"How would one track down records of specific cavalrymen? " Topic

I was recently contacted by someone on Ancestry.com who provided me with some information that I found pretty interesting.

Apparently my great-great-great-great-grandfather (whew) was a German cavalryman in the Grand Armee during the invasion of Russia under Murat, and was awarded a Cross of the Legion of Honor- according to a grave monument in Menasha Wisconsin. His name was Peter Stilp.

Is there a way to find any more information, like what type of cavalry man he was, or anything else, through military history sources?

Napoleonics is not my area at all, but this info has piqued my interest.

Most of the recipients of the légion d'honneur are found online in the Base Léonore:

link

Many of the veterans who were still alive in 1857 can be found on the site of the Médaille de Sainte-Hélène:

link

Your ancestor doesn't seem to appear in either of them both, though.

Here you have a short bio of him, his name is given as Peter Stülp, his family having been named Stölp in former times:

PDF link

The text says in 1815 he was soldier in the Prussian army, too, and present at Waterloo. His birthplace, Rachtig, indeed became Prussian in 1815.

A Stülp/Stölp/Stilp doesn't appear in the lists of recipients of Prussian orders (which is the only extensive list of Prussian privates' names I know of), and he definitely was no officer, so I can't verify this statement of his Prussian services.

You could write to the village of Zeltingen-Rachtig, and ask whether they have any info about him in their archives.

I can't thank you enough for the additional information, that is really interesting! Greatly appreciated.

Is this him?

link

The stone says he served under Murat and born in Rachtig, Berncastel which is in the Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Not sure which cavalry unit he might have been in?

Yes, that's him. The researcher I've been corresponding with told me about that grave marker, that's about as far as I was able to get.

Not sure which cavalry unit he might have been in?

Rachtig was a French village at that time (département Mont-Tonnère), so Stülp/Stilp will have served in a French cavalry regiment, in one of the four cavalry corps of 1812.