The First Vermont Cavalry participated in 75 major Civil War engagements from 1862 through 1865. As the state's only mounted regiment, riding Vermont-bred Morgan horses, the Cavalry unit battled some of the most notable Confederate cavalry commanders, mostly in Virginia. This history explores in detail the battles and leaders of the unit, including generals George Custer and Philip Sheridan.

An award-winning historical study of the important role played by Union and Confederate horse soldiers on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. The Union army’s victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 3, 1863, is widely considered to have been the turning point in America’s War between the States. But the valuable contributions of the mounted troops, both Northern and Rebel, in the decisive three-day conflict have gone largely unrecognized. Acclaimed Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg now gives the cavalries their proper due. In Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions, Wittenberg explores three important mounted engagements undertaken during the battle and how they influenced the final outcome. The courageous but doomed response by Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth’s cavalry brigade in the wake of Pickett’s Charge is recreated in fascinating detail, revealing the fatal flaws in the general’s plan to lead his riders against entrenched Confederate infantry and artillery. The tenacious assault led by Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt on South Cavalry Field is also examined, as is the strategic victory at Fairfield by Southern troops that nearly destroyed the Sixth US Cavalry and left Hagerstown Road open, enabling General Lee’s eventual retreat. Winner of the prestigious Bachelder-Coddington Award for historical works concerning the Battle of Gettysburg, Eric J. Wittenberg’s Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions rights a long-standing wrong by lifting these all-important engagements out of obscurity. A must-read for Civil War buffs everywhere, it completes the story of the battle that changed American history forever.

During the Civil War, the Second Colorado Volunteer Regiment played a vital and often decisive role in the fight for the Union on the Great Plains—and in the westward expansion of the American empire. Christopher M. Rein’s The Second Colorado Cavalry is the first in-depth history of this regiment operating at the nexus of the Civil War and the settlement of the American West. Composed largely of footloose ’59ers who raced west to participate in the gold rush in Colorado, the troopers of the Second Colorado repelled Confederate invasions in New Mexico and Indian Territory before wading into the Burned District along the Kansas border, the bloodiest region of the guerilla war in Missouri. In 1865, the regiment moved back out onto the plains, applying what it had learned to peacekeeping operations along the Santa Fe Trail, thus definitively linking the Civil War and the military conquest of the American West in a single act of continental expansion. Emphasizing the cavalry units, whose mobility proved critical in suppressing both Confederate bushwhackers and Indian raiders, Rein tells the neglected tale of the “fire brigade” of the Trans-Mississippi Theater—a group of men, and a few women, who enabled the most significant environmental shift in the Great Plains’ history: the displacement of Native Americans by Euro-American settlers, the swapping of bison herds for fenced cattle ranges, and the substitution of iron horses for those of flesh and bone. The Second Colorado Cavalry offers us a much-needed history of the “guerilla hunters” who helped suppress violence and keep the peace in contested border regions; it adds nuance and complexity to our understanding of the unlikely “agents of empire” who successfully transformed the Central Plains.

The Civil War left no Vermonters untouched, and few families free from pain. More than 140 letters -- carefully selected from some 9000 in several archives -- convey in personal terms the combat experience of Vermonters throughout the war. Vermont raised seventeen infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, three batteries of light artillery and three companies of sharpshooters -- nearly 35,000 soldiers in all. As a result of this impressive commitment, Vermont suffered one of the highest rates of military deaths of any Union state. A War of the People covers the war chronologically, with editor Jeffrey D. Marshall providing running commentary on both the war overall, and Vermonters' experiences. Supplemented with maps and photographs, it includes many voices -- from privates to colonels, mothers, wives, and best friends, young and old -- writing about battle narratives, camp life, financial advice, family matters, and much more. An African-American soldier from Hinesburgh, a French-Canadian soldier who enlisted in Milton, and dozens of others record their experiences in unforgettable words. Marshall's battlefront/homefront choice of letters provides a deeper understanding of the social and political dimensions that, although secondary to military concerns, were an integral part of Vermont's war years.

In four long years of war, the Vermont Brigade held at Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Banks' Ford, Funkstown, and Charlestown. In the fierce fighting in Grant's 1864 overland campaign, this heroic unit suffered some of its heaviest losses and won some of its greatest victories.

The First Vermont Cavalry participated in 75 major Civil War engagements from 1862 through 1865. As the state's only mounted regiment, riding Vermont-bred Morgan horses, the Cavalry unit battled some of the most notable Confederate cavalry commanders, mostly in Virginia. This history explores in detail the battles and leaders of the unit, including generals George Custer and Philip Sheridan.