Author: Colonel Hampton S. Thomas

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2015-05-10

Total Pages: 30

ISBN-13: 9781512135114

Some Personal Reminiscences of Service in the Cavalry - The Army of the Potomac By Colonel Hampton S. Thomas The Army of the Potomac was the major Union Army in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The Army of the Potomac underwent many structural changes during its existence. The army was divided by Ambrose Burnside into three grand divisions of two corps each with a Reserve composed of two more. Hooker abolished the grand divisions. Thereafter the individual corps, seven of which remained in Virginia, reported directly to army headquarters. (Joseph Hooker also created a Cavalry Corps by combining units that previously had served as smaller formations.) In late 1863, two corps were sent West, and--in 1864--the remaining five corps were recombined into three. Burnside's IX Corps, which accompanied the army at the start of Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign, was added later. 'At the earnest solicitation of my many military friends, I have thrown together some reminiscences of my personal experience as a cavalryman during the late War of the Rebellion. Though my four years of campaigning began with a three months' tour of tramping with the "dough-boys" under General Patterson in the spring and early summer of 1861, the latter was only a prolonged picnic. Two days before I was mustered out of the Ninth Pennsylvania Infantry I enrolled myself in the First Pennsylvania Cavalry, and soon discovered that I was more fitted for riding a horse than for trudging through the slush and mud with a heavy "Harper's Ferry" musket on my shoulder. I will pass over the tedious instructions of the school of the trooper, mounted and dismounted, and begin my reminiscences as a full-fledged Yankee cavalryman.' The First Pennsylvania Cavalry, which originally belonged to the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, began its experience as a fighting regiment in a skirmish and charge near Dranesville, Virginia, on November 26, 1861, and, strange to relate, the first man killed was our assistant surgeon, Dr. Alexander. The regiment's first experience of heavy firing was in the battle of Dranesville, on December 20. This engagement was fought by a brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, commanded by General E. O. C. Ord, my regiment supporting Eastman's battery. The enemy had the same number of regiments and guns that we had, and their commanding officer was General J. E. B. Stuart, but Ord outgeneraled him and gave us the victory, the rebels retreating from the field.