Problems
Historiographical Trends
Over time the examination of cavalry in the form of scholarly works and publications has gone through periods of highs and lows. In these periods of highs and lows, many historians have approached the topic of the cavalry in their examinations from historical periods relating to the topic. These periods are: the cavalry prior to the American Civil War in the West, the cavalry during the Civil War, and the cavalry in the west following the civil war. While these groupings make sense, the historians often fail to link the military changes of these periods to one another. The military practices of the government prior to the American Civil War left a small standing army which made the initial months of the war difficult (Longacre, General John Buford, 75). However, the government seems to have learned from these mistakes following the war and advocated for a standing army almost three times larger than it had prior to the war (Report of Secretary of War to Congress 1865, 1866). With this increase in force, meant an increase in cavalry as well. They were deployed to the west in much larger numbers to deal with native threats than they had been in the early 1800s (). In these period the cavalry have been depicted as American heroes on the West and also as brutal Indian murderers (Cozzens, Green, McChristian, Watson). These contradictions in opinion raise more questions about the cavalry and their role in the west.
In these examinations historians have agreed on basic facts about the cavalry. First the period prior to the Civil War was a lower point for the Army during which time the military was too small to effectively combat the natives on the West. The few cavalry forces available during this time proved effective but were seen as costly by the government who refused to spend more money on them. Both Prucha and Utley depict the struggle of the American Army on the frontier in great detail (Utley Frontier Regulars, Prucha). During the Civil War the cavalry were used in far greater numbers. For the first half of the war the Confederate forces proved far more effective and superior to the Union counterparts. In the second half of the War the Union had far superior numbers and material giving their larger cavalry forces an advantage. In the last half of the War the Union Cavalry Corps in particular proved how effective mobile infantry forces can be on the battlefield. In 1864 under Phil Sheridan these forces proved to the Union commanders and government how useful these forces could be. However following the American Civil War is the richest period of cavalry history in the West. From 1865 to the close of the Indian Wars in 1890 the cavalry were the most used force in the West to combat the native threats. Under the command of Phil Sheridan as commander of the Military Division of Missouri the U.S. Army launched hundreds of mounted expeditions from forts in the west during this time. Major events in Western History like the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sand Creek Massacre, the Marias Massacre, The Great Sioux War, the Red River War, and many more all were influenced by the cavalry's involvement in them.
Historical Periods of Examination
Above are two Google Ngrams that "when you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books.” The phrases selected to view above are "Cavalry" and "Sheridan". Figure 1 and Figure 2 above show how the phrase "Cavalry" occured in the corpus of books between 1800 and 2008 and the phrase "Sheridan" occured from his death in 1888 to 2008 respectively. These two graphs show the historical trends in publications on these topics. The major works discussed in this section can also be see on the "Historiography" thread on the Timeline page. The first period of historical examination of these topics can be seen on each of the Ngrams between 1800 and the 1890. This period is what will be refered to as the period of "primary sources". During this time the majority of publications were written by people who fought in the cavalry. The spike in the graphs following 1860 is an example of this period. Many soldiers, volunteers, veterans, and generals wrote their stories and experiences in the cavalry during the American Civil War. While this period provided historians with a wealth of primary sources, it also saw the twisting of stories. Some soldiers intentionally changed the narrative to make themselves or others appear better in more favorable light. As such these works must be taken with a grain of salt and fact checked. During this period Phil Sheridan was alive and commanding forces in the West, as such newspapers and articles were often published containing his name. Following his death in 1888 his name appeared less for a few years.
Official Records Published
At the turn of the century there was a spike in publications again in what will be referred to as the "Official Records" period. Beginning in 1864, the United States government began to collect records from the American Civil War from both the North and the South in an attempt to preserve the history of the War. Over the next three decades thousands of documents were gathered for this purpose. Between 1881 and 1901 the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" were published by the United States Government including 128 books, 70 volumes, and total 138,579 pages of primary sources. This wealth of new information on the American Civil War led to an influx of publications on the War as hundreds of historians and hobbyists alike began to reevaluate the American Civil War. This period also shortly followed the death of Phil Sheridan and the publication of his memoirs in the months following in 1888. As such his life and his story was examined in detail as well and reached its peak in publication history. While this period saw an influx of publications on the cavalry, the majority of these pertained to their exploits in the American Civil War not on their involvement in the West.
