American Cavalry in the Revoltion

[mcgrunt]

I just finished " 1776" . Excellent book . But I started wandering about the seeming lack of Cavalry in the Continental Army . Cavalry is expensive that I understand , but does anyone know why there seems to have been little cavalry effort by the Continental Army ?

[revwardoc]

The "fault" in that issue is mostly due to George Washington. Despite being an excellent horseman himself, he placed little value in cavalry in the military beyond using them as scouts, dispatch riders, and flanking guards. He much prefered the concept of dragoons who would ride to a battle and fight dismounted. He did allow Casimir Pulaski to for his own minimilist cavalry unit, the Pulaski Legion. Pulaski tried desperately to convince Washington of the value of cavalry using the example of the Polish cavalry victory over a large Turkish army at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, but GW was very much an infantryman. Besides the Pulaski Legion, The Continental army had 4 regiments of dragoons that, on paper, fielded about 500 men each. But, as you stated, cavalry was very expensive. Mounts had to be purchased, and, due to hard usage and perennial shortages, required frequent replacement. Saddles and other "horse furniture" had to be procured. Weapons suitable for mounted men were also in short supply sabers could be manufactured, but pistols and carbines had to be reported. Due to this combination of limiting factors, no Continental cavalry regiment ever had much more than three hundred men, and only bout half of these could be mounted. More often, the regiments mustered no more than 150 men. Overall, except for brief skirmishes with their British counterparts, American dragoons never saw extensive action.

[colmurph]

The top Cavalry Officer in the Revolution was "Light Horse Harry" Lee, His son was Marse Robert.