Dismounted cavalry equipment

[Strawfoot]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

"There is a better hobby out there, this is my invitation to both of you, Come to Picketts Mill. I'll supply you both with mounts and give you a better understanding of "dismounted fighting." If you don't go, you don't know."


John Popolis,

If you are serious, and have passion for this hobby, then you should take Coley up on this offer. There is no better mounted group in the hobby than The Critters, and the experience may change your life. I am not being dramatic here.

By the way, I could never do dismounted cav. I would not be able to stand the shameful ridicule and jeering I'd get from my brothers in the infantry arm of service.

Oh yes, we give it to them good.

Mike Phineas
Arlington, TX
Infantry, AoP

[KyCavMajor]

Dismounted cavalry- kinda long, sorry

in researching western theater cavalry I have come to the conclusion there were in fact cavalrymen without horses, a sigificant percentage, for extended periods of time, both Union and Confederate.Some in Garrison, some in the field.
A return for the 7th KY US Company G,in Dec 1863 shows 15 more men than horses. In fact there were only 38 enlisted men, meaning 23 mounted versus 15 dismounted. They were not in garrison,but thrown out as pickets, I will have to see the return again to name the exact post.
Wheeler's cavalry manned trenchs in Atlanta for extended periods, their horses far to the rear.
How many times did Forrest march dismounted men into Union territory to obtain mounts?
Russeu (Spelling?) in mounting his raid had to dismount some units to provide mounts for the outfits that were going as late as 1864.

There are, if we are to be honest, hundreds of such examples.

Now, please note, I am the proud owner of several horses and have never done "cavalry without horses" myself. Anybody need one? I have several for sale.

I DO believe there is a spot in the hobby for those not blessed with a mount that wish to do Cavalry... The thing is it needs to be done right. Right gear, right drill, same standards as anyone else for that matter. A confederate cavalryman without a horse should be indistiguishable from an infantryman in almost all respects. We except artillery with out horses after all. In our unit we are getting all our guns horse drawn, we have four of the six mobile now,but it will be a while before we get the gunners all mounted. Our dismounted stay with the guns. In camp they stand picket duty and clean the picket line, haul hay, ectera, under the supervision of horse owners,all the "joys" of horse ownership without the pleasure of actually getting to ride. To me this shows real determination. Some will progress into riding, they are taking lessons, trail riding, buying equipment, saving for the day they can obtain an animal. We bring extra horses to events to help them along. They are allowed to DRILL ONLY until they reach a point where they are safe.
I encourage anyone who wishs to start off as "cavalry without horses" to buy infantry gear for several reasons. Not the least is the aforementioned resembalnce to an infantryman and if they decide cavalry is not where they will end up, they have the gear to go infantry.
Just my humble opinion.

[GeraldTodd]

Re: Dismounted cavalry- kinda long, sorry

It doesn't matter that cavalry often deliberately campaigned on foot - without being rearmed - without being redesignated. BUT, every one of those units at some point during their carreers performed as mounted cavalry.

The average "dismounted" reenactor has nothing to do with horses, wants nothing to do with horses, and reenacts as "cavalry" to escape the regimentation he perceives in the infantry, and to have the cool toys; piping, pistols, yellow hat cords, Garth Brooks hats, extra cylinders, multiple pistols, and basically do the cartoon cavalry thing.

You can all jump up and down denying it - but over 30 years - THAT is what I saw and heard - and nothing's changed. The dismounted is deliberately farb, and puts great effort and money into being farb.

The few exceptions are...I can't think of any. I know of no full-time dismounted unit that is authentic in camp, gear, and drill - or tries to be. Those that do are actually part-time mounted units. How can anyone argue that dismounted is historically correct when their basic impression makes extras in a C western look authentic by comparison?

A "cavalry" unit must be involved with horses. They may not be a full-time mounted unit, they may have to borrow and rent, they may only do a couple of events mounted a year, but to call themselves cavalry - there must be a horse in the equation. That's just how it is. This is the route you must take to keep up with the authentic side of the hobby.

