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US Civil War cavalry.

Discussion in 'Non-World War 2 History' started by bosworth gannaway, Jul 10, 2007.

  1. majorwoody10

    majorwoody10 New Member

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    i belive ther was a large force cav sweep by soviets in ww2 ,it was weeks behind german lines and caused much havoc ..it was ultimately cut off and virtualy rubbed out though .
     
  2. jeaguer

    jeaguer New Member

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    I know of one cavalry corp , send to plug a yawning gap in the line in november 41 around Tula , the commander style was " cautious pirate "
    and the troopers fought on foot
    there is some mention of a cavalry charge on the retaking of stalino with one tommy gunner behind each rider in the Ukraine in 43 , and some mentions of a charge of soviet cavalry at Kurtsk :(

    for the rest of the war , cavalry units gave good service as scouts and long ranging harassment ,
    their main asset was that they did not need petrol and could range quite freely , I'm sure Patton would have been delighted with a few brigades

    .
     
  3. Ricky

    Ricky Well-Known Member

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    Actual cavalry charges were used now & then, and did succeed - the main reason usually being suprise.

    But on the whole, they were mounted infantry and not cavalry.
     
  4. majorwoody10

    majorwoody10 New Member

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    dragoons ,then actually ...as cavalry by definition fight from horseback ...custers boys at the bighorn river mostly died on foot also amidst a sea of indians (also on foot ,mostly ...despite all the movies and artwork to the contrary)
     
  5. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

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    Well, we wouldn't have known that if there jhadn't been that big grass fire at the Little Bighorn battlefield. The historians and archaeologists were practically drooling over what all they found there, and amazed at how wrong they'd been about the nature of Custer's defeat.
     
  6. jeaguer

    jeaguer New Member

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    Cavalry Move on horseback .
    Since the English civil war at least , they dismount and fight occasionally on foot
    some units such as dragoons were in fact mounted infantry .
    During the American civil war ,there was an infantry brigade, equipped with Spencer repeaters paid for by their commander and mounted , it became known in the west as the lighting brigade ,
    .
     
  7. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

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    Yes, Colonel John T. Wilder. I have long wondered why he never made general, since he was one of the better officers in the Army of the Cumberland. He had a chance to derail or at least seriously delay Bragg's attack at Chickamauga, At a critical point in the battle, his brigade found itself situated on the Confederate flank, in a perfect position to do some serious damage. But the Assistant Secretary of War, Charles Dana, was visiting the Army of the Cumberland that day, and he panicked when the Confederate attack started and ordered Wilder and his men to escort him back to Chattanooga. :roll:
     
  8. JCalhoun

    JCalhoun New Member

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    I guess it could be a good thing that politicians don't go to battlefields now days. :-?
     
  9. jeaguer

    jeaguer New Member

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    Jefferson Davis was a staunch fighter and considered his election as a personal disaster and a curse .
    His first choice would have been to fight at the head of a regiment ,
    he kept control of his urge to go visiting the front ,he knew he would do more harm than good !

    .
     
  10. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

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    Jefferson Davis had a strong sense of duty. Even though he didn't want to be president of the Confederacy, and did not campaign for it, once he was elected, he felt he had to take the job. He was not the best man for the job, but the Confederates could have chosen someone a lot worse.
     
  11. Brian Groughan

    Brian Groughan Member

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    I wish I had of seen the tv programs for today, I was doing a few things earlier in the day and about 14.30 I thought I'd see what was on and unfortunately The Light Horsemen had been showing , but at least I got to see the end where they charged Beersheba, I will have to download it and watch it again. The charge took the Turk commanders by surprise as they didn't believe that they would continue with the charge and as they did the Turks could not keep up with the changing distance needed to keep firing at the Aussies and New Zealanders and when the charge got under the guns, the riflemen ended up setting their sights at a distance and were firing high for a while as they too had to adjust the incoming charge, the rest as they say is history
     
