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Post by Chuck T on Nov 19, 2010 22:59:13 GMT -5
Alan: You are correct. The Regiment of Mounted Rifles were armed with a rifle as opposed to a conventional musket or carbine. Back somewhere in the long dark past of my memory factions in Congress wanted a rifle regiment to replace a regular rifle regiment that had been disbanded a short time before. I did a listing of regiments and their date or origin and disbandment for Kevin a few months ago, but I will be darned if I can find it to refer to it now. The Army wanted another regiment of dragoons. The Regiment of Mounted Rifles was the compromise. What is the expression - Death Before Dismount? Sounds strange but it is so true. Keep mounted and driving forward as long as you can, and dismount only when required by the situation or specific mission. Can't speak for them but I think this is the way most dragoons in all of the world's armies felt
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Post by garyzaboly on Nov 20, 2010 6:28:28 GMT -5
Urrea also employed his cavalry in dismounted action at Mission Refugio, not only against Fannin's square:
"Even part of the cavalry from Cuautla also advanced on foot," he noted in his published military diary.
So it wouldn't surprise me if some of the "cavalry" units that intercepted and destroyed the Alamo fugitives on March 6 also fought on foot.
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Post by garyzaboly on Nov 20, 2010 6:50:16 GMT -5
Evidently the dismounting of Mexican dragoons in battle was a pretty common thing in 1836! This is from the horse's mouth---Urrea---again, describing the fight at San Patricio:
" I arrived in San Patricio at three in the morning and immediately ordered a party of thirty men headed by Capt. Rafael Pretalia to proceed to the ranch of Don Juli�n de la Garza (a league distant) to attack twelve or fifteen men who were guarding 150 horses there. I ordered forty dragoons of the remaining force to dismount; and, dividing them into three groups under good officers, I gave instructions for them to charge the position of the enemy, protected by the rest of our mounted troops. The enemy was attacked at half past three in the morning in the midst of the rain, and although forty men within the fort defended themselves resolutely, the door was forced at dawn, sixteen being killed and twenty-four being taken prisoners."
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Post by stuart on Nov 20, 2010 7:48:28 GMT -5
Relative to the specific discussion at hand, at Coleto Creek Urrea ordered his cavalry (he mentions dragoons elsewhere) to fight Fannin's square on foot, after a mounted charge had failed. Texian participants also noted the Mexican cavalry fighting them on foot. Bravo! Well no, we're still getting hung up on terminology. Mexican Dragoons, like their European counterparts were cavalrymen through and through. The fact that circumstances may have compelled them to dismount and use their carbines from time to time doesn't alter that. Urrea dismounted some of his cavalry at Refugio and San Patricio because he didn't have infantry available and as the Texians were forted up in a church and some buildings respectively, sitting outside on their horses waving their swords would have been plain silly. Encinal del Perdido/Coleto, as Urrea admits in his report, was a complete foul-up. He tried a couple of mounted charges against the square but while they failed they at least pinned the Texians long enough for his infantry to come up. It then turned into a long range firefight which used up his ammunition, which he tried to resolve by issuing the Cuautla's carbine ammo, but it turned out to be too big and actually got jammed in the musket barrels* so that he had no alternative but to dismount and feed some of his cavalry into the skirmish line. So yes it happened, but they were acting out of their normal mounted role and there's no way I'm going to buy the notion suggested by Gary that some of Sesma's cavalry could have been dismounted at the Alamo - everyone's quite clear that it was lancers who got in among the fugitives. *as a fascinating aside, this is useful evidence that Mexican cavalry were equipped with British dragoon carbines rather than the Paget carbines usually cited. The Paget was .66 calibre and therefore its ammunition wouldn't have had any problem fitting anything in the Mexican armory. The dragoon carbine on the other hand was .75 calibre, the same as the India Pattern/Brown Bess musket, which would have been fine if Urrea's infantry were carrying it, but if the troops in question were Activos carrying French or Spanish .69 cal muskets that explains the problem
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Post by stuart on Nov 20, 2010 7:50:13 GMT -5
Evidently the dismounting of Mexican dragoons in battle was a pretty common thing in 1836! This is from the horse's mouth---Urrea---again, describing the fight at San Patricio: " I arrived in San Patricio at three in the morning and immediately ordered a party of thirty men headed by Capt. Rafael Pretalia to proceed to the ranch of Don Juli�n de la Garza (a league distant) to attack twelve or fifteen men who were guarding 150 horses there. I ordered forty dragoons of the remaining force to dismount; and, dividing them into three groups under good officers, I gave instructions for them to charge the position of the enemy, protected by the rest of our mounted troops. The enemy was attacked at half past three in the morning in the midst of the rain, and although forty men within the fort defended themselves resolutely, the door was forced at dawn, sixteen being killed and twenty-four being taken prisoners." Take a look at Filisola's commentary on this work of fiction
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Post by Herb on Nov 20, 2010 8:34:24 GMT -5
Al did a listing of regiments and their date or origin and disbandment for Kevin a few months ago, but I will be darned if I can find it to refer to it now. The Army wanted another regiment of dragoons. The Regiment of Mounted Rifles was the compromise. I'm not sure it was so much a compromise, but just the natural evolution of US military thought, based on the lessons learned during the War of 1812 where both militia mounted rifles and regular dragoons were used. There was 3rd Regiment of Dragoons created during the Mexican War, along with the Mounted Rifles (wasn't there a 2nd Regiment of Rifles authorized but never raised?). While it's pretty straightforward tracking the infantry regiments the mounted regiments prior to the Mexican War get pretty wild. Specially since Congress would authorize them or authorize the states to raise them for a crisis and as soon as the crisis was over disband them (if they were ever formed) due to the greater cost over infantry. For instance, an act of Congress converted the 2d Dragoons to an Infantry Rifle Regiment while it was stationed at Fort Jessup in the late 1830s, but the act was rescinded the following year. The reorganization never took place (though this may have been when the regiment turned in its Patersons).