The hobby is full of folks that want all the fun but don't want to do the work. You can drag out people by the thousands for a farb fest powder burner like Gettysburg, but you never see a large turn-out for outpost style events. No one wants to be a clerk. No one wants to deal with logistics. No one wants to do picket duty for two days. No one wants to do the mundane. No one wants to do what those men did most of the time. Despite all the hype that we're doing this to "educate the public and ourselves" no one wants to do the educational stuff - they just want to do the battles. Dismounted cavalry represents the extreme in this attitude. They've earned it and now they're stuck with it, and there's but one way out of it - and that's on the back of a horse.

[Texian]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

When I started reenacting back 1994 it was with a dismounted cavalry unit. Before I ever set foot on the field at the “Great Battles of the Civil War” in Memphis, Tennessee, various members of the unit presented the “justifications” for why we were cavalry and not infantry. For two years, every event I went to was accompanied by the looks and jeers of others, not because I was participating in an over-represented aspect of a small detail in the life of a cavalry soldier, but because I was a farb. I looked it because I dressed it, I walked it, I talked it, and I looked as though I didn’t care. Well, I did care, and decided that if I am to do cavalry, I am going to do it right. So, on less than $24,000 per year salary I began acquiring what I needed to improve my kit as I could afford to, borrowing a horse, and eventually buying a horse and trailer. No, I didn’t immediately purchase a new kit from Childs or the like, but I started reading the Watchdog, listening to the likes of Todd Kern and Nick Nichols on some of the other forums along with asking questions off line on how to improve me and my unit. My horse, well, he wasn’t a masterpiece of equine development, but damn he was good. In the first six-months of my true cavalry experience he showed me what I didn’t know, what you can’t know unless you’re at stand to horse in freezing weather, without farby gauntlets, and the two of you carrying all that you care to because most of the crap you might have considered taking along isn’t worth the bother. My unit, well, they were and are a bunch of good guys. I liked them then and I like them now. But, folks get into this for different reasons, and there is no changing them. Hell, may be it’s wrong to even try to change them, I know it was for me. I ended up taking a sabbatical from the hobby to decide what was most important to me and to spend more time with family. During that time more quality cavalry units have cropped up with the Critters and the Buttermilk Rangers, both good groups based on the standards of this forum. For me though I am developing a quality infantry impression now, because that’s what I want and need to do. But I’ll tell you, good cavalry appears vastly different from both poorly done cavalry and dismounted by leaps and bounds. They don’t do drive-bys. They avoid saber tinking like the plague. They walk different, because they’re stiff or sore when they finally do get to the show. They’re up early and to bed late, because they live their horse’s schedule, not their own. If they wear brogans, you’ll notice scuffing and wear that can only be achieved by a stirrup and long rides. If they wear proper riding boots and ride correctly, the same can be said as well. If a spectator asks them about the difference in their trousers or some other part of their kit, their response is not just a pat answer of increasing the wear, but to elaborate on the other benefits or deficiencies they’ve learned from the long hard rides. He smells different than his dismounted counterpart, and his kit, no matter how much care is taken, is littered with horsehair (This is rather obvious I know, but my wife brought this to my attention numerous times). And then there are the changes on the inside, having to rely on an animal and the impact that makes on you is the least of it. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything in the world. And even though my life’s course has changed to where infantry is the way to go, I find it to be farby-thinking to justify doing an impression you can’t replicate no matter how hard you try simply because you just don’t “know”, you can’t replicate the details of the look, and you most importantly can’t think like someone who has or had a horse. You can’t get these things any other way, except by living with a horse. That’s my two-cents.
---Ed

[GBaylor]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

I think Ed just about sums it up.

John Sweeney

[John Popolis]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

Welp, I guess the bottom line is, where the original question was concerned, the dismounted cavalryman is equipped no differently than the mounted cavalryman, save horse and horse equipments.

