"Cavalry regiment strengths?" Topic

I've decided to add some cavalry to my ACW forces now that I have plenty of infantry and artillery and was wondering if there was some kind of general consensus as to the average strengths of cavalry regiments for the 1862 timeframe?

I use a 1:25 figure scale and am looking to build up probably a brigade or so for each side. Also they will be just generic units, I'm not looking to model any historical units.

With all the accumulated knowledge of TMP'ers this should be a slam dunk. TIA for any input.

I can't speak about the Eastern Theater, but for the Western Theater I would suggest 3-4 units of different sizes, ranging from about 150-300 men each, maybe 400 if you're feeling generous. Broadly speaking (since you're doing generic), the Union cavalry regiments will often be present without all their companies. It could be only 2 or 3, or it could be enough to form a battalion. When they did have all or most companies present they would still be well below authorized strength. With Confederate cavalry, besides regiments you'll see many units that were actually raised as battalions meaning they organized and mustered in with fewer than ten companies; six seems to be typical. Lack of horses affected both sides, so the number of effective men in a report could be misleading without knowing the how many horses were fit for duty. The Confederates had the worst of this and in the Western Theater you find an increasing number of units that become Dismounted Cavalry for the duration.

I guess for generic go with 350 or 400. Depending on the regiment and time of year, you will see a couple of hundred men in a Union regiment but you will also see 600 man regiments. In the East, I would argue that complete – or nearly complete – regiments were more common than not. For gaming purposes you can combine 2 to 4 fractional regiments into a single gaming unit, or attach them to an existing unit.

For the Maryland Campaign the AoP had six cavalry brigades; one of 4 regiments and five of 2 regiments. 1862 also saw experimentation with large brigades of 5 to 8 regiments, but those did not last long.

It really depends on what part of the year you're looking at. Regiments would be much stronger at the beginning of The Peninsula Campaign than they were at the end of the Antietam Campaign.

This link will take you to the page for 'A Gleam of Bayonets' on Board Game Geek. It's a game about Antietam. This is a game where each counter is a regiment. There are images of the counters and you can see each unit, what they were armed with, and their size. Each strength point is 50 men.
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Here's 'Terrible Swift Sword' which is Gettysburg.
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'Bloody April' which is Shilo.
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'Rebel Sabers' covers the cavalry battles of the Gettysburg Campaign.
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For my ACW armies I use fairly generic 6 stand cavalry units (Fire and Fury) – you can always use fewer stands or combine them to make a bigger unit

For 1862, c. 400 men actually mounted, armed and healthy sounds about right for a regiment, or 40 per company. But strengths varied widely.