The 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment was a volunteer United States cavalry unit from Maine used during the American Civil War.
Service history
The regiment was organized in Augusta, Maine, on October 31, 1861, and served for three years. The original members were detached from the regiment on September 15, 1864, when their service was up, and mustered out back in Portland on November 25. Later recruits, along with the Maine men of the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry (men recruited in the Augusta, Maine area between January and March 1864 and consolidated into seven companies) and those who chose to reenlist, were retained in the regiment. The regiment was split into three battalions of four companies each. One battalion was made up of former 1st District men and the other two were a mix of 1st Maine veterans and DC men. These three battalions continued until the regiment's mustering out at Petersburg, Virginia, on August 1, 1865.
Initial organization in 1861
Maine had responded to Lincoln and Congress's April 25, 1861, call for ten regiments of infantry of which eight had been organized and left the state by the end of August. That month the federal government had put out a call to Maine for five more regiments of infantry, six batteries of light artillery, a company of sharpshooters, and a regiment of cavalry to serve three years.
This cavalry regiment was intentionally raised at large from all counties of Maine and organized into twelve companies. The regiment's staff consisted of a colonel (COL), lieutenant colonel (LTC), three majors (MAJ), a first (1LT) or second lieutenant (2LT) as adjutant (1LT), surgeon, assistant surgeon, chaplain, regimental quartermaster, regimental commissary of subsistence, and three first (1LT) or second lieutenants (2LT) serving as battalion quartermasters. The regiment rated a sergeant major (SMAJ), a sergeant (SGT) as a chief bugler, a veterinary surgeon, a regimental quartermaster sergeant (QMSGT), regimental commissary sergeant (CSGT), hospital steward, saddler sergeant, sergeant farrier, and an ordnance sergeant. A captain (CAPT) commanded each company in the 1st Maine with a first lieutenant and a second lieutenant commanding the two platoons. The company commander also had the aid of a company first sergeant (1SGT) a company quartermaster sergeant, a company commissary sergeant, a farrier, and a sergeant (SGT) acting as the company commander's orderly. Each lieutenant in the platoon had two sergeants, four corporals (CPL), a bugler, and 39 privates (PVT). This gave each company a paper strength of 100 men.
The regiment had high standards for its recruits and the quality of its mounts. Recruiters were to enlist "none but sound, able-bodied men in all respects, between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years of correct morals and temperate habits, active, intelligent, vigorous, and hardy, weighing not less than one hundred and twenty-five or more than one hundred and sixty pounds" While the average United States Infantryman was 26 and 5′ 8.25″ tall and 155 pounds, the average United States Cavalryman was the same age but slightly shorter at 5′ 7″ and lighter at 145 pounds). It encamped at Augusta at the State Fairground, renamed Camp Penobscot, where recruits initially learned military discipline and drill. Horses would arrive in December.
The 1st Maine Volunteer Cavalry Regiment mustered into federal service at Augusta on November 5, 1861, as a three-year volunteer cavalry regiment. It was commanded by COL John Goddard from Cape Elizabeth. A Regular Army cavalry officer, LTC Thomas Hight, was the second-in-command. Another regular, CAPT Benjamin F Tucker served as the Adjutant with the rest of the field and staff officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) being Maine men. In the companies, apart from the Company H commander, CAPT George J. Summat and the 1st Lieutenant in Company L, 1LT Constantine Taylor, all the company officers and NCOs were Maine volunteers.
The 1st Maine had an advantage in recruiting over the infantry and artillery. Many recruits found the idea of riding rather than walking incredibly attractive. Also, the cavalry had an air of glamor and romance that the other branches did not have: There hung about the cavalry service a dash and an excitement which attracted those men who had read and remembered the glorious achievements of 'Light Horse Harry' and his brigade, and of 'Morgan's Men' in the revolutionary war, or who had devoured the story of 'Charles O'Malley,' and similar works. In short, men who had read much in history or in fiction, preferred the cavalry service.