For neophytes to the study of the American Civil War, the function played by the pre-war Federal Regular Army before, during and after continues to reside a bit in obscurity. Officers from the antebellum army played large roles on both sides during the war, though they rarely achieved greatness remaining a part of the Federal Regular Army, even if staying true to their oath as army officers. Those officers usually took up new commissions in the many militia units raised by the different States – again on both sides. Rapid promotion and the chance to play much larger roles than they played before the war represented key factors in the exodus. Which comes back to the question, what role did the Regular Army play during the war?
When I first started writing this post, I figured it would be a short one, but I was wrong. One story leads to another and another. So, to not write a book in one post, let us look at the Regular Army at the eve of the American Civil War. Then we look toward the gathering of its disparate units and its place in the whole scheme of things pertaining to the Federal government’s efforts to put down the rebellion in the South. This post also includes a bit about the turmoil in Texas and New Mexico where several Regular Army units becme involved. The following posts will deal with the two main groups of Regular Army participation during the war with the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Cumberland.
AMERICA AND AN ARMY
The American government never thought too keenly about a large-standing army. First off, an army cost money, money that the fledgling nation had little of after the turmoil of the Revolution. Second, an army could always be considered a potential threat to the government, the example of Napoleon in France demonstrated a contemporary warning.
During the history of colonial development, British regiments did get posted to the colonies (especially during times of warfare with the French for control in the west and Canada). But colonial defenses against Native Americans and foreign intruders – i.e. French or Spanish, rested for the most part with colonial volunteers.
A regular Continental army did develop during the Revolution, yet still, much of the war on the colonial side was undertaken by regiments raised by the different colonies. The Continental Army never saw more than 48,000 men under arms at one time augmented by the colonial militia during campaigns.
THE ARMY AFTER THE REVOLUTION
With the end of the Revolution, only a small force remained on duty at frontier outposts and West Point. By the winter of 1784, the army, newly re-created as the Regular Army of the United States on 3 June 1784, dropped to 500 infantrymen and 100 artillerists under the command of Henry Knox. A regular standing force was not trusted by politicians of the time because of their distaste for the foreign mercenaries making up large parts of the British and other foreign armies. Military service transformed from career to civic responsibility. Service became seen as voluntary and temporary, men called to the flag when circumstances called for them.
Before the Mexican War in 1846, the United States Regular Army – renamed in 1791 – was still a small affair consisting of around 7,500 men. In comparison, Belgium had an army of nearly 30,000 while Mexico’s army consisted of over 18,000 regulars and an additional 10,000 militia serving actively. The problem with fielding a small army during peacetime led to expensive and chaotic rushes to expand during times of emergency. The War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War all proved similarly as would the Spanish-American War did in 1898.
The Army resided under direct control of the Department of War led by a civilian politician. Further hampering the effectiveness of the army beyond its small size and dispersed condition spread over a multitude of outposts along the frontiers was the command structure. Nine separate bureaus oversaw the army’s logistical and administrative workings in autonomous fashion. There was a commanding general, but his command over the bureau chiefs – many who had direct access to Congress – remained nebulous.
GLACIAL PACE OF CHANGE
At the time of the Mexican War, the combat forces of the army included fourteen regiments: eight infantry, four artillery and two dragoon. There was no retirement option for officers and soldiers. Senior officers tended to serve until they died which seriously caused a paralysis for promotion throughout the ranks. Decades passed before an officer gained a promotion. Other contributing factors included an officer’s promotion often limited to what was available in one’s own regiment.
Education of both officers and enlisted soldiers lacked. Many of the senior officers had little professional military training. Over 30% of the enlisted were illiterate. Men who served in the Army were looked down upon by society at large. They were thought of as lazy, unable to engage in normal civil life.
