General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

[DaveGink]

Hello,

For an event coming up in a couple of weeks at a local historical site, our federal cavalry group (normally 2nd US Cav) was asked to portray the 9th Michigan Cavalry while assigned to be the personal bodyguard of General Kilpatrick during Sherman's march to the sea.

Other than being a late-war federal western theater cav impression under Kilpatrick and Sherman, I have no information on this unit or what the impression entails.

The camp guidelines for the event are as follows:

"Military reenactors are strongly encouraged to adopt campaign-style camping for the weekend, as this is most appropriate to the March to the Sea scenario. As such, if you elect to bring tents, please restrict them to shelter halves and a limited number of A-frames, unless otherwise cleared with the coordinators."

My questions are these ... Would the general's bodyguard be out foraging and waging "total war"? Would they be using shelter halves and shebangs? Sleeping under the stars? Garrison style? Would it be appropriate to have things like hard tack boxes, foraged items, and mess equipment in camp? Items transported on wagons? Would the troopers have had the time to create a log stool, or hard tack box table? Scavanged items from civilian homes? Or would they be bare-bones and constantly on the move? This is an impression that I am largely unfamiliar with, so I'm looking for any insight and information I can gather and references to look in to.

Thank you!
Dave

[wavey1us]

Re: General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

Dave,
A good place to start is a lot of the Memoirs from those that participated in the March to the Sea. Sherman was very particular in directing what could be taken and what limitations on weight. Since they were constantly on the move the likelihood of camp furniture would be somewhat slim. So far as scavenged items from civilian homes, again Sherman and Division Commanders issued explicit orders regarding entering civilian homes along the route of march. Sherman issued Special Field Order 120 that specifically dictated how this was to be accomplished. For example, the order was very specific as to when soldiers could enter dwellings, dictating rules for gathering foodstuffs, determining what type of property was to be destroyed, outlining how the exchange of horses and mules would be accomplished, and most importantly discriminated between who’s property to confiscate. In his Memoirs, Grant verified this order when he stated: “Strict injunctions were issued against pillaging, or otherwise unnecessarily annoying the people; but everything in shape of food for man and forage for beast was taken.” Also, Sherman issued specific orders regarding the act of foraging and how it was to be conducted. Foraging parties were given the command to forage liberally. However, there were certain restrictions: 1) parties were under the command of “one or two discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind…or whatever is needed by the command;” 2) soldiers were forbidden from entering dwellings or to trespass. Sherman commented with regards to some of the foraging parties that he witnessed. Whenever someone “fell across his observation” in the act of foraging he stated “I reproved the man, explained that foraging must be limited to the regular parties properly detailed to the regular commissaries.”

Major General Jacob Cox, second in command of the Army of the Ohio, stated that field transportation of the army was also regulated:
"Each regiment on the march was allowed one wagon and one ambulance, and to the company was assigned a pack-mule in common for carrying their mess-kit and personal baggage. A similar reduction to the minimum reached through the brigade, division, and corps headquarters, and the impedimenta were everywhere as small as was consistent with the performance of the necessary official work of an army organization. "
In accordance with General Orders Number Seven, April 13, 1864, Sherman was very specific as to what equipment will be carried in the wagons: “Wagons assigned to the respective corps would be reserved to carry ammunition, cooking utensils, and provisions such as bread or flour, salt, sugar, coffee, and bacon or pork.” Sherman directed the amount of equipment that officers and soldiers would carry. For the campaign each officer and soldier was required to carry on his horse or person food and clothing enough for five days.


Hitchcock, Henry. Marching with Sherman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927
Nichols, George W., Maj. The Story of the Great March. Massachusetts: Applewood Books, 1865.
Lieber, Francis. General Orders No. 100: The Lieber Code. New Haven: Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, 1863. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp.
Pepper, George W. Personal recollections of Sherman’s Campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. Ohio: Hugh Dunne, 1866.
Sherman, William T. Personal Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, Volume II. New York: Jenkins and McCowan, 1891.
Sherman, William T. Sherman’s Selected Correspondence of the Civil War. Edited by Brooks Simpson and Jean Berlin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

[DaveGink]

Re: General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

Bill, Excellent information, thank you very much. This is very helpful!

I have a general knowledge of the cavalry's role during Sherman's march to the sea, but I'm not sure of the role of Kilpatrick's bodyguard? Was Kilpatrick and his headquarters moving forward as quickly as rest of his cavalry division? would they have been out foraging, scouting, and destroying southern infrastructure? If I'm not mistaken, his cavalry commanders were under the same orders as the enlisted men to travel light with wagons being used only for food and ammo. But again, does this apply to his cavalry bodyguard and Kilpatrick. I think it would have been easier to just portray the average cavalry trooper on campaign during the march to the sea.

[wavey1us]

Re: General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

Dave,
Check The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaign. Most of the team the cavalry was busy engaged with Wheeler and his cavalry, Confederate irregualrs and the likes.

[DaveGink]

Re: General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

Thanks Bill!! I just ordered that book used on Amazon. I also ordered 'Sherman's Horsemen: Union Cavalry Operations in the Atlanta Campaign'. I'm also currently reading 'Soldiering, The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull'. He's infantry but goes into great detail about the March to the Sea and mentions the cavalry quite a bit. I'm not confident I'll find anything directly pertaining to what those cavalrymen assigned as Kilpatrick's body guard were doing, but at least I should be able to get a good understanding of what it was like for the cavalry overall as they moved through Georgia.

Thanks again!
Dave

[wavey1us]

Re: General Kilpatrick's personal bodyguard cavalry impression?

About the only description of Kilpatrick's cavalry unit was their move through the Carolina's and the Battle at Monroe Crossroads. There is a book about the battle and the author goes into pretty good detail about the battle and the events prior to the battle.