Product Description

In The Union Cavalry Comes of Age, award-winning cavalry historian Eric J. Wittenberg provides a long-overdue challenge to the persistent myths that have unfairly elevated the reputations of the Confederate cavalry’s “cavaliers” and sets the record straight regarding the evolution of the Union cavalry corps. He highlights the careers of renowned Federal officers, including George Stoneman, William W. Averell, Alfred Pleasonton, John Buford, and Wesley Merritt, as well as such lesser-known characters as Col. Alfred Duffie, a French expatriate who hid an ugly secret. Wittenberg writes a lively, detailed account of a saber-slashing era in which men fought for duty, honor, and bragging rights. Indeed, a taunting note left behind by Confederate Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee on a raid at Hartwood Church, Virginia, in 1863 sparked Northern retaliation at the Battle of Kelly’s Ford. The Federal cavalry then evolved during the trials of Stoneman’s Raid, with their hard work culminating in the Battle of Brandy Station, where they nearly broke the unsuspecting Confederates in a fourteen-hour maelstrom that is considered the greatest cavalry battle ever fought in North America.

A skillfully woven overview, this unforgettable story also depicts the strategic and administrative tasks that occupied officers and politicians as well as the day-to-day existence of the typical trooper in the field. The Union Cavalry Comes of Age shows that Northern troopers began turning the tide of the war much earlier than is generally acknowledged and became the largest, best-mounted, and best-equipped force of horse soldiers the world had ever seen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #505465 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
"A splendidly written and thoroughly researched study." --AMERICA'S CIVIL WAR

From the Publisher
A noted authority on cavalry challenges a Civil War myth

About the Author
Eric J. Wittenberg is the author of Protecting the Flanks, Gettysburg's Forgotten Cavalry Actions (winner of the Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award as 1998’s best new work interpreting the Battle of Gettysburg), and We Have it Damn Hard Out Here. In addition, he is the editor of With Sheridan in the Final Campaign Against Lee, Under Custer's Command (Brassey’s, Inc., 2000), and One of Custer's Wolverines. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding cavalry title by solid writer
Is it fun to read about the cavaliers in Gray? Sure. Was the Union cavalry really as inept and pathetic as we have been led to believe? Not a chance, at least according to historian of the blue horse Eric Wittenberg, who sets up and knocks apart just about every falsehood, half-truth and myth that has popped over over the last century and fifty odd years.

Wittenberg explains how the Union arm evolved, and explains the careers of a wide variety of officers, including prominent ppersonalities like Alfred Pleasonton, George Stoneman, John Buford, Wesley Merritt, and William W. Averell, and many lesser known commanders. He also explains how these officers, in camp and in battle, developed the Federal horse arm into a force to be reckoned with--and one that eventually ran circles around the Southern horsemen. One of the high points of the Union cavalry experience was at Brandy Station during the opening phase of the Gettsburg Campaign, and as one might expect, the author expends substantial ink writing about it. Although he does not appear to add anything new here, he does explain it from a different perspective, and that is refreshing. Brandy Station made it clear the blue horse was coming of age, but the author makes a good case it was sooner and stronger than most have heretofore acknowledged.

Wittenberg's writing is solid (not brilliant, but workmanlike and thorough). Based upon a wide variety of firsthand and secondary sources, the book adds something worthwhile to the voluminous literature, which one cannot is hardpressed to say about most of the books published these days. Much of this value is that the author explains why the Union cavalry improved in leadership and ability, and how its role evolved from 1861 to 1863, and then again to the end of the war. Though not a big fan of Brassey line, this title is one of their better releases. Recommended.

Much-needed, very well researched
If you are a Cavalry afficianado, or simply want to expand your knowledge of the American Civil War, you must have this book. Equisitely researched and documented, Eric shows his intimate familiarity with the Union cavalry during the war. Many sections of the book fill in gaps previously unaddressed by any other work.
The year 1863 was inarguably the most important watershed era for Union Cavalry, which began to improve to a point at which they began to surpass their Confederate counterparts in leadership, ability, and cohesiveness. The Union horsemen's prowess, beginning in 1863, as a unified fighting arm drastically contrasts with their use as couriers and body guards for the infantry during the first two years of the war. Eric wonderfully explains both how and why the changes began and developed in this work.
This book needs to be consulted along with any other work on Union Cavalry in the Civil War, and deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in gaining well-rounded knowledge not only of the cavalry, but of both armies' operations in the first half of 1863.

Very Well Done!
Union Cavalry Comes of Age: Hartwood Church to Brandy Station, 1863 is a detailed examination of the evolution or "coming of age" of the Union cavalry during the American Civil War. Conventional historical wisdom states that the Union cavalry was not an effective force until after the Battle of Gettysburg. Furthermore, the Confederacy has often been portrayed as possessing the "natural" cavalrymen, while the Union supposedly had to turn merchants and mechanics into horsemen. The author, Eric J. Wittenberg, argues that, on the contrary, the Union possessed skilled and knowledgeable cavalrymen from the beginning of the war. The relative ineffectiveness of the Union cavalry in the Eastern Theater during the first two years of the war, he argues, should be attributed to poor organizational decisions by the early commanders of the Army of the Potomac. Wittenberg believes that it was the distribution of the Union cavalry in separate regiments and brigades, rather than the unified structure used by the Army of Northern Virginia, that led to its ineffectiveness.

Wittenberg has established a solid reputation as the author or editor of several other works on the Union cavalry during the Civil War, including most importantly: Protecting the Flanks: The Battles for Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field, Battle of Gettysburg, July 2-3, 1863 (Ironclad Publishing, 2002) and Gettysburg's Forgotten Cavalry Actions (Thomas Publications, 1998, and winner of the 1998 Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award). Union Cavalry Comes of Age is organized into nine chapters, which offer a chronological history of the Union cavalry from the formation of the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, in February 1863 to the Battle of Brandy Station in June 1863. Wittenberg also focuses on the careers of several Union prominent cavalry officers, including George Stoneman, William W. Averell, Alfred Pleasonton, John Buford, and Wesley Merritt.

Wittenberg has produced a well-written and researched volume that goes a long way toward dispelling myths regarding the Union cavalry. The volume includes more than 1000 endnotes, a 21-page bibliography, and five appendixes containing the orders of battle for cavalry forces at Fredericksburg, Kelly's Ford, Stoneman's Raid, Alsop's Field, and Brandy Station. I highly recommend this volume to those individuals interested in the Civil War and/or horse cavalry.