Slowly, things did change for the army especially with the 1801 establishment of the Military Academy at West Point, especially in lieu of the 1799 Quasi-War with France. But as time went on, the only way to gain a commission in the Army was through West Point, something frowned upon in the Jacksonian Republic of the 1830s. West Point was seen as a breeding ground for aristocracy, forcing the academy to be on its guard for possible closure.
MEXICAN WAR WAKES THE SLUMBER
The Mexican War saw the Regular Army increase from the now fifteen regiments (one more cavalry regiment – mounted rifles – added) with ten new regiments raised for a one-years’ service (nine infantry one cavalry). Most of the men serving in these regiments were foreign born men which continued to be the case throughout the 19th century. Augmenting the Regular Army ranks were the militia from the different States who served alongside the Regulars. In the case of the Mexican War, regulars regarded militia men with contempt.
The ranks of the Regulars swelled to over 42,000 during the war with a further augmentation of some 74,000 militia and volunteer regiments raised by different States. But as soon as the war ended, Congress sent the volunteers home and knocked the Regular Army back to 865 officers and 8,490 enlisted men. Regiments raised during the war were eliminated with the sole exception of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen raised in part to safeguard emigrant trails across the Great Plains.
Another result of the war was the huge increase in the size of the United States – 285,000 square miles from both the war and an agreement with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory plus, another 30,000 from another agreement with Mexico in 1853. This meant the Army needed to shift focus farther west. Only twelve of fifty-six military posts lay situated west of the Mississippi before the war. With settlers moving west by the thousands to Oregon and California, some seventy-six posts set up in the west by 1860.
BACK TO SLEEP AGAIN
To cover the added ground, the army shrank back to fourteen regiments – eight infantry, four artillery and three mounted. The main occupation of the antebellum Regular Army slide to emigrant protection and trying to control Native Americans resentful of the new influxes.
Further policing actions the Army operated in included trying to protect Native Americans from white settlers and involvement with potential civil unrest arising in Kansas during the mid-1850s and in Utah with Mormon intransigence in the late 1850s. Serving the Army at this time were young men mainly from Northern cities with a strong influx of European immigrants. Frontier life proved not to be the adventure many signed on for, but tedious service at literally the end of the world. Drinking was a huge problem with enlisted and officers. Desertion became a huge problem, especially with the Gold Rush in California.
The enlarged frontier and increased demands on the Army led to small increases, first to almost 13,000 when Congress allowed company sizes to grow to 74 privates and then in 1855, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis gained congressional consent to add four regiments – two infantry and two cavalry – bringing the Regular army to over 16,000.
THE MILITARY ACADEMY
Until the 1830s, West Point was the only school offering courses in engineering. Officers provided significant service building, designing and mapping roads, harbors, lighthouses, railroads and canals. Many officers left the service during the antebellum period because of either frontier postings, but also the glacial speed of promotion. They provided a welcome source of expertise in the civil world. By 1861, 313 West Point graduates still living worked outside the Army, including such luminaries as Ulysses Grant, William T. Sherman, Henry Halleck, George McClellan among others who would return to play important roles during the Civil War.
Between 1802 and 1861, 1,966 cadets graduated from the Military Academy, about half of whom fought during the Mexican War. About 75% of the Army’s officers in 1861 matriculated through the Point, though few of them served in senior leadership positions – three of the four general officers at the start of the Civil War had served since the War of 1812. Of the nineteen regiments of the Regular Army, only six came out of the Academy.
1860
The Army authorized strength as of December 1860 stood at almost 18,000 strong, though only 16,347 found themselves listed on the rolls. As Southern states began to pull out of the Union, war came with the attack on the federally controlled fort at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. With the onset of the war, Regular Army regiments saw their recall from the frontier for service in the east.
While the enlisted ranks remained solid, the officer corps splintered. Almost 20% of the officer corps joined the Confederacy including 168 West Pointers – 556 remained loyal while 26 took no active part in the war. Nearly 200 graduates returned to fight from the civilian world with 92 serving with the South and 102 remaining loyal to the federal government. West Point had a huge impact on the war with 217 of the 583 men reaching the general officer rank in the Federal Army being graduates. For the South, 146 of the 425 generals were West Point graduates.
