Harris Guards, on November 18, 1861. The 6^th New York performed good service during the Antietam Campaign, and after the Battle of Fredericksburg, Devin assumed command of a brigade under Pleasonton, who regularly and fruitlessly urged his promotion to brigadier general.⁷⁷ Devin’s “command was long known in the Army of the Potomac as one of the few cavalry regiments which in the earlier campaigns of that Army, could be deemed thoroughly reliable,” observed an early historian of the Cavalry Corps. A healthy mutual respect and attachment developed between Buford and Devin.⁷⁸

“I can’t teach Col. Devin anything about cavalry,” Buford once said. “He knows more about the tactics than I do.”⁷⁹ Another said of Devin that he was “of the school of Polonius, a little slow sometimes in entrance to a fight, but, being in, as slow to leave a point for which the enemy is trying.”⁸⁰ Perhaps the finest accolade paid him was that “Colonel Devin knew how to take his men into action and also how to bring them out.”⁸¹ At forty, Devin was older than the other cavalry commanders, but he had experience and was always reliable under fire. “His blunt soldiership, sound judgment, his prompt and skillful dispositions for battle, his long period of active service, his bulldog tenacity, and his habitual reliability fully entitled him to the sobriquet among his officers and soldiers of the old ‘war horse,’ ‘Sheridan’s hard hitter,’ and the like,” observed one of Sheridan’s staff officers after the end of the war.⁸² Devin’s brigade consisted of his 6^th New York, the 8^th Pennsylvania, and the 17^th Pennsylvania.

Brigadier General William Woods Averell received command of the 2^nd Division. Averell was born in Cameron, New York, on November 5, 1832. He came from hardy stock—his father had been one of the first settlers of the area, and his grandfather had fought in the Revolutionary War. His great-grandfather Josiah Bartlett was the first constitutional governor of New Hampshire and signed the Declaration of Independence.⁸³ Young William spent his youth in school and working as a drugstore clerk. He received an appointment to West Point in 1851, graduating in the bottom third of the class of 1855. Averell’s superb skills as a horseman made him a natural for the cavalry. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Regiment of Mounted Rifles, later the 3^rd U.S. Cavalry. While at the Military Academy, Averell befriended cadet Fitzhugh Lee, who was a nephew of the Academy’s superintendent, Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee. Fitz Lee also wanted to serve in the cavalry, and the two grew as close as brothers, even though they were a year apart at the Academy.⁸⁴

Not long after being commissioned, Averell attended the Cavalry School at the Carlisle Barracks and spent a tour of duty as the adjutant to the commanding officer. In 1857, he transferred to a post in New Mexico, where he fought Indians and received a serious leg wound that nearly forced him to leave the service. He spent two years on recuperative leave. Averell went to Washington with the coming of war in April 1861. After a stint as a staff officer that placed him on the battlefield at First Bull Run in July 1861, Averell became colonel of the 3^rd Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Although an ambitious man, Averell was a conservative commander. He believed that troops needed constant training and did not want to take them into the field if he did not believe them to be ready. As a result of his efforts, the 3^rd Pennsylvania soon gained the reputation of being one of the best-trained and best-disciplined volunteer cavalry regiments assigned to the Army of the Potomac. “He was an excellent drillmaster, with proper views of what constituted proper discipline,” recalled an admiring trooper. “Instruction in a systematic manner, with a view of preparing these men for the service expected of them, was commenced and persistently followed in the most industrious and painstaking manner.”⁸⁵

Under McClellan’s leadership, Averell commanded a brigade of cavalry during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. He fell victim to the so-called Chickahominy Fever, a nasty and persistent malarial fever, in the aftermath of the Peninsula Campaign, requiring five weeks of recuperation. A relapse of the fever forced him to miss the Antietam Campaign in the fall of 1862. In spite of the persistent illness, Averell assumed command of a division later that fall.⁸⁶

The French-born Colonel Alfred N. Duffíé claimed that he was the son of a count and had compiled a decorated combat record as a cavalryman in Europe, but the historical record suggests otherwise. He had his merits but reached a level of command beyond his competence. Library of Congress.

Averell’s personality mirrored that of the army’s commander, Major General George B. McClellan, a trait that cost him dearly. “McClellan and Averell would take time to reorganize, reequip and retrain their forces even if it meant stopping the momentum of battle. Lack of a visceral desire to aim for the jugular of a defeated enemy eventually would cost both men their commands,” observed a modern historian.⁸⁷ Like McClellan, Averell was a Democrat. Averell did not trust politicians, and he certainly did not trust the Republican administration, whose bungling he blamed for the war. He also did not believe that amateur soldiers and politicians had any role in the army, believing that only professional soldiers like him should command large bodies of troops in the field. His haughtiness greatly hindered his military career in the highly politicized environment of the Army of the Potomac.

Colonel Alfred Napoléon Alexander Duffié, of the 1^st Rhode Island Cavalry, commanded Averell’s 1^st Brigade. Born Napoléon Alexandre Duffié, he carried the nickname “Nattie.” Duffié was born in Paris, France, on May 1, 1833, the son of a well-to-do bourgeois French sugar refiner who distilled sugar from beets.⁸⁸ At age seventeen, Duffié enlisted in the French 6^th Regiment of Dragoons. Six months later, he was promoted to corporal and received a second promotion, this time to sergeant, in March 1854. He served in French campaigns in Africa and in the Crimean War from May 1, 1854, to July 16, 1856, and received two decorations for valor during this period.

In 1854, the 6^th Regiment of Dragoons, along with two other mounted units, made a brilliant cavalry charge at the Battle of Kanghil, near the Black Sea port of Eupatoria in the Ukraine, leading to the issuance of his decorations. In February 1858, Duffié was made first sergeant in the 6^th Dragoons and then transferred to the 3^rd Regiment of Hussars. Although he would have been eligible for discharge from the French army in 1859, Duffié signed on for another seven-year enlistment that spring after being graded “a strong man capable of becoming a good average officer.”

