From the monthly archives:

January 2005

What is a Dragoon?

January 18, 2005

The typical Dragoon of the Mexican War era was a moving arsenal and military depot. Secured by a white buff leather sling over his left shoulder hung a .52 caliber Hall carbine a percussion breech-loading smooth-bore carbine of limited range and impact. In his pommel holster was a single shot Model 1836 flintlock horse pistol [...]

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Muster Rolls Battle of Cieneguilla 30 March 1854

January 17, 2005

Muster Roll Troop I April 30, 1854 John W. Davidson circa 1875 Captain William Grier, on leave1st Lt. John W. Davidson, commanding, slightly wounded Cieneguilla Non-Commissioned Officers James Batty 1st Sgt. (promoted 1 April 1854) 9 January 1850, Taos, New Mexico Terr. (See Below.)Augustus O’Hook Commissary Sgt. 1 August 1851, Rayado, New Mexico, TerritoryBenjamin Dempsey [...]

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Bvt. Major James Carleton at Bitter Spring 1860

January 15, 2005

by William Gorenfeld and John Gorenfeld. Originally published in Wild West, June 19, 2001. After James Carleton was rejected in his quest to become Charles Dickens’s protege, he turned to a career in the military that found him pursuing an mission of obsessive and bloody collective punishment James Henry Carleton is generally remembered as the [...]

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Tule River War: 1856

January 11, 2005

From their earth-and-rock fortification at the base of a small, solitary mountain, the Yokuts Indians were determined to defend their land. By William and John Gorenfeld THE 1850s WERE A DEVASTATING time for California Indians, as swarms of contentious and tough miners poured into their homelands. The Indians were often ruthlessly slaughtered or enslaved, and [...]

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Ben Beall at West Point: Dropped from the Rolls

January 11, 2005

The Beall Chronicles: An account of a Dragoon officer to be By George Stammerjohan and Will Gorenfeld While stationed out on the western plains, Major Benjamin Beall recounted to Lt. Orlando Wilcox how, in the year 1814, he arrived at the Military Academy, a brash youth, fully “equipped with a pointer and a liquor flask.” [...]

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Dragoon Uniforms

January 1, 2005

The Dragoon Uniform: Fancy vs. Fact by George Stammerjohan and Will Gorenfeld The 1850s present a confusing picture of the Dragoon image. On the one hand, the Regulations of 1851 gave a neat picture of what a suitably uniformed, dashing Dragoon should look like: dark blue frock coat, “flower pot” shako, and gray-blue trousers. The [...]

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Dragoon Weapons

January 1, 2005

Dragoon Firearms: More Legend than Fact by Will Gorenfeld Model 1847 Dragoon Musketoon (smooth bore .69 calibre) One persistent myth concerning the Dragoons on the frontier is that they were well-equipped with the most modern of weaponry. In reality–and that reality would remain true until the late fall of 1858–the Dragoons who served out on [...]

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