ONWARDS
In 1861, the Regular Army, though in a better state than before the Mexican War, still entered the conflict unprepared. Before the war, officers led platoons and companies, but with the war and the huge transformation of the Army – both Regular and Volunteer, they found themselves with brigades, divisions and corps. The eighteen regiments of the Regular Army soon found itself dwarfed by the more than twenty-four hundred state volunteer regiments, many of which led by officers who left their ranks as captains or lieutenants in the Regular Army to become majors, lieutenant colonels or even colonels leading these new regiments. The Regular Army – 26,000 at its wartime peak (authorized strength was more than 41,000), though 67,000 eventually passed through the ranks of the Regulars – comprised only about 3% of the total 2 million+ men of the total Federal force.
CADRES VERSUS SEPARATION
Regular units stayed together as opposed to providing cadres for the new volunteer regiments. President Lincoln did not foresee a long war ahead. The Regular Army, at the war’s beginning, still needed to guard the frontier until trained militia could replace them. The major objector was Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott who wanted to maintain an elite nucleus of professionals as opposed to breaking them up to serve as teachers for the new volunteer forces. As of 29 July 1861, Scott gained authorization to use Regular officers in volunteer regiments, however, he required they first resign their Regular commissions. In counterpoint, George McClellan tried to develop a cadre plan but was thwarted until General Scott’s retirement in November 1861 by which time the development of volunteer regiments separate from the Regulars was well underway.
One example going counter to the norm, George McClellan’s use of one Regular Army artillery battery assigned to every four volunteer batteries to provide an example of operation.
States competed much more successfully for recruits by offering various incentives including cash bounties for signing up. Disease and battles depleted Regular ranks enough that many units withdrew from front-line service by November 1864, a situation shared by many long-serving volunteer regiments. Eventually, about two million men served in the Federal Army at some point during the war.
REGULAR ARMY INFANTRY REGIMENTS
Before the war, the Regular Army infantry consisted of ten regiments – 1st through 10th. These regiments had an authorized strength of up to 878 soldiers. As the war began, nine new regiments were raised consisting of two to three battalions. Three battalion regiments could have almost 2,500 troops. Volunteer regiments became raised much like the antebellum Army regiments – two full companies with a strength of 1,046 men. During the war, the new Regular regiments deployed as battalions. Two groups of Regular infantry regiments came together eventually fighting as integral parts of the largest two Federal armies – Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Cumberland. In those armies, the Regular Army regiments – battalions, in the case of the new regiments – brigaded together forming a separate brigade of mostly Regular Army units or a division, eventually, in the case of the Army of the Potomac.
Both the Regular Army and the volunteer units raised never developed an adequate replacement system for units hit by both casualties and disease. For the various States, it was easier to simply raise new regiments – politically helpful since governors could choose more officers to lead, thus gaining political capital – rather than input replacements into the old ones. For the Regulars, the army never reached their authorized strengths in the first place since volunteers liked the bonuses, camaraderie of serving with men from their home regions plus laxer discipline usually was the case in the volunteer regiments.
OTHER REGULAR ARMY UNITS
Additional Federal units – not parts of the Regular Army but not controlled by States but by the Federal military establishment – included two regiments of US Sharpshooters; 166 regiments of US Colored Troops; nine regiments of US Veteran Volunteers – men with two years’ previous experience raised in 1864 under the command of Winfield Scott Hancock; six regiments of US Volunteers recruited from POW camps for service on the western frontier; the US Veteran Reserve Corps – also known as the Invalid Corps (men previously wounded serving as hospital orderlies, prison guards and on duty at strategic areas such as railroads; three regiments of Indian Home Guards and one regiment of US Veteran Volunteer Engineers.