On June 14, 1859, Duffié received a commission as second lieutenant in the 3^rd Regiment of Hussars. Just two months later, Duffié tried to resign his commission, stating a desire to go into business. He had met thirty-two-year-old Mary Ann Pelton, a young American woman serving as a nurse in Europe’s charnel houses. Duffié’s regimental commander rejected the attempted letter of resignation, stating his “regrets that this officer so little appreciates the honor of recently having been promoted sous-lieutenant, and that he would prefer a commercial position to that honor.”⁸⁹ When the French army refused to allow Duffié to resign, he deserted and fled to New York with Miss Pelton. He was listed as absent without leave and court-martialed in absentia in 1860. He was convicted and sentenced to dismissal without benefits for desertion to a foreign country and stripped of his medals. On December 20, 1860, by decree of Emperor Napoléon III, Duffié was sentenced, in absentia, to serve five years in prison for deserting and was dishonorably discharged from the French army.⁹⁰

After arriving in New York, he adopted the first name Alfred, perhaps trying to disguise his true identity from prying eyes. He also married Miss Pelton, the daughter of a wealthy and influential New York family. Mary Ann Duffié’s father was a dealer in boots and shoes and shoemakers’ supplies and was “an energetic and successful businessman” who lived in an enclave of strong abolitionists in Staten Island.⁹¹ When the Civil War broke out, Duffié received a commission as a captain in the 2^nd New York Cavalry. He quickly rose to the rank of major and was appointed colonel of the 1^st Rhode Island Cavalry in July 1862.⁹²

Duffié took great pains to hide his military history, spinning an elaborate web of lies, convincing all who cared to hear his story that he was the son of a French count and not a humble sugar refiner. He changed the reported date of his birth from 1833 to 1835. He claimed that he had attended the preparatory Military Academy at Vincennes, that he had graduated from the prestigious military college of St. Cyr in 1854, and that he had served in Algiers and Senegal as lieutenant of cavalry.⁹³

Duffié also claimed that he had been badly wounded at the Battle of Solferino in the War of Italian Independence in 1859, a conflict between the forces of Austria on one side and the allied forces of Piedmont, Sardinia, and France on the other. Solferino was a huge and bloody affair, involving more than 300,000 soldiers and nearly 40,000 casualties. However, his unit, the 3^rd Hussars, was not part of the army of Italy and did not fight at Solferino. Although Duffié said that he had received a total of eight wounds in combat, his French military records do not suggest that he ever received a single combat wound. He also asserted that he had received the Victoria Cross from Queen Victoria herself.

Finally, Duffié claimed that he had come to the United States to take the waters at Saratoga Springs, not because he had deserted the French army and fled to America in the company of a woman who was not his wife. Perhaps the Peltons created the myth of Alfred Duffié, French nobleman and war hero, to make their new son-in-law more palatable to their prominent social circle. Because of his martial bearing, he soon persuaded both his superior officers and the men who served under him that he had noble roots and a superb military pedigree.⁹⁴

“Confronting us, he presents the aspect of the beau ideal soldat…with his tall symmetrical form erect in saddle and severe facial expression emphasize by a mustache and goatee of formal cut waxed to a point a la militaire,” observed a war correspondent. “A Frenchman I judged him on sight, from his tout ensemble, and his first utterance, which launched without instant delay, proved my surmise correct.”⁹⁵ He wore an unusual uniform of his own design, based closely on the attire of the French Chasseurs, knee boots, and an ornately embroidered cap also patterned after the French Chasseur design.⁹⁶

Duffié spoke fractured English. “His attempts were interlarded with curious and novel expletives, which were very amusing.”⁹⁷ In assuming a new command, the Frenchman would say, “You no like me now. You like my bye and bye.” He was right. Before long, they would follow him when he ordered a charge. “Once, in preparing to make a charge where the situation looked a little desperate,” recalled a New Yorker, Duffié “encouraged his men, who were little more than boys, by saying, ‘You all have got to die sometime anyway. If you die now you won’t have to die again. Forward!’ His charge was successful.”⁹⁸

Although the Gallic colonel got off to a rough start with his Rhode Islanders, he soon won them over. The men of his brigade liked him. “Duffié is in command of the Brigade. He is a Frenchman,” observed Albinus Fell of the 6^th Ohio Cavalry. “He is a bully little cuss.”⁹⁹ Another predicted that the Frenchman would quickly receive a promotion and leave the 1^st Rhode Island. “He is a bully man,” observed Sergeant Emmons D. Guild of the 1^st Rhode Island Cavalry. “I tell you he will not stay long, so you will have to look out if you want to see him. His name is A.N. Duffié.”¹⁰⁰ Duffié’s experience showed, and he performed competently if not spectacularly. “Whatever may have been the faults of Colonel Duffié,” recorded his regimental sergeant major, “there is no gainsaying the fact that he was probably the best regimental cavalry drill-master and tactician in the army.”¹⁰¹ His veteran brigade, which saw heavy action during the Second Bull Run Campaign of 1862, consisted of the 1^st Rhode Island, the 1^st Massachusetts, 6^th Ohio, and 4^th New York. Later, in the spring of 1863, Duffié briefly commanded the division.

Colonel Horace Binney Sargent of the 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry briefly commanded a brigade in Duffíé’s division. Clark B. Hall.

Colonel Horace Binney Sargent of the 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry briefly succeeded Duffié in command of Averell’s 1^st Brigade when an injury restricted the Frenchman to camp. Sargent was born on June 30, 1821, in Quincy, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University. Graduating in 1843, he enrolled in Harvard’s law school, completing his legal training in 1845. Sargent began his legal career shortly thereafter, practicing law until the coming of war in 1861. He was appointed lieutenant colonel of the newly formed 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry in September 1861 and took command of the regiment when its original colonel, Colonel Robert Williams, resigned his commission in October 1862. Sargent “was a superb horseman, very enthusiastic about cavalry service, and a student of military matters, although of no experience.”¹⁰²

Colonel John Baillie McIntosh led Averell’s 2^nd Brigade. McIntosh, aged thirty-four, was the son of a Regular Army officer and served in the prewar navy. A brother, Confederate Brigadier General James M. McIntosh, had been killed in the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. Although not a West Pointer, McIntosh received a commission as lieutenant in the 2^nd U.S. Cavalry in 1861 and compiled a distinguished record of service in the Civil War. He received a brevet to major for his service during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign and was appointed colonel of the 3^rd Pennsylvania Cavalry in November. With the formation of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps in the spring of 1863, McIntosh assumed command of Averell’s 1^st Brigade.¹⁰³ He was a “born fighter, a strict disciplinarian, a dashing leader, and a polished gentleman,” although the men of his brigade did not particularly like him.¹⁰⁴ McIntosh proved himself a reliable and competent brigade commander, perhaps the finest in the Army of the Potomac.

Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola was the son of Italian nobility. A veteran of the Crimean War, he immigrated to the United States in the 1850s, married the daughter of an American naval officer, and directed a seven-hundred-student military school in New York City. He succeeded Duffíé as a brigade commander when the Frenchman assumed command of Averell’s division. Michael McAfee.

By June, Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola was commanding Duffié’s brigade. Born to an ancient, ennobled Italian family, the thirty-year-old colonel had a glittering reputation. His father had fought for Napoléon. Di Cesnola was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Turin and entered the mounted arm of the Sardinian army. At age seventeen, the young count fought against powerful Austrian armies in Italy’s war for independence. He also fought in the Crimea in the late 1850s. Finally, in 1860, Di Cesnola immigrated to the United States, settling in New York. He married the daughter of an American naval officer and served as the director of a seven-hundred-student military school in New York.