I think he should do as Lester often suggests: dismounted mounted infantry. Get a top-notch infantry kit, slap on some spurs, and you're set to go!

Well, I think I've been able to digest the info so far. And while I'm not terribly pleased by some of the negative commentary/name-calling that has taken place, the sensible arguments... well, make sense. So I'll drop the thought of a dismounted impression.

But, given the route this discussion has taken:

O.k., so, cavalry has horses, mounted infantry has horses. Why would a mount-less impression of mounted infantry be more acceptable? They did the same amount of work with their animals, although many of the animals in the mounted inf. were mules, not horses. Unless tactics (thus, intent) makes that much of a difference... but in any case, a mounted infantryman will have as much contact (at least on the march) with his horse/mule as a cavalryman. Even the uniforms that the units wore (Wilder's "Lightning Brigade" of Federal mounted infantry, for example) wore cavalry uniforms.

So, how could a dismounted mounted infantry impression be any more acceptible?

[CJSchumacher]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

They did the same amount of work with their animals, although many of the animals in the mounted inf. were mules, not horses.

So, how could a dismounted mounted infantry impression be any more acceptible?

John,

The mule statement is a blanket statement and while, yes true for some units...may not be the standard. I'd just be carefull about lumping things as they almost always prove otherwise.

Wilder's men, actually, took to the habit of taking the yellow trim of of their mounted service jackets to specifically distinguish themselves from regular cavalry.

And the "dismounted mounted infantry" statement is made in jest. Its a long-running joke.

Chris

[SCTiger]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

On the subject of Mounted Infantry and the wearing of the Cavalry MSJ, I remember a talk at Chickamauga 140 that the Mounted Infantry didn't like being associated with the Cavalry, so they tore the gold trim off the MSJ's.

So the dismounted-mounted infantryman would look like a plain infantryman. Many of the pictures I had seen of the Union Mounted Infantry at Chickamauga NMBP at the Wilder Brigade display wore unadorned sack coats, brogans, sky blue pants e.g. everything that an infantryman would. So every infantryman could call himself "dismounted infantry" but Why!??!

Schumacher you beat me too it!

Greg Deese
Confused at this whole idea mess

[CJSchumacher]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

So the dismounted-mounted infantryman would look like a plain infantryman. Many of the pictures I had seen of the Union Mounted Infantry at Chickamauga NMBP at the Wilder Brigade display wore unadorned sack coats, brogans, sky blkue pants e.g. everything that an infantryman would.

Greg,

Good additional info. The Company of Military Historians did a great study on Wilder's brigad complete with a color plate of representative unit members. They in fact were issued as infantry, of coarse getting those cool spencer rifles. You're quite correct regarding the standard uniforming and the article also states how they carried their gear on horseback. Most men managed a way to cut the knapsack so that they could attach it to the cantle of the McClellan saddle. (I tried to figure a way to do this without cutting for my mounted forager impression at the Bentonville preservation march in 2000, before giving up and just carrying my knapsack on my back) They also took to the habit of hanging their cartridge boxes by the cartridge box belt on the offside pommel.

There's also the phenomenal picture of the guy on a grey with surcingle as a breaststrap holding a spencer with sky blues, sack coat, boots and black slouch hat in EoG.

Anyway, a really great unit...even if this is offtopic!

Chris

[marlin teat]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

For what it's worth,

A lot of the animosity toward dismounted cav. is second and third generation hand-me-down in this hobby. There are a few of us still around that remember the mid and early 80's when it seemed that everyone was a dismounted cavalryman. In those days it was the mainstream fashion to have as much yellow striping and feathers and as many pistols and sabers as a fellow could carry (remember, this was over 20 years ago).

Believe it or not the what we think of as "mainstream" began as a backlash to the dismounted cavalry much as the authentic movement has distanced themselves from the tent city campers. My first unit was a hostile split from a dismounted unit. The dismounts slowly fazed out when events began banning them and the unit that split off is still around somewhere in mainstream land.

