THE EARLY YEARS

At the end of the Mexican in 1848, the U. S. Army had only three mounted regiments, the 1st Dragoons, the 2nd Dragoons and the Regiment of Mounted Rifleman to protect settlers moving westward. By 1855, Congress realized the number of mounted soldiers was not enough, and authorized the raising of two more regiments, the 1st Cavalry and the 2nd Cavalry.

The 1st Cavalry Regiment was constituted on 3 March 1855 and organized at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri on 26 March 1855, under the command of Colonel  Edwin Voss Sumner. The military aptitude of the twenty-eight officers selected for the 1st Cavalry was conclusively proven in the Civil War when twenty-two of them became general officers in either the Union or Confederate armies. Among them were Captain George B. McClellan, (Major General, Commander, Army of the Potomac and the inventor of the famed McClellan saddle), and 2nd Lieutenant James E. B. (Jeb) Stuart, ( Major General, CSA, Commander of the Confederate Cavalry Corps).

Upon completion of the organization of the regiment in August 1855, the 1st Cavalry was assigned to Fort Leavenworth , Kansas. Its mission was two-fold; to maintain law and order in the Kansas Territory between pro and anti-slavery factions and to protect the settlers from attacks by the Cheyenne Indians. In 1857 the regiment was split with half taking up new quarters at Fort Riley, Kansas and the rest maintaining small garrisons scattered throughout the state. On 3 March 1861 Colonel Robert E Lee assumed command of the 1st Cavalry only to resign his commission a month later to lead the Confederate States Army in the Civil War.