With the coming of war, he offered his services to the 11^th New York Infantry and received a commission as major as a result of his prior military service. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1862 before accepting an appointment as colonel of the 4^th New York Cavalry.¹⁰⁵ The 4^th New York was a polyglot unit. “Other field officers included Americans and Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, and perhaps men of other countries. Most of them could speak only their own languages. They were sad rogues, and the regiment lacked cohesion and unity.…In some battles they fought very well, but generally they were not considered reliable, and there were scandals of frequent occurrence.”¹⁰⁶ In February 1863, the dashing count was dismissed from the service for allegedly stealing six pistols, but he was exonerated, reinstated, and returned to his regiment.¹⁰⁷ He assumed command of Duffié’s brigade when the Frenchman became division commander in May. Di Cesnola’s tenure as a brigade commander would be short.

Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg led the 3^rd Cavalry Division. He was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on April 10, 1833, a first cousin of the wartime governor of Pennsylvania, Andrew Gregg Curtin. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Gregg, served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate from 1791 to 1813, so Gregg came from a family with a long history of public service. He was educated at various private schools and at Bucknell University. In 1851, Gregg received an appointment to West Point and graduated with Averell in 1855. He was commissioned into the 2^nd Dragoons, serving in various posts in the West. In September 1855, he was promoted and transferred to the 1^st Dragoons and served out the balance of his antebellum career in California, working as regimental adjutant. When war broke out, Gregg was a captain in the newly formed 3^rd U.S. Cavalry, which was redesignated as the 6^th U.S. Cavalry. When volunteer units were organized, he was elected colonel of the 8^th Pennsylvania Cavalry.¹⁰⁸

Gregg served well on the Peninsula and in the Antietam Campaign. Accordingly, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on November 20, 1862. David Gregg was remembered fondly as “tall and spare, of notable activity, capable of the greatest exertion and exposure; gentle in manner but bold and resolute in action. Firm and just in discipline he was a favorite of his troopers and ever held, for he deserved, their affection and entire confidence.” Gregg knew the principles of war and was always ready and eager to apply them. Endowed “with a natural genius of high order, he [was] universally hailed as the finest type of cavalry leader. A man of unimpeachable personal character, in private life affable and genial but not demonstrative, he fulfilled with modesty and honor all the duties of the citizen and head of an interesting and devoted family.”¹⁰⁹ A former officer later commented that Gregg’s “modesty kept him from the notoriety that many gained through the newspapers; but in the army the testimony of all officers who knew him was the same. Brave, prudent, dashing when occasion required dash, and firm as a rock, he was looked upon, both as a regimental commander and afterwards as Major-General, as a man in whose hands any troops were safe.”¹¹⁰ His men called him “Old Reliable.”¹¹¹

Brigadier General David M. Gregg led Stoneman’s 3^rd Cavalry Division. Nicknamed “Old Reliable” by his men, Gregg was considered to be intelligent, modest, honorable and genial, if not demonstrative, and of unimpeachable character. Nobody commanded a division of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac better than Gregg. Library of Congress.

Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, a native of New Jersey, was born the son of a farmer on January 14, 1836. He had little education but still received an appointment to West Point in 1856 and graduated in the May class of 1861. Ever vigilant for opportunities for self-promotion, Kilpatrick realized that the fastest route for advancement lay in the volunteer service. With the assistance of Lieutenant Colonel Gouverneur K. Warren, one of Kilpatrick’s instructors at West Point, Kilpatrick obtained a volunteer’s commission as captain of Company H, 5^th New York Infantry, also known as Duryee’s Zouaves. He was the first Regular Army officer wounded in combat, at the 1861 Battle of Big Bethel. Kilpatrick returned to duty later that year as lieutenant colonel of the 2^nd New York Cavalry and served capably during the campaigns of 1862. By December 1862, he was colonel of the regiment and assumed command of one of Gregg’s brigades during the spring of 1863.¹¹²

Later in 1863, Kilpatrick earned the unflattering moniker “Kill Cavalry” for his penchant for using up men and horses. He had the reputation of being “flamboyant, reckless, tempestuous and even licentious.”¹¹³ An officer of the 1^st Massachusetts Cavalry wrote, “Kilpatrick is a brave, injudicious boy, much given to blowing, and surely will come to grief.”¹¹⁴ Another Federal staff officer called Kilpatrick “a frothy braggart without brains.”¹¹⁵ He was one of those characters men either loved or hated. There was no middle ground when it came to Judson Kilpatrick. His brigade consisted of the 1^st Maine, 2^nd New York, and 10^th New York.

Colonel Sir Percy Wyndham, a rakish twenty-nine-year-old English soldier of fortune, led Gregg’s 2^nd Brigade. He was born on the ship Arab in the English Channel on February 5, 1833, while his parents were en route to Calcutta, India. Captain Charles Wyndham, his father, served in the British 5^th Light Cavalry. With that pedigree, the boy seemed destined to be a horse soldier. However, fifteen-year-old Percy Wyndham entered the French navy instead, serving as a midshipman during the French Revolution of 1848. He then joined the Austrian army as a sublieutenant and left eight years later as a first lieutenant in the Austrian Lancers, resigning his commission on May 1, 1860, to join the Italian army of liberation being formed by the famed guerrilla leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. Wyndham received a battlefield promotion to major in the great battle of Milazzo, Sicily, on July 20, 1860, when Garibaldi’s army defeated the Neapolitans, consolidating the guerrilla’s hold on the island. A grateful King Victor Emmanuel knighted the dashing cavalryman. With the conquest of Italy complete, the soldier of fortune went hunting for another opportunity and found one in the United States in 1861. Largely as a result of his reputation in Italy, Wyndham received an appointment as colonel of the 1^st New Jersey Cavalry in February 1862.¹¹⁶

A Federal horseman recalled, “This officer was an Englishman, an alleged lord. But lord or son of a lord, his capacity as a cavalry officer was not great. He had been entrusted with one or two independent commands and was regarded as a dashing officer.…He seemed bent on killing as many horses as possible, not to mention the men. The fact was the newspapers were in the habit of reporting that Colonel or General so-and-so had made a forced march of so many hours, and it is probable that ‘Sir Percy’ was in search of some more of that kind of cheap renown.”¹¹⁷

One Confederate trooper noticed that Sir Percy, who wore a spectacular mustache nearly two feet wide, was “a stalwart man…who strode along with the nonchalant air of one who had wooed Dame Fortune too long to be cast down by her frowns.”¹¹⁸ A Federal officer called Wyndham “a big bag of wind.”¹¹⁹ Another Northerner, remembering his first encounter with Wyndham, compared him to a bouquet of flowers, noting, “You poor little lillies, you! You haven’t the first chance with the glorious magnificence of his beauty. He’s only been in Camp for two hours, and he now appears in his third suit of clothes!”¹²⁰ Wyndham’s brigade included his own 1^st New Jersey Cavalry, the 12^th Illinois Cavalry, the 1^st Pennsylvania Cavalry, and the 1^st Maryland Cavalry.

