"Carbines in Drill Regulations " Topic

I've been interested to find that the employment of carbines by Cavalry is given hardly any attention in published Regulations.

Granted that the two main publications, from St.George Cooke and McClellan, have their origins pre-war (just) regardless of publication dates but I'm surprised they were not updated.

Of the two, McClellan at least gives the 'long arm' some attention where Cooke does not mention carbines at all!

Even Little Mac views them as a secondary weapon and it would seem to me that if he hadn't given some attention to actions against Native Americans in his preface, they might not have featured with him in the body of the work either.

He also sees carbines (or rifles as he refers to them) as a possible issue in limited numbers rather than the entire regiment.

Its an interesting insight into how tactics developed during the war and the move from traditional cavalry practice to the virtual mounted infantry role, that came about later in the war.

Also, a good example of how matters developed in the field without someone feeling the need to go and update the printed word to reflect the changes. I guess during the second half of the war they were too occupied with the actual fighting to get around to it.

Try "The Union Cavalry in the Civil War" by Starr.

Also see "Lincoln's Choice" by Buckeridge, an interesting work on the introduction and employment of the Spencer repeater.

My personal impression of the Union cavalry arm is that it did not really emerge as true battlefield combat arm until the reforms of 1863, which also happened to coincide (coincidentally or not) with the widespread introduction of effective breech-loading (Sharps) and repeating (Spencer) carbines.

FWIW.

B

Pretty sure the Sharps breechloading carbine was introduced much earlier than '63 -- also the Burnside and others.

The idea that Union cavalry usually fought dismounted is over-done. Most Union regiments became quite handy with sabers. The 2nd Iowa Cavalry even hired a Prussian fencing instructor to show them how to use their sabers.

The Spencer carbine didn't begin to see use until 1864. Custer's troops had Spencer rifles.

The thing is is that the US Cavalry wasn't purely a cavalry branch until the Civil War. prior to then, we had cavalry, dragoons, and mounted rifles. The cavalry itself primarily trained with the use of the saber, and to a lesser extent with the pistol or revolver.

It was, to my line of thought, more of a reflection of the changing technology that saw small use of carbines prior to the war. Though the US had the M1841, the M1855 rifle and the Hall's breechloading rifle, all of these were mainly smaller infantry weapons, designed for use by what were supposed to be light infantry battalions, as wel as the dragoons and mounted rifles.

Sharps, Burnside, Maynard, and others were only then developing and offering their carbines and, with the different types of ammunition required, the Ordnance department balked at wide-spread adoption by the military.

Once war broke out, though, the dragoons and mounted rifles were blended with the cavalry, and all mounted troops became cavalry from then on. As the reliability and usefulness of carbines became apparent, they were quickly adopted by the army and brought into service.

The Union cavalry was not as poor as many think prior to 1863. The problem in '62 was poor leadership and the fact that the likes of McClellan hadn't a clue how to use it effectively.

In the East, Hooker was instrumental in making the organisational changes that made it function and in loosing poor commanders.

Don,

The Army tested 20 differenct breach loading carbines as early as 1857 but the advent of the war caught them out and the rush to arm the vast increase in men overall, led to a shortage of carbines well into 1862 when Sharps, Burnsides, Smiths, Merrills and Gallagers flooded in.

The pistol v saber debate raged hotly and you are quite right the saber supporters had a deal of success but there was a steady increase in dismounted action from '63 untill the end of the war as the jobs cavalry were asked to do swung that way.

Not just Buford's action but an increasing amount of 'take and hold' in the Overland Campaign and in Sheridan's raid on Richmond where the Union cavalry showed great flexiblity in combining mounted and dismounted action and in acting as their own advance guard, assault formation and rear guard as occassion required.

I didn't expect this to be totally reflected in the Regulations but I was surprised that these were scarcely considered if at all.

I can only suppose this was because McClellan wrote is work after returning from Europe and Cooke wrote his influenced by his prewar service in the 2nd Dragoons. Neither of which tallied with what was to come.

However my bigest surprise was that no written alteration to practice seems to have been made to reflect what was actually developing in action.

Both McClellan and Cooke were thinking in terms of European cavalry (remember that Mac was a member of the observer team for the Crimean War) and tended to look with disfavor on the American mounted infantry tradition. IIRC, McClellan, in his Armies of Europe, even says that we must turn our mounted arm into proper cavalry.

Well, you have to admit there was nothing in contemporary British, French or Russian practice that would have lead McClellan to imagine the age of the mounted charge was passing. Even though there was no combined cavalry action in Napoleonic battle terms in the Crimea.

The charges of the Light and Heavy don't really count, although you can't help thinking they had some impression. Does McClellan mention them in his book?

One thing that McClellan did do right was to publish a new Bayonet Drill book. It's been reprinted as a hardbound book, like the original. I haven't checked to see it it's available in a digital format.

The bayonet drill was used extensively by both sides, including it's use of French commands, etc. Nice illustrations as well.

Custer's troops had Spencer rifles.

SOME of Custer's troops at Gettysburg had Spencer rifles. IIRC, all of the 6th Mich. and 1 battalion of the 5th. But none of the 1st or 7th. (The 1st was his favorite saber regiment.)

You're correct that the Spencer carbine was not available then. It was Wilson, when he served a brief tour as head of the Cavalry Bureau in the winter of '63-64, who made the Spencer carbine the preferred weapon of the Union cavalry.