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Post by stuart on Nov 20, 2010 10:36:56 GMT -5
A useful parallel here is the US Army's misuse of Artillery as infantry. The fact that artillerymen were deployed as infantry in the Seminole War and in Mexico was a reflection of the shortage of regular infantry where it was needed rather than a matter of doctrine.
In the early 19th century the terms dragoon and cavalry were entirely interchangable, which is why some dragoons carried lances, and did not designate a type of cavalryman expected to fight on foot as well as on horseback - the fact that due to force of circumstances some dragoons did occasionally find themselves on foot didn't alter the fact that they were cavalrymen not mounted infantrymen.
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Post by Chuck T on Nov 20, 2010 12:03:26 GMT -5
Wolfpack: The regiment of riflemen raised during the War of 1812 was disbanded in 1821. You are correct about the 3rd Dragoons, but I don't see anything to suggest that regimental formation was complete or if they saw combat, and it was disbanded post war. If you have information on that please let me know. There was a regiment of rifles raised during the Mexican War that was disbanded at the close of conflict.
One of the big problems in tracking these things is the practice of when a regiment was disbanded up until post World War I it was gone in the eyes of the Army forever. There was no system that would reduce a regiment to zero strength and place it on the inactive list for later use.
The only means then available to preserve some of these histories then open to the Army was by means of consolidation, where two or more regiments would physically be consolidated to form what was essentially a new one.
The present 7th Infantry is a prime example. They carry the name Cottonbalers, They somehow have been awarded a New Orleans battle honor, but there is no evidence whatsoever to my knowledge that they were ever at New Orleans, and that the nickname and battle honor are just some administrative screw up. There was a 7th Infantry in New Orleans but due to the consolidations post war it became part of the 1st Infantry. The current 7th Infantry is a consolidation of the 8th - 24th and 39th Infantry. I have not found one scrap of evidence that any of these three were at New Orleans.
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Post by alanhufffines on Nov 20, 2010 15:34:00 GMT -5
The present 7th Infantry is a prime example. They carry the name Cottonbalers, They somehow have been awarded a New Orleans battle honor, but there is no evidence whatsoever to my knowledge that they were ever at New Orleans, and that the nickname and battle honor are just some administrative screw up. There was a 7th Infantry in New Orleans but due to the consolidations post war it became part of the 1st Infantry. The current 7th Infantry is a consolidation of the 8th - 24th and 39th Infantry. I have not found one scrap of evidence that any of these three were at New Orleans. Bravo. Well said, sir. And I am a vet of 3-7 from the First Gulf War. I can tell you how they ended up with the Cottonbaler name, but I don't want to bore everyone else here. I can say that the decision was not made in accordance with regulations but in keeping with oral tradition of the post WWI era.
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Post by alanhufffines on Nov 20, 2010 15:41:07 GMT -5
Well no, we're still getting hung up on terminology. Mexican Dragoons, like their European counterparts were cavalrymen through and through. The fact that circumstances may have compelled them to dismount and use their carbines from time to time doesn't alter that. Well, yes. There are three types of cavalry: Light, Medium and Heavy--all are equally cavalry. We are primarily discussing medium cavalry in general and dragoons in particular. And due to the dragoons ability to fight mounted or dismounted does not make them any less cavalry than anyone else. The fact that they could and did fight dismounted is exactly what dragoon means. Lancer and hussars being light cavalry could not (and did not have the carbine in the first place) fight anyway but mounted effectively anyways. Dismounted cavalry is still cavalry. That is what the carbine was for.