John Buford outranked everyone in the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps but Stoneman and Pleasonton. His seniority entitled him to command of one of the new divisions. However, the thirty-seven-year-old Kentuckian had other ideas that kept him from assuming command of a division until June 1863. John Buford Jr. was born near Versailles, Kentucky, on March 4, 1826. He was the first son of John and Anne Bannister Howe Watson Buford. Young John Buford came from a large family—he had two full brothers, as well as thirteen half brothers and sisters from the first marriages of both of his parents. His grandfather Simeon Buford had served under Colonel Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, father of General Robert E. Lee, in the Virginia cavalry in the Revolution. John Buford’s mother died in a cholera epidemic in 1835, and the family relocated to Rock Island, Illinois. He was “a splendid horseman, an unerring rifle shot and a person of wonderful nerve and composure.”¹²¹

Brigadier General John Buford, famous for his heroic stand on the first day at Gettysburg and one of the most talented horse soldiers of the war, briefly served as chief of cavalry in 1862 and 1863, although his superiors ensured that his position was in name only by denying him any real authority. Library of Congress.

Buford received an appointment to West Point in 1844. His performance there was solid, if unspectacular. He graduated sixteenth in the class of 1848. Upon graduation, and at his request, Buford was commissioned into the 1^st Dragoons as a brevet second lieutenant. He only remained with the 1^st Dragoons for a few months and transferred to the newly formed 2^nd Dragoons in 1849. Buford served as quartermaster of the 2^nd Dragoons from 1855 through the beginning of August 1858, fighting in several Indian battles along the way, including the Sioux Punitive Expedition under command of Brigadier General William S. Harney. That engagement culminated in the Battle of Ash Hollow in 1856. Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, commanding officer of the 2^nd Dragoons, cited Lieutenant Buford for his “good service” at Ash Hollow, as did Harney himself.

Buford participated in quelling the disturbances in Kansas during the mid-1850s and served on the Mormon Expedition to Utah during 1857. Buford won high praise from Cooke for his service during the arduous march west and served in Utah until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. When the war began, Buford was torn between his loyalty to his native Kentucky and his loyalty to the government he had served for thirteen years. John Gibbon recalled, “One night after the arrival of the mail we were in his [Buford’s] room, talking over the news…when Buford said in his slow and deliberate way, ‘I got a letter by the last mail from home with a message in it from the Governor of Kentucky. He sends me word to come to Kentucky at once and I shall have anything I want.’” Anxious, Gibbon asked, “What did you answer, John?” Gibbon was greatly relieved to hear Buford’s reply: “I sent him word I was a captain in the United States Army and I intend to remain one.”¹²²

Reporting to Washington with his regiment, Buford requested, and received, an appointment as a major in the inspector general’s office. He served in that position until June 1862, when Major General John Pope, commanding the Army of Virginia, who knew Buford’s talent and special affinity for the enlisted man, promoted Buford to brigadier general of volunteers and gave him command of a brigade of cavalry in the Army of Virginia. Buford served with great distinction during the Second Bull Run Campaign, providing superior scouting and intelligence services and also going toe-to-toe with the vaunted troopers of J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry on two different occasions. His men nearly captured both Stuart and Robert E. Lee at different points during the campaign, and his intelligence saved Pope’s army from destruction shortly after the August 9, 1862 Battle of Cedar Mountain. Buford commanded the Union forces in a little-known but important phase of the Second Battle of Bull Run—the cavalry mêleé at the Lewis Ford on August 30, 1862, where Buford enjoyed some success against Stuart’s men—and bought time for the beaten Army of Virginia’s retreat. Buford himself was slightly wounded in this engagement, leading to his appointment as chief of cavalry under McClellan.¹²³

When Stoneman took command of the newly formed Cavalry Corps, Buford was serving on court-martial duty in Washington, D.C. He remained trapped on this unwelcome duty until the third week of March, despite repeated requests for his release. On February 9, 1863, Buford penned a revealing letter to his old friend Stoneman. “I have heard that all of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac is to be massed under your command. I take it for granted that I am to have a command under you,” wrote Buford. “Being absent while you are making your organizations, I am a little afraid that the different brigade commanders being on the ground may succeed in getting the fighting regiments leaving me the less desirable ones. There is a great difference in the Reg’ts—some will stay while others will not under any circumstances. If I can have my choice I would prefer Western troops. If the Regulars are to be put together, I believe they would prefer me to either of the other cavalry commanders.”¹²⁴

Buford had correctly evaluated the feelings of the Regulars. One Regular officer reported to his father that the army’s cavalry was to be formed into a corps and that the Regulars were to be brigaded together to form the army’s Cavalry Reserve under Buford’s command. “We are all glad enough, I assure you, of the change, specially so on account of getting away from the volunteers,” he wrote. The thought of serving under one of their own pleased the Regulars.¹²⁵ During the third week in March, Buford assumed command of the Reserve Brigade, consisting of the 1^st, 2^nd, 5^th, and 6^th U.S. Cavalry regiments. The Reserve Brigade served as an independent command.

His new corps structure in place, Stoneman set about changing the way that things were done. First, he inspected his Cavalry Corps, trying to ascertain its condition and morale.¹²⁶ Then, because he intended to do away with ponderous cavalry wagon trains, replacing them with mule trains, Stoneman also ordered that the mounted units be made ready “for the most vigorous and rapid movements.” Further, all disabled or lame horses were to be turned in for replacement. The Cavalry Corps would be outfitted properly at last, validating Buford’s earlier efforts to find quality horses.¹²⁷ Stoneman also appointed a promising young officer, Captain Wesley Merritt of the 2^nd U.S. Cavalry, as his ordnance officer. Merritt supervised the arming of the Cavalry Corps. Until the fall of 1862, Northern cavalry companies had only ten carbines per company. That fall, he instituted a policy of issuing a carbine to every trooper. Each trooper received a single-shot breech-loading carbine. Most of the horse soldiers got Sharp’s carbines, highly prized for their ability to be reloaded quickly while on horseback or prone, although some also received the Burnside carbine, a popular weapon designed by the former army commander. These new weapons played a significant role in the improvement of the Union cavalry.¹²⁸