Just before or just after the War began, the old 1st and 2nd Dragoons were redesignated 1st and 2nd Cavalry; the Regt. of Mounted Rifles became the 3rd Cavalry; and the original 1st and 2nd Cavalry (in which R. E. Lee briefly served) became the 4th and 5th U. S. Cavalry; also a new 6th U.S. Cavalry was raised. The 7th and higher numbers did not come until after the War.

Don,

I poorly worded my statement. You are absolutely correct regarding Custer's men who carried Spencers. That was what I should have said, instead of my shorthand version, assuming that others would understand my meaning.

Respects,

McClellan's Bayonet Drill is on that list of links that I posted elsewhere. Here's a link to the book.

link

I note this was written before his trip to Europe being published in 1852.

I find the lack of discussion on the Western Theater of Operations with regard to Union Cavalry disappointing. I had been given to understand that the Union and Confederate cavalry in the West was on a somewhat equal footing. No real differences with the exception being the leadership. Is this accurate?

Not all Western cavalry was alike. Forrest's cavalry tended toward the mounted infantry end of the spectrum. It was armed with short rifles and revolvers. Not sure about Wheeler's cavalry, but I suspect it was somewhat similar.

Some of Rosecrans' cavalry was armed with Colt revolving rifles. Grierson's (part of Grant's army) fought both ways, mounted and dismounted, with sabers, revolvers and carbines. As I mentioned above, the 2nd Iowa Cav. (part of Grierson's brigade) even hired a fencing master to teach them how to use their sabers.

In '64-5, when Wilson took command of the cavalry in Sherman's command, it tended to fight dismounted, using Spencer carbines -- they defeated Forrest at Selma with a dismounted charge against earthworks; did the same to Hood at Nashville. But they still had and used sabers also. Forrest was wounded by a saber during the retreat/pursuit and later told Wilson, "If that boy had had the sense to give me the point instead of the edge, I wouldn't be here to tell about it."

Confederate Cavalry in the West were the poor relations, short on everything but crazy attitude and commanders.

The modern take on things is critical of their contribution (in military terms) to the Confederate effort, citing too much raiding and harassing at the expense of 'proper' cavalry work in terms of recon and support to Army level activity.

There's some nice details on their equipment or lack of it at this link.

link

Wilson's Raid in March/April 1865 was a phenomenon.

Apart from its military success (including the defeat of Forrest) it destroyed, 7 iron works, 7 foundries, 7 machine shops, 2 rolling mills, 5 collieries, 13 factories, 4 niter works, 3 arsenals, 5 steam boats, 35 locomotives, 565 railroad cars, a navy yard and a powder magazine. Along with capturing 288 pieces of artillery and destroying tons of stores and ammunition.

To cap it all, on May 10 1865 troopers from his command captured Jefferson Davis!

As I recall (can't say I've studied the cavalry much compared to the infantry) the cavalry was expected to use the infantry drill manual when dismounted as there was almost nothing in the cavalry manuals.

"The Bloody Crucible of Courage" was a good book for me regarding Civil War combat. It touches on theory, training and practice. By the end of the war it wasn't an 'either or' argument between saber and gun. Union cavalry used a 'combined arms' approach and attacked with dismounted supporting mounted.

Confederates didn't have the supply or weapons to match. If they captured repeaters they couldn't get the parts or ammo. They also were short of other things.

On the shortage front, the Confederates could never match the remounts that the North could procure. Both in terms of organisation and availablity of horse's within their respective areas and hard cash.

One of the reasons that Confederate cavalry in the West spent time on raiding was due to it being a prime source of replacement mounts.

The overall policy of having to provide their own mounts and replacements meant that capture of horses in both theaters of war was far more important than weapons or other equipment.

Trajanus

Reminds me of a Lincoln quote on learning JEB Stuart bagged some Union generals. He said he had plenty of generals wanting commands, but the horses were $150 USD a head and harder to spare.

Yes, an important aspect is that horse raising was concentrated in the north rather than the south. Kentucky, Pennsylvania (basically the Mason -Dixon line) was the boundary for good horse raising land. The factors were the disease, parasite load, insect survival (over the winter), which defined the health of the horses. Also, the long daylight, cool summer northern states grew a lot of horse food (oats and grass grow well in 16 hours of cool, wet daylight in the north, but not as well in the south- (there are several months of too-cold for grass growth and too damn hot for grass growth). Looking at Maine history (I lived there for a spell), the exports to the south were beans, lumber, barrell staves, beef, leather products, ice, hay and live HORSES. If you look at Europe during the Napoleonic era, you see the same type of situation. Interior, continential climate Russia, Poland, norther German and France were the prime horse raising areas. When Napoleon lost these, he had trouble ("He"?) refurbishing his cavalary after 1812 and suffered as a consequence. Confederate raids (including Antietem and Gettysburg) were partly motivated by the need to pump more horses into the rebel army.

In the North, they tended to raise draft horses, for pulling plows, carriages, wagons, etc. (useful for the artillery of course). In the South they tended to raise riding horses (useful for the cavalry).

Total U.S. horse population in 1860 was put by the census at 6,115,458, of which only 1,698,328 were in the seceding states.

On the other hand, the South was much ahead in mule power, with 800,663 against the North's 328,890 for a total of 1,129,553.