VI Corps Cavalry Badge

[WesternFederal]

Anyone have any detailed knowledge of this little dandy? The collector actually had three of them that were almost identical, the other two the sabers were black. I know a little bit about the Cavalry attached to the VI corps, the first being on the Peninsula in 62' with 2 regiments attached, and of course the famous 6th PA "Rush's lancers being the Corps HQ escort. I also know that during the Fredericksburg Campaign that George. D. Bayard led a the VI Corps Cavalry Division until his death and he was replaced by David. McM. Gregg after which the Cavalry Corps was better organized by Joe Hooker who removed all of the Cavalry "Attached" to the Infantry Commands.

[Steve Rogers]

Re: VI Corps Cavalry Badge

Unfortunately, this is one of several types of fake and fantasy corps badges that have flooded the market in the past ten to fifteen years. Most of these can be traced to few than a half dozen sources, but some are now resurfacing and making their way back on the market from the original buyers. In many cases the fakers have used Phillips book on corps badges as a pattern book, but mistaken details on badges he shows, or adopted some mistakes he made in the book. To keep sales thriving they have branched out with numerous "combination" corps badges, corps badges with unit designations attached, etc.
In this case you might get suspicious from the very start: the cavalry in the Army of the Potomac was consolidated into the cavalry corps before the adoption of the Sixth Corps badge. The only cavalry with the corps were temporary detachments of one or two companies from different units as escort at corps HQ. These rotated and it is hard (though I suppose not impossible) to imagine a cavalryman purchasing such a badge for a temporary assignment even if he was authorized to do so. (I don't think such authorization exists, but would be interested to see if I am wrong on that point.) In any case, it is certainly difficult to see a commercial maker of the period trying to cater to a market of forty or fifty men. Lastly, there would be no point in different colors of the crossed sabers- the cavalry detachments were assigned to the corps not the division, and yellow and black do not make sense on that score either.
With that knowledge under your belt, you can take a look at the seller's other offerings, and probably figure rightly that they are fakes also.