Once the men had received new weapons, both commissioned and noncommissioned officers went to work studying cavalry tactics, and regular recitations occurred nightly by the flickering light of candles. Noncommissioned officers recited their lessons to the senior captain of each squadron, the commissioned officers recited to the majors, and, at certain times, the majors reported to their colonels for a quiz of their knowledge of tactics. Duffié, for example, introduced a regimen of written tests and oral examinations in order to make sure that his men learned the important lessons offered by the assigned cavalry tactics manuals.¹²⁹

In addition to the book learning, most regiments underwent rigorous daily drilling in squadron, battalion, and regimental drill, with occasional brigade and divisional reviews. “The study and drill of the winter produced a cavalry corps which was ever after respected in our own army and dreaded by the enemy,” proudly recalled a Rhode Island horse soldier.¹³⁰

An Ohio trooper described this training regimen in a letter home: “The daily routine I follow is ‘reveille’ 6 o’clock in the morning & roll call. Feed horses and care for them[,] get breakfast. Company drill at 9. Water call at 11. Feed at noon. Company drill at one[,] water call at 3. Dress parade at 5[,] feed horses at 6[,] get supper and then play poker or euchre until 8 o’clock at night. Then fall in for roll call & from that time until 6 o’clock in the morning we have to ourselves.” The routine varied on Sunday. After chapel, the brigade commanders reviewed the commands on dress parade. While monotonous, this routine quickly paid substantial dividends.¹³¹ Another Ohioan noted in his diary, “Our time is occupied in drilling and inspection, when not on picket duty. The orders are very strict and no one is allowed to shirk.”¹³² The men learned discipline that paid dividends later that summer and for the rest of the war.

Colonel Duffié focused his attentions on the 4^th New York Cavalry in particular. The New Yorkers did not perform their drills to the Frenchman’s satisfaction, as “there were said to be fifty-three different languages and dialects spoken in that regiment.” Duffié, whose English was not the greatest either, explained his dilemma. “The colonel of the Fourth New York,” announced the Frenchman in his fractured English, “he give an order, all the officer they stick up their head, they holler like one geese.”¹³³

With the coming of the Civil War, the newly formed volunteer regiments elected their own officers. This practice meant that the person responsible for raising the regiment usually ended up being elected colonel whether he was qualified for that important position or not. As a result, a lot of politically influential but incompetent officers had to be winnowed out, a painful and lengthy process. The Cavalry Corps was not exempt.

The saga of Colonel John Beardsley of the 9^th New York Cavalry provides an excellent illustration of the point. Born on October 12, 1816, in Fairfield, Herkimer County, New York, John Beardsley was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy in 1837. He graduated seventeenth in the class of 1841, which included such future luminaries as Don Carlos Buell, Richard Garnett, Robert Garnett, Nathaniel Lyon, John F. Reynolds, and Israel Richardson, all of whom became generals in the Civil War.

Colonel John Beardsley of the 9^th New York Cavalry, who resigned his commission rather than be court-martialed. Beardsley was the sort of dead wood that had to be culled out of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps before it could become an effective fighting force. Author’s collection.

Upon graduation, Beardsley joined the 8^th Infantry, serving in the Seminole War in Florida from 1841 to 1842, as well as in Mexico. In 1846, Beardsley participated in the Battle of Palo Alto and in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. On June 18, Beardsley was promoted to first lieutenant. The 8^th Infantry served with the expeditionary force of Major General Winfield Scott, then preparing for an amphibious landing at Vera Cruz. When the invasion began, the 8^th Infantry participated in the Siege of Vera Cruz and in the Battle of Cerro Gordo, where its division played an important role in routing the Mexican forces.

Fighting alongside Lieutenant James Longstreet, his comrade in the 8^th Infantry, Beardsley fought in the Battle of Churubusco and at the Battle of Molino del Rey, where he was severely wounded in action while leading an assault on the Mexican works. His conduct at Molino del Rey caught the eye of his superiors, and Beardsley received a brevet to captain for gallant and meritorious service. It took him more than a year to recover from his wound, and he did not return to active duty until 1849, when he was promoted to captain and company command in the 8^th Infantry. After several more garrison assignments, and as a result of visual impairment and lingering problems resulting from his combat wound, Captain John Beardsley resigned his commission on December 31, 1853, thus ending a twelve-year career in the Regular Army marked by regular promotions and meritorious service.¹³⁴

The decorated war hero returned home to New York and took up farming. He led a quiet life on his farm near Athens, New York, until the storm clouds of civil war gathered in 1861. In October of that year, the governor of New York appointed Beardsley as colonel of the 9^th New York Cavalry and gave him the task of recruiting, arming, and training the regiment. His commission was dated November 21, 1861, meaning that he was one of the most senior colonels in the mounted service.¹³⁵

Beardsley seemed a good choice to command a brigade in Major General John Pope’s Army of Virginia. Surprisingly, his brigade played a limited role in the campaign, its principal contribution being the capture of the Waterloo Bridge, near Warrenton, Virginia, on August 25. Beardsley’s command had the hopeless task of trying to stem the stampede to the rear after his old comrade in arms, Major General James Longstreet, launched his massive counterattack against the Union left on the afternoon of August 30. Thereafter, Beardsley ordered his men to form line of battle (in a single rank) to the east of Henry House Hill, astride the Warrenton Turnpike, covering the retreat of the army. Beardsley’s brigade eventually followed the broken Army of Virginia off the field.¹³⁶

After the ignominious defeat at Second Manassas, Beardsley’s brigade returned to Washington, D.C., with the XI Corps, where the unit served in the city’s defenses during the Antietam Campaign. Beardsley and his brigade rejoined the reconstituted Army of the Potomac in November. Sometime in late 1862, Colonel Beardsley took command of the cavalry branch’s Convalescent’s Camp near Hall’s Farm in northern Virginia, where he remained until late February 1863.