REPLACEMENT SYSTEM OR LACK THEREOF
By 1863, the replacement system the Regular Army had in place was broken. The flow of new recruits simply dried up since enlistments in the Regulars were for six years – three years or the war’s duration for volunteer units. Regular units always seemed to get tough assignments on the battlefield, i.e. rear-guard duty after First Manassas or the Wheatfield at Gettysburg. This led to most Regular units being “shot up” by 1864. Officer retention was a problem, as well. Regular officers were allowed to retain their Regular Army ranks – and regimental slots – but also to take on volunteer commissions which allowed dramatically quick promotions. Those that remained with the Regular units still enjoyed the glacially slow promotion system. It was not unusual for officers not to gain promotion even through attrition.
Enlisted men came from the big cities of the East for the most part with up to two thirds being immigrants. That was the situation before, during and after the war. Strict, draconian discipline also featured prominently with the Regular units. Volunteers maintained the previous held prejudices towards men of the Regular Army – immigrants or others who could not find work in the real civilian world. Many of those prejudices were not necessarily shared, however, by Federal commanders who may have had much more experience with the Regulars from before the war.
LATE INDUCEMENTS
Efforts on the Army’s part to improve recruiting did take place. Flogging became abolished; terms of enlistment in 1861 and 1862 reduced to three years but increased to five years after that; $100 bonuses offered, but recruitment lagged to such an extent that some called for the Regular Army’ to subsummation into “one grand army of the Union” as Secretary of War Simon Cameron wrote to Lincoln. Any inducements to Regular Army recruitment ran into opposition from the States which had their own problems keeping their regiments in the fields of war.
1861 BEGINNINGS
Regiments of the Regular Army fought on the field at their best early in the war. 1861 was a gathering time for the regiments scattered across the western frontiers. With 1862, both the old and new regiments set examples for volunteers fighting alongside. But in setting examples, the Regulars took high casualties which the recruiting never could keep up with. Many of the regiments, mere shadows from fighting, withdrew from the front lines by late 1864, exchanging the battle line for noncombat duties like riot control, prisoner guarding or serving as headquarters or provost guards.
TEXAS CONUMDURUM
With the Civil War clouds quickly gathering in 1861, the Army began to call the dispersed units across the frontier together. Only a few artillery troops occupied posts east of the Mississippi River. Twenty-five percent of the Army lay stationed in Texas, a big problem as events quickly showed.
The commander for the Department of Texas since March 1857, David E. Twiggs, hailed from Georgia. He served in the Regular Army since volunteering as a captain during the War of 1812. Born on Valentine’s Day 1790, Twiggs, at 71 years of age, had worked his way up through the glacial slope to become one of four general officers in the Army as the war began. Leading a brigade and later, a division during the Mexican War, he gained promotion to brigadier general in 1846 and a brevet to major general at the end of the war. By the time of the Civil War, Twiggs was second-in-line for overall Army command. He was also in declining health having spent much of 1860 on sick leave returning to command just after the 1860 election.
FEDERAL SURRENDER
Meeting with Confederate commissioners, Twiggs, with his department moving to send troops out of Texas, decided to surrender his entire command. The surrender included federal installations, property and soldiers. Some 20 military installations, 44 cannons, 400 pistols, 1,900 muskets, 500 wagons and 950 horses all with a value of $1.6 million.
Twiggs determined he would not order his men to fire upon American citizens. A strong believer in State’s rights, he decided upon surrender after Texas voted to secede in February 1861to avoid bloodshed. Twigg’s order to resume his command in Texas came from Secretary of Way John Floyd who had searched for someone who might passively give up Federal property in Texas. Twiggs asked for guidance on a course of action to take as Texas veered to secession, but Floyd gave him none.
