4th Cavalry Regiment (United States)
The 4th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army cavalry regiment, whose lineage is traced back to the mid-19th century. It was one of the most effective units of the Army against American Indians on the Texas frontier. Today, the regiment exists as separate squadrons within the U.S. Army. Presently, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry and 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry are parts of the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Brigade and 2nd Brigade combat teams, respectively. 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry's official nickname is "Quarterhorse", which alludes to its "1/4 Cav" designation.The 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry, official nicknamed "Raiders," serves as part of the 25th Infantry Division. The 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry officially was stood up in September 2009 at Fort Riley, Kansas as part of 1st Infantry Division. It was inactivated in October 2015. The 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry served as part of the recently inactivated 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Origin and early service
In 1855, the United States Congress recognized the need for mounted regiments in the U.S. Army in addition to the First and Second Regiments of Dragoons and the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen. The 1st Cavalry Regiment—later re-designated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment—was organized under the act of 3 March 1855. On 26 March 1855, the regiment was organized at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. The regiment's first commander was Colonel Edwin V. Sumner, who served from 3 March 1855 to 16 March 1861. In August 1855, the regiment was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Colonel Sumner had two missions. The first was to keep the peace between the pro-slavery and free state factions in Kansas; the second was to protect settlers from attacks by Cheyenne warriors.The 1st Cavalry Regiment, along with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, was authorized in 1855 and formed at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. All field grade officers and one half of the company grade officers were drawn from existing army units. The other half of the company grade officers and most of the enlisted men came from civilian life. Each company sent out one lieutenant and one sergeant to city after city to recruit men to fill the ranks. Posters, displayed in each city promised good clothing, rations and medical attention. The pay rate was $12.00 a month for privates, $14.00 for corporals, $17.00 for Duty Sergeants, and $22.00 for First Sergeants.
The regiment had four field-grade officers, one full colonel in command, one lieutenant colonel as second in command, and two majors. Each of the ten companies had a captain, one first lieutenant, one second lieutenant, four sergeants, four corporals, and eighty-four privates. Also attached to each company was a one farrier and blacksmith and two buglers.
Each company had horses of a distinctive color. This served two purposes. In addition to the dramatic effect on parade, the distinctive color made it easy for members of the regiment to locate their company in the heat of battle. The assigned colors were in the following order: Company A had sorrels, Company B, grays; Company C, sorrels; Company D, bays; Company E, roans; Company F, sorrels; Company G, blacks; Company H, bays; Company I, sorrels; and Company, K, bays. The buglers had white horses. The officers each had two horses. They could select the color of their choice. Officers were required to provide their uniforms, equipment and horses.
The following were the initial officers of the First Cavalry. Many rose to high rank during the Civil War.
Colonel:
Edwin Vose Sumner
Lt. Colonel:
Joseph Eggleston Johnson
Majors:
William Hemsley Emory; John Sedgwick
Captains:
Delos Bennett Sackett; Thomas John Wood; George Brinton McClellan; Samuel Davis Stugis; William D. DeSaussure; William Stephen Walker; George Thomas Anderson; Robert Selden Garnett
First Lieutenants:
William Nelson Rector Beall; George Hume Steuart; James McQueen McIntosh; Robert Ransom Jr.; Eugene Asa Carr; Alfred Iverson Jr.; Frank Wheaton
Second Lieutenants:
David Sloane Stanley; James Ewell Brown Stuart; Elmer Ignatius Otis; James B. McIntyre; Eugene W. Crittenden; Albert V. Colburn, Francis Laurens Vinton; George Dashiell Bayard; Lunsford Lindsay Lomax; Joseph H. Taylor
The new recruits after a physical exam, were trained in horsemanship and as cavalrymen at Fort Leavenworth and Jefferson Barracks.
In the fall of 1855 the regiment was ordered to participate in an expedition against the Sioux. As it turned out, the regiment were not directly involved in the major engagement with the Sioux.
In 1856 the regiment was engaged in maintaining the peace in the Kansas Territory between the pro-slavery group who fought to make the territory a slave state, and the free-state faction, who bitterly opposed them. This conflict had given rise to the term "Bleeding Kansas".