On March 10, 1863, Major Charles McLean Knox of the 9^th New York Cavalry preferred court-martial charges against Colonel Beardsley, claiming disloyalty, cowardice, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman resulting from a series of incidents occurring between August 6 and November 4, 1862. Major Knox alleged that on August 6, 1862, Beardsley proclaimed, in the presence of enlisted men of his command, that “we have no government that we are fighting for—no government; Congress is a mean, abolition faction; the Constitution is broken—we have no Constitution; the abolitionists of the North brought on this war; the Republicans are abolitionists.” Similarly, on September 12, when he learned that General Robert E. Lee had invited the conservative portion of the North to join Lee in putting down the administration in Washington, Beardsley allegedly said, “I would rather fight under Lee than under an abolition leader”¹³⁷

Major Knox preferred more serious military charges regarding Colonel Beardsley’s actions in the face of the enemy. Knox alleged that Beardsley left his command while it was skirmishing with the enemy on September 1, 1862, when the brigade acted as the army’s rear guard near Fairfax Court House, Virginia. Knox similarly alleged that on November 4, 1862, during the XI Corps’ advance from Centerville, Virginia, toward Warrrenton, near New Baltimore, Beardsley precipitately retreated when his command first encountered enemy resistance. Beardsley, “manifest[ing] trepidation and fear…placed himself at the head of the retreating column and finally ordered the column to trot.” Knox pointed out that forty men of the 9^th New York Cavalry stopped the enemy advance and drove the Rebels back to New Baltimore while Beardsley conducted his retreat.¹³⁸

Knox’s most serious charge related to Beardsley’s conduct on the battlefield at Second Bull Run. Knox alleged that on August 30, 1862, Beardsley publicly berated Lieutenant Colonel William Sackett, commanding Beardsley’s own 9^th New York Cavalry, while Sackett tried to form line of battle “to stop a stampede that had commenced on the battlefield.” Beardsley allegedly interrupted Sackett’s dispositions of the troops, stating, “[W]hat in Hell are you doing with the Regiment there— bring it around here—bring it here, I tell you—by file, march—trot— march—by God, you do not know how to handle a Regiment—I will put someone in command of it that does form a line.”

Knox believed that Beardsley’s words and actions indicated that Beardsley “was too much excited to know what he was doing.” Knox further alleged that Beardsley then left the 9^th New York and went to the rear, leaving the command under fire without orders. Sackett kept his command in place until no more stragglers came his way and then retired the regiment across Bull Run until he found Beardsley, from whom Sackett requested instructions.

Knox alleged that Beardsley told Sackett to form on one side of the road but then ordered the 9^th New York to the other side of the road while retreating artillery was passing. Knox alleged that Beardsley used the subsequent chaos in the road to abandon his command once again and that the colonel then rode off to Centerville, leaving the 9^th New York formed but without orders.¹³⁹ Finally, Knox alleged that Beardsley arrested Sackett on September 8, 1862, while Beardsley was under the influence of alcohol and that the inebriated colonel berated Sackett in an abusive and ungentlemanly manner. This episode involved a matter in which Beardsley never preferred charges against Sackett.¹⁴⁰

Major Knox’s charges were sent to the 1^st Cavalry Division on March 10, 1863. On March 12, Pleasonton forwarded the charges to Cavalry Corps headquarters, stating that “Colonel Beardsley…is not a proper officer to command a brigade, to which his rank entitles him and from the gravity of these charges, it would evidently be of advantage to the service if he was out of it.”¹⁴¹ Pleasonton obviously required no deliberation before deciding that Beardsley should be removed from command.

Beardsley must have realized that he had little chance of retaining his command. He resigned as colonel of the 9^th New York Cavalry on March 14, 1863. Divisional headquarters speedily accepted his resignation and forwarded it on to Cavalry Corps headquarters on March 16. Stoneman obviously expected it, because Colonel Beardsley’s resignation was accepted immediately, with Stoneman’s endorsement: “Respectfully forwarded with the recommendation as strong as English language can express that it be excepted [sic].”¹⁴²

While Beardsley marks an extreme case, he remains a valid illustration of the sort of problems inherited by Stoneman. The incompetents like Beardsley had to be culled, and competent officers like Sackett had to be brought forward to assume their rightful places at the heads of their respective regiments. This painful and unpleasant process took time. Nevertheless, it marked another rite of passage for the new Cavalry Corps.

Hooker’s reforms greatly increased the confidence and morale of the men serving under him. He challenged his horse soldiers to show their mettle, which had an electric effect on the men of the Cavalry Corps. “When this brave and dashing commander declared that he would give a bonus to any one who would show him a dead cavalryman, he did but express, in an enigmatical form, the idea that the cavalry was capable of doing, and of daring as it had never done.”¹⁴³ Soon, men who “often felt heartily ashamed of belonging to a branch of the service which it was costing the government so much to maintain, and which was of so little real service” came to believe in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the outcome of the war.¹⁴⁴

Hooker later wrote, “The cavalry was consolidated in a separate corps and put in the best condition ever known in our service. Whenever the state of the roads and of the [Rappahannock] River permitted, expeditions were started out to attack the pickets and advance posts of the enemy, and to forage in the country he occupied. My object was to encourage the men, to incite in their hearts, by successes, however unimportant they might be, a sentiment of superiority over their adversaries.”¹⁴⁵

This new policy showed immediate results. As one trooper of the 1^st New Jersey Cavalry noted, there was “but one opinion as to [Hooker’s] management of [the] army in winter quarters. Finding the Army of the Potomac a disorderly, dissatisfied, ill-provided, uncomfortable crowd of men…he transformed [them] into a well-disciplined, contented, enthusiastic body of soldiers.…Troops soon learn to appreciate this kind of administrative ability…and during the winter of sixty-two-sixty-three ‘Joe Hooker’ held a place in their esteem only second to the man who first organized them into an army.”¹⁴⁶ Just a week after Stoneman assumed command of the army’s horse soldiers, a Rhode Islander correctly predicted, “Next summer our cavalry intend to make their mark upon the rebs.”¹⁴⁷

“Judging from what I see and hear, I should have no hesitation in saying that the Army of the Potomac is improving every day, and that it was never in as good and efficient condition as at the present time,” reported Stoneman in a letter to his old friend McClellan. “The study of the science of war is not permitted to do away with the necessity of a knowledge and practice of the art of war. I think the three requisites to constitute a good military organization, the physical, the moral, and the intellectual, are now in more happy accord than they have ever been before, and I trust and pray that they may remain so; and that this army has ceased to be an engine with which to experiment and to test Generals, or rather men, to find out if they could ever become Generals.”¹⁴⁸

Captain Wesley Merritt of the 2^nd U.S. Cavalry observed, “From the day of its reorganization under Hooker, the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac commenced a new life. Before that time it had become so accustomed to meet and be overpowered by superior numbers, that it at times took the numbers for granted, and left some fields to inferior foes. In its new form and numbers it avoided no enemy of any arm of the service; for, while it could contend always successfully with the enemy’s cavalry, it was always sufficiently strong and confident of its powers to make a stubborn fight and a dignified retreat in the face of even an army.”¹⁴⁹ This newfound confidence and enthusiasm spread throughout the newly created Cavalry Corps. Its time had come.

NOTES

1. War of the Rebellion, series 1, vol. 19, part 2, 242 (hereafter “OR”; all further references are to series 1 unless otherwise noted).