TEXAS IS A LONG WAYS FROM HOME
By surrendering, Texas officials allowed Federal soldiers to gather to the coast for evacuation from the State. The immediate problem was Texas lay spread out over hundreds of miles. Time went by as messengers rode out to deliver the news of the Federal surrender. Before all the Army components had gathered, Fort Sumter erupted the war. The Confederacy had formed by then and Major Earl Van Dorn went out with an armed ship to capture the slower evacuating troops. In contravention of the surrender agreement, several companies became captured mostly from the 3rd US and 8th US Infantry Regiments. The captured companies A, F and I from the 3rd US were captured on 26 April 1861. Soon paroled, they reached New York City on 1 June.
General Twiggs was accused of treachery by President Buchanan and dismissed – 1 March 1861 – from Federal service. He gained a commission as a major general with the Confederate States Army a couple months later assigned to the Department of Louisiana. However, Twiggs was still in poor health. Before taking active command, he resigned his new commission, officially retiring on 11 October. He died the next summer back in Georgia.
NOTES ON A FEW OF THE REGULAR REGIMENTS
US 1st Infantry
The 1st US Infantry Regiment served on the northern Texas border and within the Indian Territory. Regimental commander Colonel Carlos Waite had his headquarters at Fort Chadbourne, Texas with five companies – A, G, H, I and K – stationed also in Texas. The other companies operated out of the Indian Territory. As Texas seceded 1 February 1861, and Twiggs surrendering, Waite was ordered to relieve the general. He devoted himself to withdrawing his regiment and all other Federal forces, as well. Those companies in the Indian Territory marched north to Fort Leavenworth and then on to Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis.
Of the Texas companies of the US 1st, A, H and I safely got on transports. Companies G and K were captured by Texan militia but were paroled with the promise of not serving against the Confederates until exchanged. These two companies then sailed on after the rest of their comrades, reaching New York on 31 May. Company G reorganized to form part of the city guard at Washington. This company would fight with other Federal regiments, first with a US 6th Infantry Battalion with the 5th Corps with whom they fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run suffering eleven casualties. At Fredericksburg, the compqny attached to a US 2nd battalion crossing the river 13 December and spending the next day under close enemy fire. The company remained with the US 2nd until the end of January 1863.
missouri
Companies B, C, D, E and F reached Fort Leavenworth on 31 May 1861. Companies E and F stayed in Kansas while B, C and D joined Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon’s army at Springfield, Missouri. This battalion along with a company of recruits headed for the Mounted Rifles (US 3rd Cavalry) formed as a part of Lyon’s third brigade. They lost 80 casualties during the Battle of Wilson’s Creek on 10 August 1861 fighting on the left of the Federal line.
By April 1862, Companies A, H and I rejoined the regiment in Missouri as they worked in support of Federal forces moving first against New Madrid and later Island Number 10. Assigned to man heavy artillery – siege guns – A, B, C, D, H and I manned the siege guns during the investiture of Corinth in late May. They were still in Corinth during the Confederate attack of 3-4 October. Men of Company C manned a gun battery – Battery Robinett – overrun for short time before a Federal counterattack drove them away. At the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center, you can see a cannon captured from the Confederate attackers – they in turn had captured the gun earlier in the year at Shiloh. They would go on to handle the heavy guns during the siege of Vicksburg before moving on to New Orleans where they served as the provost guard.
5th US Infantry
Unlike the first four regiments, the 5th never went east. The regiment, based in New Mexico Territory, served the duration of the war in that theater. Five companies were with Colonel Edward Canby at Fort Craig. Henry Sibley led a group of Texas cavalrymen with about 2,500 men north from El Paso. Unable to lure Canby’s forces into the open at Fort Craig, he continued farther up the Rio Grande. At Valverde, the two forces came together. Canby was switching up his attack when Sibley’s lieutenant, Thomas Green (Sibley was either drunk or sick or both) attacked the center of the Federal line breaking through capturing some eight cannons in the process. Canby withdrew his force back to Fort Craig which Sibley declined to attack in favor of continuing his move further to the north.
