Circle C Cowboys - America's Cold War Cavalry

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For the horse fans amongst us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7D6huURHAY&t=6s

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[gamekeeper]

Interesting but they seem to be riding English style rather than Western. Personally I see this as a mistake, perhaps the cavalry have to ride that way but it never made any sense to me or any horses that I know.

[Bill in Oregon]

GK, I believe the men were riding modified late-issue McClellan saddles, the Model 1928. This basic saddle served our mounted troops since George McClellan designed it in 1859.

[gamekeeper]

GK, I believe the men were riding modified late-issue McClellan saddles, the Model 1928. This basic saddle served our mounted troops since George McClellan designed it in 1859.

x
I more refering to the tight reins, when I took riding lessons I refused to ride English, luckily I learnt to ride on the European American Quarter Horse Champion, a very well schooled American trained Quarter Horse. I was told that, if your butt hurt your stirrups were to long if your knees hurt your stirrups were to short, if everything hurt you'd got it right...

[Bill in Oregon]

GK, yes, our cavalry has always ridden closer to English than Western as far as I can tell. We modeled our earlier dragoons upon the French military practices of the day.

[DocRock]

As explained in the video, their mounts were ex-German forces, so they were trained to the European style of riding. Cavalry have always been so trained because, in part, when engaging with the sabre, shorter stirrups provide additional reach. Many of the irregular cavalry in the Civil War, who often fought as mounted dragoons, used what we would consider a more Western saddle and style.

[Bill in Oregon]

Good stuff Doc!

[gamekeeper]

Good stuff Doc!

+1....

[Bill in Oregon]

Doc, my great-granddad enlisted with the Third Wisconsin Cavalry early in the Civil War, and his unit spent most of its enlistment fighting "Secesh Rebs" along the Missouri Border area, suffering a defeat at Baxter Springs. In his diaries he complained about having to do saber practice. When he mustered out, he took his McClellan with him. He was a harness maker after the war.

[DocRock]

That's pretty cool to have that family history. It's no wonder he was unimpressed with sabre drill.

The history of cavalry in the US military is rather unique, and quite different from the cavalries of the European powers. Because US cavalry was born after the widespread adoption of rifles firearms by the military, it was never primarily built around the sabre or lance. Indeed the first official US cavalry were the Mounted Rifles.

With Waterloo having established that the infantry square in combination with artillery effectively made blade and lance equipped cavalry obsolete, it should have been the end of such units. If that message hadn't sunk in, then Raglan's disastrous destruction of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in the Crimea should have. Yet, the European powers continued to maintain hussar, chasseur, uhlan, and a multitude of other lance and blade dependent cavalry units through WWI.

In the US, cavalry was about mobility. And the advent of the Colt and Remington revolvers relegated the sabre to a tool for the exploitation of break ours and routs. Both the Confederacy, gifted withdraw brilliant Stuart, and the Union, less gifted with leadership but possessed of some courageous leaders like Custer, recognized the primacy of the firearm in modern battle and were very comfortable with the cavalry as mounted infantry, dragoon, etc. Indeed, in two end of Century contemporaneous wars, the Boer War and the Spanish American War, the role of mounted rifles was primary.

One of the key criteria for the trials that have us the 1911 pistol was that it should fire a cartridge suitable for disabling a horse. While the Europeans fiddled with little euro-pellets in 7.65 and 9mm, the role of firearms in cavalry engagements, a legacy of the Civil War, gave us the 45acp.

Tens of thousands of cavalry armed with swords and lances, as well as rifles, plagued the rear areas of both sides of the Western Front in WWI, using up immense resources and sitting idle, waiting for the infantry to punch a hole in the other side's line. Even when the British brought the first tank corps to bear at Cambrai, the plan was for 10,000 cavalry, including lancers from Indian regiments, to exploit the breakthrough given that tanks rarely exceeded 10mph top speed and rarely made 10 miles without breaking down.

Cavalry did however play a major role in the war. But in the Middle East, under Allenby. And they weren't the storied regiments of Olde England. They were predominantly the mounted rifles of the Commonwealth countries, the Australian Light Horse chief among them. Mainly conscrpt troops, they were no swordsmen. There were several great cavalry actions against the Turks and a few actual charges at sword point chasing broken Turk infantry.

So, it's all the more interesting that post WWII, our boys in the Constabulary were riding European trained cavalry mounts, trained to the blade, while keeping order in occupied Germany and keeping an eye on the Cossack hordes to the East.

[gamekeeper]

Interesting, thanks for posting...

[Bill in Oregon]

Doc, what a fabulous post. Oh, the history, the drama and the sacrifice of both men and horses! So much bravery and so much blood.