2. Ibid., vol. 11, part 3, 40.

3. Reno, “Boots and Saddles.”

4. O’Neill, “Federal Cavalry on the Peninsula,” in Miller, Peninsula Campaign of 1862, 3:87; OR, series 3, vol. 1, 622.

5. Eckert and Amato, Ten Years in the Saddle, 328–29.

6. OR, vol. 1, 622.

7. Ibid., vol. 21, 451. Bayard’s death was a true blow to the blueclad cavalry. Bayard was young, talented, and extremely popular with the men of his command. He and Buford deserve nearly all of the credit for the dramatic improvements in the quality of the performance of the Union cavalry during the second half of 1862. He was also the senior brigadier general in the mounted arm, outranking all but Stoneman.

8. Harris, “Union Cavalry,” War Papers, 1:351.

9. Merritt, “Personal Recollections,” in Rodenbough, From Everglade to Cañon, 284.

10. Merrill, Campaigns of the First Maine, 55; Tobie, History of the First Maine Cavalry, 123.

11. It typically cost approximately $500,000 to $600,000 to raise, mount, and equip a cavalry regiment. Starr, Union Cavalry in the Civil War, 1:66.

12. OR, vol. 19, part 2, 485.

13. Merritt, “Personal Recollections,” 284.

14. OR, vol. 11, part 1, 17. This letter, addressed to General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck, on October 18, 1862, was part of a particularly nasty exchange between McClellan and Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs. This venomous exchange later surfaced again in McClellan’s self-serving and self-laudatory report of the Antietam Campaign. Perhaps seeing an opportunity to use this situation as a justification for moving slowly after Antietam, McClellan may have opportunistically relied on this situation at Meigs’s expense.

15. Ibid., 80.

16. John Buford to Montgomery C. Meigs, October 15, 1862, Letters Sent and Received, Quartermaster’s Office, National Archives.

17. Ibid. The great irony is that less than a year later, the War Department created the Cavalry Bureau, which had the task of providing mounts for the cavalry. Many of Buford’s recommendations were adopted and incorporated into the operations of the new Cavalry Bureau. Its role included procurement and nursing sick and worn-out animals back to health. It is quite likely that as the war dragged on, the Cavalry Bureau reacquired some of the horses sold in 1863 as unserviceable.

18. OR, vol. 21, 815. The soldiers assigned to artillery batteries usually marched on foot. In horse artillery batteries, the artillerists rode horses from place to place so that they could keep up with the cavalry.

19. Bayard had proposed a similar raid in October, in the aftermath of Stuart’s circumvention of the Army of the Potomac.

20. Rhodes, History of the Cavalry.

21. OR, vol. 21, 900; Charleston Mercury, January 5, 1863.

22. OR, vol. 21, 895–96 and 902.

23. Ibid., 954.

24. Samuel J.B.V. Gilpin diary, entry for January 1, 1863, Gilpin Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.

25. Thomas M. Covert to his wife, January 2, 1863, Thomas M. Covert Letters, U.S. Army Military History Institute (hereafter referred to as “USAMHI”).

26. Ibid., January 11, 1863.

27. Thomas Lucas to his wife, January 5, 1863, Thomas Lucas Letters, Dona Sauerburger Collection.

28. German, “Picketing along the Rappahannock,” 33.

29. Isaac Ressler diary, entry for January 19, 1863, Civil War Times Illustrated Collection, USAMHI.

30. Gracey, Annals of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, 127–28.

31. Hall, History of the Sixth New York Cavalry, 90.

32. Lucas to his wife, January 23, 1863, Lucas Letters.

33. Hagemann, Fighting Rebels and Redskins, 194.

34. OR, vol. 21, 752 and 755.

35. George N. Bliss to Dear Gerald, January 23, 1863, George N. Bliss Letters, Rhode Island Historical Society.

36. Gilpin diary, entry for January 17, 1863, Gilpin Papers.

37. Ford, Cycle of Adams Letters, 1:241.

38. Nathan Webb diary, entry for February 13, 1863, Schoff Civil War Collection, Clements Library.

39. Davis, Common Soldier, Uncommon War, 333.

40. William H. Redman to his mother, January 20, 1863, Redman Correspondence, Alderman Library.

41. Winder, Jacob Beidler’s Book, 141.

42. Webb diary, entry for February 14, 1863, Schoff Civil War Collection.

43. Lucas to his wife, January 31, 1863, Lucas Letters.

44. Bliss to Dear Gerald, February 10, 1863, Bliss Letters.

45. Warner, Generals in Blue, 233–34.

46. Hagemann, Fighting Rebels and Redskins, 194.

47. Lucas to his wife, February 5, 1863, Lucas Letters.

48. Bliss to Dear Gerald, February 19, 1863, Bliss Letters.

49. James K. Kim to William W. Averell, February 3, 1863, William Woods Averell Papers.

50. William Redwood Price to Averell, February 19, 1863, Averell Papers.

51. OR, vol. 25, part 2, 51.

52. Newhall, With General Sheridan, 41.

53. Starr, Union Cavalry in the Civil War, 1:327.

54. OR, vol. 25, part 2, 65–66.

55. Hagemann, Fighting Rebels and Redskins, 194.

56. Quoted in Evans, Sherman’s Horsemen, 47.

57. Warner, Generals in Blue, 481. For more on Stoneman’s service in the West before the Civil War, see Arnold, Jeff Davis’s Own.

58. Quoted in Evans, Sherman’s Horsemen, 50.

59. Ford, Cycle of Adams Letters, 2:8.

60. Albinus Fell to Dear Lydia, February 10, 1863, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, USAMHI.

61. Meade, Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, 1:354.

62. OR, vol. 25, part 2, 71–72.

63. Warner, Generals in Blue, 373.

64. Staudenraus, Mr. Lincoln’s Washington, 210.

65. Wert, Custer, 75.

66. Ford, Cycle of Adams Letters, 2:8.

67. Tischler, History of the Harpers Ferry Cavalry Expedition, 26. The West Point class of 1854 also included Generals O.O. Howard and John Pegram. New York Herald, June 11, 1863.

68. Thrapp, Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, 1:379.

69. OR, vol. 11, part 1, 425–32. Davis was recommended for a brevet to lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army for this action, but the Senate never confirmed the brevet. New York Herald, June 11, 1863.

70. Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser, June 20, 1863.

71. Merritt, “Personal Recollections,” 285–86.

72. For the only detailed treatment of this adventure, see Tischler, History of the Harpers Ferry Cavalry Expedition.

73. Norton, Deeds of Daring, 30–33.

74. Wert, Custer, 78.

75. Beck, “Letters of a Civil War Surgeon,” 154.

76. Samuel J.B.V. Gilpin diary, entry for June 9, 1863, Gilpin Papers.

77. Warner, Generals in Blue, 124. That promotion did not come until the spring of 1865 and was long overdue when it finally happened.

78. Tremain, Last Hours of Sheridan’s Cavalry, 37.

79. Longacre, Cavalry at Gettysburg, 51.

80. Newhall, With General Sheridan, 228.

81. Warner, Generals in Blue, 124.

82. Tremain, Last Hours of Sheridan’s Cavalry, 39.

83. Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 197.