  12. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    As mentioned earlier, some ACW cavalry units armed themselves with lances. Wasn't long before these "frog stickers" as they were referred to by some of the men in Southern cavalry units were used as firewood or simply cast aside. The weapon of choice was usually a brace of pistols, a carbine or a shotgun and maybe a sword. The swords weren't used often, as with the bayonet of the infantry. Something like a whopping 2% of all combat wounds of both sides were courtesy of the sword and or bayonet. Read this somewhere in one of the hundreds of CWTI magazines I've had since beginning my subscription in 1975 after a trip up to Vicksburg to see the battlefield. Also in my reading in the many CWTI magazines was an article covering foreign observers. An English officer wrote that cavalry clashes of the ACW were nothing like in Europe, where the sword is relied upon heavily. The American cavalry he said, charged headlong towards each other with pistols at the ready, then stopped just a few yards before colliding, unloading their handguns into each other. Some, mainly officers (of the regular Army type) would swing and swat with swords, but the rank and file (mostly volunteers or draftees with little to no pre-war military experience) didn't see the need for that sort of ugly business with the plethora firearms they carried (think the Outlaw Josey Wales). Eventually when all bullet launchers were expended, the swords came out. By then those still in the saddle had mixed in with the ones wearing different colored uniforms a great deal, so popping caps at this point could end up going through someone dressed like you instead of those not dressed like you. Hope this makes sense.
     
  13. A-58

    A-58 Cool Dude

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    I found this in wiki. Read about it a couple of days ago, and it took awhile to find it again. Although this deals with the plans for pikes being used by Confederate infantry in the ACW, it bring up the notion of reviving combat relics of the past.

    "One attempt to resurrect the pike as a primary infantry weapon occurred during the American Civil War when the Confederate States of America planned to recruit twenty regiments of pikemen in 1862. In April 1862 it was authorised that every Confederate infantry regiment would include two companies of pikemen, a plan supported by Robert E. Lee. Many pikes were produced but were never used in battle and the plan to include pikemen in the army was abandoned."

    Although General Robert E. Lee is greatly revered down in these parts, it seems like a silly idea if you ask me.
     
  14. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    Actually, 1862 was early war, there weren't enough weapons to go around and most units were still armed with smoothbore muskets of limited range and squirrel guns. The limited engagement range, lack of marksmanship training and "greenness" of troops made a pike a feasible option. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson looked at the option as well:

    “Under divine blessing, we must rely on the bayonet when firearms cannot be furnished”
    – Stonewall Jackson, letter accompanying his requisition for 1000 pikes.

    It's a fact that during the Civil War 250-300 rounds were expended for every casualty inflicted (remember this doesn't account for casualties caused by artillery or swords/bayonets so the actual rounds per casualty produced was in reality higher). The infantryman's cartridge box carried 40 rounds, so it took between six and eight men firing off their entire basic load at 2-3 rounds per minute to kill or wound one enemy soldier. So it really came down to who could maintain their nerve long enough for the other side to lose theirs.

    "Something like a whopping 2% of all combat wounds of both sides were courtesy of the sword and or bayonet"

    While true it can give an inaccurate picture. When a Civil War era unit assaulted with fixed bayonets one of two things normally occurred, 1.) Musket and artillery fire slowed and broke up the advance so it stalled and then fell back before reaching the enemy or 2.) When there was sufficient momentum and mass to overcome the conditions listed under #1, the defenders broke and fell back when faced with "the cold steel" before the assault got into their position. Normally, it would start with a trickle, and build to a panic.

    If you think about it most of an assault during the Civil War was trying to maintain unit cohesion until the range was closed, when at optimal range the line would halt and fire one volley, then rush forward en masse with pointy bayonets and empty rifles; into a mass of men that had just emptied their rifles. The side that lost nerve first fled/fell back and the side that maintained it's discipline and cohesion held the position. On the fairly rare occasion when one high morale, highly disciplined regiment or brigade went up against a unit of comparable morale and discipline an epic confrontation would take place. The attacker would push through the point where the assault normally began to slow or come apart. They'd reach the point where they discharged their musket and delivered a devastating volley, but the defender didn't start coming apart, stood their ground and replied in kind. They'd stand there swapping fire and neither side willing to give way. Charges and counter charges would occur but neither side would back off so neither side could build enough momentum to push through the fire to come to grips with the other. Most times due to the devastating casualties the units involved never recovered to their former elite status. They were either too small in numbers to regain their previous effectiveness or they were rebuilt but their best men now being gone never recovered the same elan.
     
    A-58 and Brian Groughan like this.
  15. rprice

    rprice Member

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    This topic was discussed at length a couple of years ago in the CivilWarTalk forum. The thread includes several posts by noted Civil War historian Eric Wittenberg.

    Lancers in the Civil War
     

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