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Post by alanhufffines on Nov 20, 2010 15:42:19 GMT -5
In the early 19th century the terms dragoon and cavalry were entirely interchangable, which is why some dragoons carried lances, and did not designate a type of cavalryman expected to fight on foot as well as on horseback - the fact that due to force of circumstances some dragoons did occasionally find themselves on foot didn't alter the fact that they were cavalrymen not mounted infantrymen. No sir.
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Post by alanhufffines on Nov 20, 2010 15:46:33 GMT -5
as a fascinating aside, this is useful evidence that Mexican cavalry were equipped with British dragoon carbines rather than the Paget carbines usually cited. The Paget was .66 calibre and therefore its ammunition wouldn't have had any problem fitting anything in the Mexican armory. The dragoon carbine on the other hand was .75 calibre, the same as the India Pattern/Brown Bess musket, which would have been fine if Urrea's infantry were carrying it, but if the troops in question were Activos carrying French or Spanish .69 cal muskets that explains the problem Source on the carbines?
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Post by stuart on Nov 20, 2010 16:19:23 GMT -5
In the early 19th century the terms dragoon and cavalry were entirely interchangable, which is why some dragoons carried lances, and did not designate a type of cavalryman expected to fight on foot as well as on horseback - the fact that due to force of circumstances some dragoons did occasionally find themselves on foot didn't alter the fact that they were cavalrymen not mounted infantrymen. No sir. Ah but yes sir, have a look at the Wikipedia article on Dragoons which explains it pretty well. By the 19th century the term/title was archaic in that it no longer had any significance and most assuredly did not distinguish between cavalry who sat on their horses and cavalry who were expected to get off and fight on foot. Way back up this thread you were quoted the Mexican regulations which allowed a certain number of men in each regular dragoon regiment to carry lances.
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Post by stuart on Nov 20, 2010 16:32:12 GMT -5
as a fascinating aside, this is useful evidence that Mexican cavalry were equipped with British dragoon carbines rather than the Paget carbines usually cited. The Paget was .66 calibre and therefore its ammunition wouldn't have had any problem fitting anything in the Mexican armory. The dragoon carbine on the other hand was .75 calibre, the same as the India Pattern/Brown Bess musket, which would have been fine if Urrea's infantry were carrying it, but if the troops in question were Activos carrying French or Spanish .69 cal muskets that explains the problem Source on the carbines? That's been the problem. The documentation we have on the arms supplied to the Mexican government simply gives numbers of carbines purchased but doesn't specify the type. In the past it's casually been assumed that they were Paget carbines in the mistaken belief that they were the standard British light cavalry carbine at the time. In fact it wasn't, a variety of types were in use during the Napoleonic Wars and everybody was pretty well agreed that the Paget was utterly useless. Dragoons (heavy cavalry in the British service) carried the 1796 pattern and Light Dragoons carried the Elliot. Paget was a Hussar and his carbine - essentially no better than a pistol with shoulder stock was seemingly intended for Light Dragoon (Hussar) Regiments, but the only thing it had going for it was the fact it was so small it didn't get in the way quite as much as the larger 1796 and Elliot patterns. Now as I say we don't actually know which type the Mexican Army purchased, but given Urrea's account of Encinal del Perdido/Coleto its pretty clear that the Cuautla had the 1796 pattern. I have a gut feeling, based on the way they were organised, that the regular dragoon regiments were supposed to be heavy cavalry, with the lance equipped company intended to provide organic scouts and flank protection as in Napoleon's army where curassier divisions had lancer regiments attached for that purpose. While the Activo companies (and Presidiales) were to serve as light cavalry. All three could and did dismount when it was absolutely necessary and I've explained the circumstances above, but it wasn't their regular job.
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Post by alanhufffines on Nov 20, 2010 17:13:51 GMT -5
Ah but yes sir, have a look at the Wikipedia article on Dragoons which explains it pretty well. By the 19th century the term/title was archaic in that it no longer had any significance and most assuredly did not distinguish between cavalry who sat on their horses and cavalry who were expected to get off and fight on foot. Way back up this thread you were quoted the Mexican regulations which allowed a certain number of men in each regular dragoon regiment to carry lances. Not arguing the term's usage, after all the US Army changed all mounted regiments to Cavalry just prior to the ACW, even though their mission remained dragoon (i.e., ability to fight mounted or dismounted). And the lancers added to dragoon regiments makes sense for the very reasons you explained--not really too different from pioneers in infantry battalions--a very specific soldier for a very specific task. Just like the lancers in the dragoon regiments (and I still think they may have had either pioneers or grenadiers as well).
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