84. Warner, Generals in Blue, 12–13.

85. Eckert and Amato, Ten Years in the Saddle, 388.

86. Collins, General William Averell’s Salem Raid, 9.

87. Ibid., 5.

88. His father, Jean August Duffié, served as mayor of the village of La Ferte sous Juarre. At least one contemporary source states that the Duffié family had its roots in Ireland and that the family fled to France to escape Oliver Cromwell’s Reign of Terror. See Simmons, “Hunter’s Raid,” 395–96.

89. Napoléon Alexandre Duffié Military Service Records, French Army Archives, Vincennes, France. The author is grateful to Jean-Claude Reuflet, a relative of Duffié’s, for making these obscure records available and for providing the author with a detailed translation of their contents.

90. Ibid.

91. Pelton, Genealogy of the Pelton Family in America, 565. The true state of the facts differs dramatically from the conventional telling of Duffié’s life as set forth in Warner’s Generals in Blue.

92. Warner, Generals in Blue, 131–32.

93. A document prepared by Duffié’s son indicates that Duffié attended the cadet school at Versailles, that he took and passed the entrance examinations for the Military College of St. Cyr, and that he was admitted to St. Cyr in 1851. Daniel A. Duffié claimed that his father dropped out of St. Cyr after a year to enlist in the 6^th Regiment of Dragoons. Procuration executed by Daniel A. Duffié, heir of Jean August Duffié, March 16, 1885, Pelton-Duffié Family Papers, Staten Island Historical Society.

94. For an example of the elaborate ruse spun by Duffié, see Bliss, “Duffié and the Monument to His Memory,” 316–76. Bliss presents a detailed biographical sketch of Duffié that includes all of the falsehoods. Duffié himself apparently provided Bliss with most of his information. See pages 317–20 for the recitation of this litany of falsehoods.

95. Taylor, James E. Taylor Sketchbook, 134.

96. Urwin, United States Cavalry, 98–99.

97. Crowninshield, History of the First Regiment Massachusetts, 113.

98. Beach, First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, 399.

99. Fell to Dear Lydia, March 8, 1863, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, USAMHI.

100. Emmons D. Guild to his parents, March 20, 1863, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park Archives (FSNMP).

101. Cooke, “Battle of Kelly’s Ford,” 9.

102. Hunt and Brown, Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue, 534; Crowninshield, History of the First Regiment Massachusetts, 42.

103. Warner, Generals in Blue, 300.

104. Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 534.

105. O’Neill, Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, 36.

106. Crowninshield, History of the First Regiment Massachusetts, 307–8. In fact, John Buford despised this regiment. He believed it had failed him at Second Manassas, and he would take away its regimental colors in the fall of 1863 as a result of another perceived failure.

107. An interesting and detailed account of this episode can be found in McFadden, Glitter and the Gold, 40–44.

108. Warner, Generals in Blue, 187–88.

109. “David McMurtrie Gregg,” Circular no. 6, Series of 1917, 2.

110. Bates, Martial Deeds of Pennsylvania, 772. There is no satisfactory biography of David M. Gregg available. The only published biography is Burgess, David Gregg.

111. Thomas, Some Personal Reminiscences, 8.

112. Martin, “Kill-Cavalry,” 1–63.

113. Longacre, “Judson Kilpatrick,” 25.

114. Ford, Cycle of Adams Letters, 2:44–45.

115. Longacre, “Judson Kilpatrick,” 25.

116. Wyndham, “Wyndham Question Settled.” Wyndham referred to himself as a mercenary, writing in the fall of 1863, “Call me a soldier of fortune, if you will.” Ibid.

117. Kidd, Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman, 90–91.

118. Longacre, “Sir Percy Wyndham,” 12, 14.

119. Harris, Personal Reminiscences of Samuel Harris, 14.

120. Walter S. Newhall to My Dear George, October 2, 1863, Newhall Family Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

121. John Gibbon, “The John Buford Memoir,” copy in the author’s collection.

122. Ibid.

123. Warner, Generals in Blue, 52–53.

124. John Buford to George Stoneman, February 9, 1863, Letters Sent and Received, First Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, National Archives.

125. Lieutenant Frank W. Dickerson to Dear Father, February 17, 1863, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, USAMHI.

126. Hall, History of the Sixth New York Cavalry, 92.

127. OR, vol. 25, part 2, 71.

128. Ibid., 93.

129. Bliss, “Duffié and the Monument to His Memory,” 13–15.

130. Bliss, “Reminiscences of Service,” 64.

131. Fell to Dear Lydia, March 8, 1863, Civil War Miscellaneous Collection, USAMHI.

132. Wells A. Bushnell diary, February 28, 1863, Wells A. Bushnell Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.

133. Bliss, “Reminiscences of Service,” 64–65.

134. Cullum, Biographical Register, 2:29.

135. Beardsley’s service records, RG 94, National Archives; see also Pfisterer, New York in the War of the Rebellion, 2:905.

136. OR, vol. 12, part 2, 272.

137. Beardsley service records.

138. Ibid.

139. Ibid.

140. Ibid.

141. Ibid.

142. Ibid. Even more remarkable than the events surrounding Beardsley’s resignation are the efforts made by many different people to sweep these ugly incidents under the rug. Instead of elaborating on the reasons why Beardsley left the service, the regimental history of the 9^th New York notes only, “March 9.…Col. Beardsley… rejoined the regiment…June 4, Lieut. Col. Sackett returned from Washington with a Colonel’s commission for himself and a Lieut. Colonel’s commission for Maj. Nichols. Col. Beardsley had resigned.” There were no other references to Beardsley in the balance of the 9^th New York’s fine regimental history. An obituary of Beardsley that appeared in a West Point alumni publication simply stated, “Immediately after [Second Bull Run], he came back to the Regiment and assumed command and remained with it until he resigned his commission at Acquier [sic] Creek, on the Potomac, April 8, 1863.” It also noted, “Colonel Beardsley was highly respected by all who knew him for his excellent qualities of mind and heart.” The coverup of the circumstances of Beardsley’s resignation from command of the 9^th New York Cavalry was complete. Cheney, History of the Ninth Regiment, 80, 93.

143. Merrill, Campaigns of the First Maine, 88.

144. Dennison, Sabres and Spurs, 206.

145. Quoted in Trobriand, Four Years with the Army, 415–16.

146. Pyne, History of the First New Jersey Cavalry, 137–38.

147. Bliss to Dear Gerald, February 13, 1863, Bliss Letters.

148. Stoneman to McClellan, as reported in New York Daily Tribune, March 20, 1863.

149. Merritt, “Personal Recollections,” 285.