The last minor spike in the graphs begins in the 1950s and peaks in 1962. This period which will be referred to as the "Trained Historian" period continued on to 1980. During this time many trained and educated historians like Francis Paul Prucha and Robert Utley created the foundations of modern examination of Western History by reexamining the West. During this time they created what many consider the foundational works to the military history of the West: Utley's Frontiersmen in Blue (1967) and Frontier Regulars (1973), as well as Prucha's The Sword of the Republic (1969). In the examinations of the American Army of the West during this period, these historians examined a wealth of military and government documents to tell the story of the military on the West in the nineteenth century. Early histories of the West became associated with the tale of the white officers like Custer and Sheridan whose mythic reputations placed them at the center of historical examination. While modern scholars criticize the lack of voice given to the Native Americans in these works, they provided the field with valuable and detailed synthesis of the actions of the military in the West and continue to be referenced by present historians.
The works of the "Trained Historian" period allowed those that followed to build on their works. The last period that can be seen on the graph and the period that historians are currently in is what’s known as the "New Western History" which began around 1980. These present historians have built on the works of those before them and have begun to reevaluate Western history from a more regional perspective that includes issues of race, class, gender, and environment as well as the traditional frontier perspectives of politics, economics, and myth-making. Rather than focusing on the influential white man, these historians examine the story of the Indians, women, minorities, and many more. Some of these works have examined the lesser known events of Western History like Paul Hedren's Great Sioux War Orders of Battle which provides an in-depth analysis of the Great Sioux War which has often been overcrowded with examinations of Custer leaving the rest of the War all but forgotten. Other works like Andrew Graybill's The Red and the White not only examine a lesser known event, like the Marias Massacre in this case, but also tells the stories of the native tribes involved in this and the Americans as well. Graybill not only depicts the historical events that took place but also examine how these events impacted the survivors after the fact. Whites were haunted by the events of this massacre and Graybill shows more of their humanity than just being vengeful mindless killing machines. This present period of Western History has exposed just how many layers there are to the story. While the secondary scholarship now examines a broader range of topics, it is important to note that the cavalry play a role in almost all of the events examined in some way, further showing how connected they are to Western History.
Significance and Importance of the U.S. Cavalry in the Post-Civil War American West
The importance of the Cavalry derives from their involvement in this period of history. The Cavalry were the most deployed units in the West to deal with the Indians and were the frontline soldiers of the U.S. Army. During this time Sheridan was the most influential military figure in the West and called the most prominent Indian fighter. By understanding the role that the cavalry and Sheridan played in the history of the American West we further understand U.S. military history and the history of the American West. Histories of the American West are no longer viewed as sub categories and are interwoven stories, in order to understand the tales of the Indians or minorities in the west it is important to understand the actions of the cavalry and how they impacted the stories of the other groups in the west. This project intends to further build on the works of New Western History and examined the Cavalry in detail to show how they are connect to the history of the West.
Ultimately, previous examinations of Western history from the era of foundational historians like Robert Utley tended to separate the history of the west into categories. The tales of the military’s conquest and story of the Indians were separate fields. With changes to modern scholarship and a more detailed understanding of the West, thanks in large part to the “New Western History,” it is no longer possible to examine these fields completely separately. Military history, and the history of the cavalry, is the history of the West. The history of the minorities in the region directly ties to the history of the military. The story of the natives cannot be fully told without including the acts of the government and the military against them. The history of the West is made up by the history of all these groups. In Sherry Smith's article in the Western Historical Quarterly titled “Lost Soldiers: Re-Searching the Army in the American West” (1998) she examines the present state of the history of the American West. In this article Smith said, any synthesis of Western History is incomplete without including the role of the military, natives, and minority groups. Historians have yet to fully achieve Smith’s call for all encompassing examinations of the West. However the recent works of Paul Hedren (After Custer) and Peter Cozzens (The Earth is Weeping) provide better examinations of the military in the West and a hope for the future. Future historians and the histories they write on the American West will continue to shift from emphasizing one of these minority groups and instead pay tribute to the collective, showing how each group’s actions impacted the broader picture. New approaches like gender, race, ethnohistory, anthropology, and the examination of Native American history provides western military history a place to move forward from. The history of the west is by no means a dying field and will continue to grow as long as historians and readers alike continue to challenge our understanding of American history.