Capturing both Albuquerque and Santa Fe during March 1862, Sibley was aiming for Fort Union and the mines of Colorado beyond. His forces won another victory at Glorieta Pass but at the same time, his supply train was destroyed forcing the Confederates to give up their campaign and withdraw all the way back to Texas.
7th US Infantry
The 7th US had been posted to Forts Buchanan and Breckinridge in Arizona sections of the New Mexico Territory. They were ordered to reinforce Canby’s force along the Rio Grande River. Companies A, B, D, E, G, I and K assembled to Fort Fillmore a post located a couple of miles south of today’s city of Las Cruces, but more importantly at the time, about three miles southeast of the village of La Mesilla which at the time was one of the most important villages in the southern New Mexican Territory. Originally, the fort sat high on banks above the Rio Grande, but times changed the course of the river. By 1861, the fort needed water wagons to keep the post supplied with water.
The assembled companies at Fort Fillmore waited for the other three companies – C, F and H – to arrive from Fort Craig and Buchanan. With the Civil War in full swing by now, a small Confederate force of about 250 men led by Lieutenant Colonel John Baylor rode unopposed into La Mesilla on 25 July. They had earlier encamped quietly unnoticed within six hundred yards of the fort, intending to break in by surprise in the morning. A Confederate deserter rode into the post giving warning. With the Federals forewarned, the Texans slipped away to La Mesilla.
isaac lynde
Six companies of the 7th with two other companies from the Mounted Rifles – about 380 men marched to within 500 yards of the town. Major Isaac Lynde commanded the Federals – Sibley earlier served under the Major before resigning his commission. Lynde sent an aide into the town to ask for an “unconditional and immediate surrender”. Baylor replied, “We would fight a little first.” After a weak attempt at forcing the issue, Lynde decided to pull back as night came on.
Lynde concentrated his men building earthworks around the fort in anticipation of an attack. As the Confederates moved closer, they surprised the Federals by sneaking into the horse and mule herd, rounding up guards, 85 horses and 26 mules, the better part of the transportation for the fort.
With this move, Major Lynde ordered his force to evacuate Fort Fillmore in the belief his men would not withstand the possible attack to come. He led his men into the Organ Mountains to try and find water at San Augustine Springs some 20 miles north on the east side of the mountains – there is a small wayside along US Route 70 there today. Being summer, the men began dropping out from fatigue and thirst. They made it to the springs with the Texans shortly pulling up behind them. Barlow had about 300 to face Lynde’s almost 500 disciplined troops versus the irregular Texans. When the enemy approached within 300 yards, Lynde set decided to surrender his force against the wishes of all of his officers.
San Augustine springs
Now as prisoners, the Federals left San Augustine Springs on 29 July, paroled over the next two days. They left Las Cruces on 3 August, making their way to Fort Craig on the 10th. Major Lynde was not allowed to enter the fort and was dismissed from the service by order of President Lincoln later in the year. In 1866, at the request of General-in-Chief Ulysses Grant, President Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Lynde gained reinstatment, retiringd with retroactive pay. His daughter was Mrs. Frederick Tracy Dent. Her husband and Grant were West Point classmates. Dent’s sister was Grant’s wife, Julia.
Companies C, F and H were at Fort Craig. They both fought at the Battle of Valverde on 21 February 1862, losing 62 casualties during the battle. The surrendered companies made their way to Fort Union staying there until 18 August before marching on to Jefferson Barracks in December. The men left for posts on the Great Lakes waiting for release from parole. That parole came at the end of September 1862. They then joined the Regular Brigade of the Army of the Potomac in time to take part in the Battle of Fredericksburg. They fought the rest of their war with Sykes’ Regulars losing over half of their men at Gettysburg. Following that battle, the regiment withdrew to help quell the draft riots in New York City where they spent the rest of the war.