During the summer of 1856, Cheyenne war parties attacked four wagon trains, killing twelve people and kidnapping two. The commander of the Department of the West recommended that the Cheyenne be punished for their attacks on emigrant trains. He recommended that any action be put off until spring of 1857.
Campaign against the Cheyenne of 1857
In May 1857 preparation began for the expedition with the organizing of the 1st Cavalry under Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner at Fort Leavenworth. Sumner divided the regiment into two columns in order to circle the Cheyenne hunting grounds in central Kansas Territory. One column, under Major John Sedgwick, departed on 18 May with four companies, five Delaware scouts and forty wagons, heading west along the Arkansas River past Bent's Fort north up to the South Fork of the Platte River. There they were to meet Sumner's column, which had left Fort Leavenworth on 20 May, with four cavalry companies, 300 cattle and 51 wagons. Sumner's column went north and then west up to Fort Kearny, where three companies of the 6th Infantry Regiment and two companies of the 2nd Dragoons, five Pawnee scouts and ten more wagons were added. After considerable difficulty in crossing the South Platte River, Sumner's column and Sedgwick's columns met at the South Platte as planned on 4 July. The whole regiment then traveled east through central Kansas to their rendezvous with the Cheyenne on the Solomon river. The map in the inset shows the routes taken by both columns.Meanwhile, the Cheyenne, about three hundred strong, were midway between the two columns, probably around the Republican River, where they had spent the previous winter. The Cheyenne consisted of both Northern Cheyenne and Southern Cheyenne. They knew the U.S. Cavalry were searching for them, so they remained banded together longer than they normally did.
On 29 July 1857, the Regiment caught up with the Cheyenne on the bank of the Solomon River. As the two groups paused within about a mile of each other, the cavalry commander, Col. E.V. Sumner, gave the command "Gallop march." Both groups approached each other at full speed. Col. Sumner then commanded "Sling carbines! Draw Sabers! Charge." It was the first time sabres had been used in the West. The astonished Indians, whose medicine, administered by holy men before the battle, protected them from carbines but not from sabers, became terrified when they saw the sabers. They pivoted and ran as fast as their horses would carry them away from the troopers. The chase lasted for about seven miles before the Indians, having faster horses, pulled ahead too far for the cavalry to follow. During the brief fighting that took place during the chase, two troopers were killed and nine, including Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart, were wounded. An estimated nine Indians were killed on the field and an unknown number were wounded. The cavalry wounded and a detachment of infantry were left behind in a makeshift fort while the rest of the 1st Cavalry followed the Indians as best they could.
This engagement was the climax of The Cheyenne Expedition, which began two and a half months earlier at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. After the battle the regiment left the wounded, including J.E.B. Stuart and one company of infantry, and followed the trail of the Cheyenne south towards the Arkansas river. They found and destroyed a large abandoned village that had recently been occupied but were not able to catch the rapidly dispersing Indians. The regiment received orders to split up and send four companies under Major Sedgewick to join Col. Albert Sidney Johnston at Fort Kearney to become part of the Utah Expedition, while the other two companies were to proceed to Fort Leavenworth under Col. Sumner. However, before reaching Fort Kearney Major Sedgewick received further orders to return to Fort Leavenworth to rejoin the rest of the regiment.
The regiment was Col. Robert E. Lee's last command in the U.S. Army before the American Civil War. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the 1st Cavalry Regiment was dissolved and reorganized. Many of its commissioned officers rose to prominence during the war, including Lee as well as George B. McClellan and J.E.B. Stuart.
Civil War
As early as 1854, the War Department had been wanting to redesignate all mounted regiments as cavalry and to renumber them in order of seniority. As the 1st Cavalry Regiment was the fourth oldest mounted regiment in terms of active service, it was redesignated as the 4th United States Cavalry Regiment on 3 August 1861.Most of the regiment was assigned to the Western Theater and fought against Confederates in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. In 1861–62, two companies served with distinction in Virginia in the Army of the Potomac before being reunited with the rest of the regiment in Tennessee. Those companies fought in the major battles of First Bull Run, the Peninsula Campaign, Fredericksburg and Antietam.
The bulk of the regiment fought gallantly and continuously in the western theater from Shiloh to Macon, participating in the fights at Chickamauga, Stones River, and Battle of Nashville.