I am much more familiar with the war in the Western Theater although am not at all ignorant in the Eastern. The Union Cavalry arm suffered from no leadership at the start; a non-willing Federal government to raise enough of them to matter (dollars expense - you could get 3-4 infantry regiments for the cost in cash and time for one cavalry regiment) and, perhaps most importantly, proper massing of companies into brigades and brigades into divisions.

I am extremely familiar with Napoleon's cavalry arm - easily the finest of the 19th Century on all levels. Besides excellent leadership, the French cavalry were properly massed and well-trained in true combined arms tactics along with the rest of the Grande Armee also trained along the same lines. French cavalry had a number of tactical uses on the field including screening the swarms of skirmishers, counter-cavalry, recon, etc. along with being the arm of decision when the enemy lines broke; it was they that started the vital pursuit phases. The cavalry of the Civil War, despite the massive body of work that West Point cadets could study, rarely did (although WP had a Napoleon Club of which Henry Halleck was a member, for one). All this and the fact that the Federal government, as did the Confederates, thought the whole mess would be over in 6 months or less.

The Union general of the west that really got the Federal cavalry organized into regiments was John Pope, who would also do the same when he came east. Grant was terrible with cavalry organization until about May-June, 1862; prior to that he had individual troops with his armies at Donelson and Shiloh. Sherman never seemed to understand cavalry but also in 1864 he was saddled with some pretty mediocre leadership (Stoneman and Kilpatrick) who proceeded to get smacked down badly by Joe Wheeler in August, 1864. Wheeler's destruction of these Union cavalry divisions was his pinnacle of command but was then wasted completely by his idiotic raid into eastern Tennessee which did nothing but wreck his command.

The South had its Forrest (its finest cavalry combat officer IMHO), Wheeler (who had good and bad moments), Stuart (same as Wheeler), Morgan (a raider not a proper cavalryman) but then other officers like "Grumble" Jones, Frank Armstrong, William Hicks Jackson, Abraham Buford, James Chalmers, etc. Western Union cavalry's two big below divisions officers in terms of quality were Robert Minty and Edward Hatch although others were fine as well. The massive 14,000 man Civil War equivalent of an armored division in terms of striking power was James Wilson's Cavalry Corps that smashed Alabama and Georgia in 1865. A protege of Phil Sheridan, Wilson, beaten like a drum in late 1864 by Forrest, learned well from that school of hard knocks and with all of his troopers carrying Spencers, their fire power was unmatched by any unit of comparable size in the entire war!

The other Union general that really gets Union cavalry in the west going was William S. Rosecrans and he gives carte blanche to David Stanley to organize and train them. All of that paid off when they walloped Wheeler at Shelbyville in the Tullahoma Campaign of June/July, 1863. This cavalry arm was raised as a response to the Confederate raiders constantly breaking Union supply lines.

So give the credit tom Pope and Rosecrans for the rise of the Union cavalry in the west- even though it took them until 1865 to beat Forrest!

Greg Biggs