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I thought you should know the reason that the term "dismounted cavalry" stirs such passion.

[KyCavMajor]

the point that is being overlooked is this...

A poor kit is a poor kit. It does not matter if it is sitting on a horse or not.It is not that there was never any "cavalry with out horses", the arguements against doing run the gamut of "its always been done farby" and "there are no respectable units" to "only lazy reenactors do it". But to just say it CAN'T be done because it HASN"T been done RIGHT seems a little pessimistic.
I personaly would rather see a nice kit on a "cavalryman without a horse" than another well mounted, yellow trimmed polyester jacketed, east german surplus booted cowboy.
Mr Adair and others would still be a good impression if they didn't bring a horse, and would add a lot to any event.
There ARE many who view "cavalry with out horses" as an easy way out, not wanting to do the work. All the while wondering why people scoff at his Walmart,"hey, they had them, I saw a picture once" Hawkin rifle.
Perhaps the next generation of renactor can change the way it has always been done. I can remember when there was no good cavalry at all(its still pretty rare), no good infantry, and we are just starting to see better artillery.
I say if someone wants to try to change the world, God Bless em.

[John Popolis]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

O.k., as a joke dismounted mounted infantry makes more sense. Otherwise, it just seems like semantics.

I've got a book on Wilder's brigade, and it has quite a few pics of soldiers in MSJ's (not exclusively, of course). Although the author said the men had piping on their jackets, I couldn't see much, if any... I assumed I was just not used to looking for that kind of detail in a b&w photo.

As a general opinion, a really good mounted infantry impression should look like infantry, except you should have a horse. Is this somewhat accurate?

I think this is somewhat germane to the cavalry discussion because of the, admittedly superficial, resemblance between cavalry and mounted infantry. To do one right, the other will (probably) be wrong. Plus, I'm trying to sort out information and, hopefully, get some kind of object lesson from all this.

Anyhoo, thank you all.

[GBaylor]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

John,

Without trying to come across in demeaning way,there just is no way to portray (within the context of this forum) a cavalryman or mounted infantryman without the mount. That's not to say that other areas of the reenacting hobby wouldn't welcome you with open arms. It's akin to being a tanker without a tank (all dressed up and nowhere to go). There is no shame in doing infantry. I did it for over twenty five years in both reenacting and the real world. However, the folks who promote this forum are trying to take our section of the hobby to the next level (not was is merely acceptable, but what is correct and accurate as a whole). As has been posted previously, you can't achieve that as a full-time dismounted cavalryman or dismounted/mounted infantryman. If you ask advice from those who's mindset is thus, be prepared for the answers.

Respectfully,
John Sweeney

[Outrider]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

RJ, I do not know you. I have never seen your impresssion but take Coley up on his offer to mount you for Pickett's Mill, after you have spent a weekend tending your horse, mounting at all hours, riding hard to a fight dismounting to go in and scrambling through the thick woods to mount and get out quickly so you can repeat the whole process a dozen times or so in one day, then when its over tend your horse NOT yourself then my friend you MAY come to understand why we as MOUNTED cav find most dismounted an insult.
Patrick Mcallister
CritterCompany
ps. believe me we know what it is like to leave your horse FAR to the rear and have to haul yourself and all weapons into a fight then back "over yonder" to our horses. do you?

[MountedRifle]

Re: Dismounted cavalry equipment

As one who is trying to break the mold on Cavalry and do an authentic Mounted Infantry impression the mount is essential. Equipped as infantry with the speed of a mount is the best of both worlds in my opinion. Some have said that Wilder's Lightening Brigade and others were the forerunners of the modern mechanised army. Those who want to be a part of what we are doing but don't have a horse, tack, saddles, etc. must be willing to learn. Also, those who whatever reason who cannot are referred to another group we work with who are strictly infantry.

Mark White
16th Missouri Mounted Infantry (Jackman's)
Lone Jack Mess