9th US Infantry
The 9th originally was raised during the War of 1812, but except for a brief period during the Mexican War, had been disbanded from 1815 until March 1855. Reorganized under Colonel George Wright, they steamed to the Pacific Northwest via Panama and San Francisco in January 1856. Eight companies went south to Fort Vancouver and two went north to Fort Steilacoom on the Puget Sound. The 9th spent some active years in expeditions sent against Native Americans.
With Civil War beginning, in the fall of 1861, all the companies were brought together in San Francisco except for A (Fort Vancouver) and C (San Juan Island) which remained in the Northwest. The 9th was going to be shipped to the East, but that order was rescinded – though not before Company E took off. That company would become part of the US 4th.
The rest of the regiment remained in San Francisco serving as provost guard until late 1865. They kept an eye on secessionist movements within certain parts of California which bubbled up from time to time.
10th US Infantry
The 10th formed at the same time the 9th reorganized – March 1855. After service in Minnesota, the 10th became part of the expedition – 2,500 strong – sent to Utah under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston. The march took most of the summer of 1857 – though the regiment did not come into the Salt Lake Valley proper until the following June. In Utah, the regiment set up Camp Floyd on 7 July. Campaigning against several Native American tribes – especially the Navajo, the 10th was spread out at the onset of the Civil War. Headquarters and Companies D and K were at Fort Laramie; A an F posted in Socorro, New Mexico (Fort Fillmore); B, E, G and I were in Washington, D.C.; C was stationed at Fort Wise, Colorado; and H was near Santa Fe.
Companies A, F and H concentrated at Fort Craig early in 1862 taking part in the Battle of Valverde on 21 February. Company F stayed in New Mexico manning Colonel Canby’s artillery pieces. Those three companies left New Mexico in September marching off to Washington to join the Army of the Potomac’s Regular Infantry Division in November. Those units at Fort Laramie and Company C moved to Kansas, eventually rejoining the regiment on 30 April 1863 in the East. Companies A, B, F and I were disbanded as the regiment consolidated to six companies strong.
THE REGULAR ARMY O!
Lyrics from a popular song of the late 19th century:
Three years ago, this very day, I went to Govner’s Isle
Words by Edward Harrigan
To stand ferinst the cannon in true military style,
Thirteen American Dollars each month we surely get,
To carry a gun and a bayonet with a military step.
chorus: There’s Sergeant John McCafferty and Corp’ral Donahue
They make us march up to the crack in gallant Company Q;
The drums they roll, upon my soul, for that’s the way we go
Forty miles a day on beans and hay in the Regular Army, Oh.
We had our choice of going to the army or to jail,
Or it’s up the Hudson River with a cop to take a sail;
So we puckered up our courage and with bravery we did go
And we cursed the day we marched away with the Regular Army, Oh!
The captain’s name was Murphy, of “dacint French descint”
Sure he knew all the holy words in the Hebrew testament;
And when he said to Hogan: “Just move your feet a foot,”
Sure, Hogan jumped a half a mile on Sergeant Riley’s boot.
The best of all the officers is Second Lieutenant McDuff;
Of smoking cigarettes and sleep he never got enough.
Says the captain, “All we want of you is to go to Reveille,
And we’ll let the first sergeant run the company.”
There’s corns upon me feet, me boy, and bunions on me toes,
And lugging a gun in the red hot sun puts freckles on me nose
And if you want a furlough to the captain you do go,
And he says, “Go to bed and wait till you’re dead in the Regular
Army, Oh”
We went to Arizona for to fight the Indians there;
We were nearly caught bald-headed but they didn’t get our hair
We lay among the ditches in the dirty yellow mud,
And we never saw an onion, a turnip or a spud.
We were captured by the Indians and brought ferinst the chafe
Says he, “We’ll have an Irish stew,” the dirty Indian thafe.
On the telegraphic wire we skipped to Mexico,
And we blessed the day we marched away from the Regular Army, Oh!
FUTURE POSTS
In the next couple posts, I will expound on the Regulars in both the Army of the Cumberland in the West and the Army of the Potomac in the East.