british cavalry . The American Civil War

Prior to the American Revolution, most military planners believed the heavily forested land, few roads or open land so restricted their use that cavalry was deemed impractical in North America. There wasn’t any cavalry used during the French and Indian War. When the Revolutionary War started, British Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Gage empA few mounted units did exist, such as the Philadelphia Light Horse, which escorted General George Washington from Philadelphia to Boston where he accepted the Command of the American Army. This unit was primarily ceremonial, and numbered

about thirty troopersloyed mounted officers as cavalry during the disastrous raid on Concord. On June 14th, 1775, two months after Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress adopted the forty militia regiments besieging Boston as "Continental Regiments". They also established Artillery Regiments, but there was no mention of Cavalry, which apparently wasn’t even discussed.




The following July, a German, resplendently uniformed as a Hussar, came into the Congress meeting room and announced that he and fifty other veterans of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) were part of the newly formed "Pennsylvania Hussar Company". Impressed by their martial grandeur, Congress approved the unit and ordered it to proceed to Boston. Shortly after receiving their commission, they started submitting extravagant bills incurred by them. Congress, quickly decided they weren’t needed and disbanded them.When the British were forced to evacuate Boston, the whole complexion of the war changed. No longer a static siege, General Washington realized that cavalry would be useful in patrolling the Atlantic Coast Line for possible British landings, and to serve as couriers. As a result he was pleased to accept Captain John Learys of the Light Horse Troop of New York City, an independent Company of forty light dragoons. On June 21st Washington asked Congress to accept them as a Continental unitConnecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull and the State Assembly created three regiments of Light Horse under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Seymour and ordered them to proceed to the main army and place themselves under the command of George Washington.This 400 to 500 member Cavalry detachment arrived at Washington’s headquarters on July 11th, 1776. Unfortunately, they had left Connecticut in such a hurry that they failed to bring with them proper encampment equipment. Washington greeted them with mixed emotions. He already had a critical problem securing forage for his draft and artillery animals. He recommended that the troop send its horses back to Connecticut and serve as dismounted troops. The troopers offered to pay for the upkeep of their horses themselves, which Washington acceptedThe Connecticut Troop of Light Horse considered themselves "elite", hence exempted themselves from fatigue duty. Washington, trying to fortify all of New York harbor, needed every soldier he could muster. Over 400 soldiers exempting themselves from this duty caused a morale problem within the army. Washington addressed a straight forward letter to resolve the problem: Some historians assert that General Washington’s dismissing his only cavalry Regiment greatly impacted the battle for New York. Cavalry doing reconnaissance may have discovered the British flanking maneuver that contributed to their defeat at the Battle of Long Island.For the first time, the British deployed cavalry in North America. Lieutenant General Lord William Howe brought with his invasion force Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Birch’s 17th Light Dragoons. This Regiment greatly intimidated the American infantry and was very effective. To offset the impact on the morale of The General observing that the Army seems unacquainted with the Enemy’s Horse; and that when any parties meet with them, they do not oppose them with the same Alacrity which they shew in other cases; thinks it necessary to inform the officers and soldiers, that, in such a broken Country, full of Stone-Walls, there is no Enemy more to



be despised, as they cannot leave the road; So that any party attacking them may be always sure of doing it to advantage, by taking post in the Woods by the Roads, or along the stone-walls, where they will not venture to follow them; And as an encouragement to any brave parties, who will endeavour to surprise some of them, the General offers 100 Dollars, for every Trooper, with his Horse and Accoutrements, which shall be brought in, and so in proportion for any part, to be divided according to the Rank and pay of the partyhis soldiers, General Washington issued the following Generals OrdersThey very next day, October 28th, during the battle of White Plains, the 17th Dragoons launched a cavalry charge against the American lines. It was too much for


the American militia, who at the sight of two hundred charging cavalrymen with their flashing sabres, broke and ran. Fortunately for the Americans, the Continentals covered their retreat preventing a slaughter, but Washington still had lost another battle.


 6 April 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of the French, abdicated his throne,  A few days later, Lord Bathurst, Colonial Secretary and the British cabinet minister primarily responsible for overseas military strategy, informed Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost, commander of the forces in North America, that he would shortly be receiving massive reinforcements. This was welcome news for Prevost who, for nearly two years, had been trying to defend Britain's Canadian colonies, conscious his was only a secondary theatre and that he could not expect major increases in his strength until the main objective -- the defeat of Napoleon -- had been accomplished. That had come to pass and, over the next eight months, the number of British regular troops in North America would more than double -- from 19,477 to 48,163 officers and menIn some of the older American histories of the War of 1812, a myth frequently appears about these newcomers to the conflict in America. They are often described as picked troops from Wellington's Peninsular Army, the most successful military force in Europe in the spring of 1814, who crossed the Atlantic to chastise Cousin Jonathan for his perfidy, only to come to grief at Baltimore and New OrleansMy purpose in writing this article is to lay this hoary old myth to rest be examining British trans-Atlantic troop reinforcements from April to December 1814 with a view to answering three questions:




1. What proportion of these reinforcement units were actually from the Peninsular Army?



2. If the 1814 reinforcement units were not from the Peninsular Army, what commands did they come from?



3. What proportion of these reinforcement units went to British North America (the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland) and what proportion went to American soil (the Chesapeake area and later, in some cases, Louisiana).