Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier [Hardcover]

James R. Arnold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0471333646 | ISBN-13: 978-0471333647 | Edition: 1

The men of the Second Cavalry went to Texas to fight Indians.

Then they returned home to fight each other. The creation of the Second Cavalry in 1855 was a watershed event in the history of the United States Army. Ordered to engage the Native American tribes whose persistent raids were slowing the settlement of the West, the officers of the Second were unwittingly preparing to fight each other. Established by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the Second and its officers were assigned-disregarding Army tradition-on the basis of merit and not seniority. Davis's innovation proved sound: Half of the full generals in Davis's Confederate army had served with the Second Cavalry prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.Texas's western frontier was their battleground, and the warriors of the Comanche tribe were their foes. Forsaking the infantry's rustic stockades that had merely served as detour signs for fleet raiding parties, the Second Cavalry developed innovative tactics to address a novel situation, thereby showing the army how to complete the conquest of the West. Led by men such as Robert E. Lee (in his first independent combat command), John Bell Hood, and George Thomas, the troopers of the Second Cavalry schooled themselves in the tactics and strategies of mobile desert warfare, tutored by a skilled and tireless adversary.Drawing upon a wealth of military documents, archival materials, period newspapers, and personal journals, Arnold adds a new and insightful chapter to the history of the U.S. Army and the men who shaped it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Created in 1855 by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the 2nd United States Cavalry was led by Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee and Maj. George H. Thomas. Arnold (Grant Wins the War) chronicles the birth and pre-Civil War service of this mounted regiment on the Texas frontier. When white settlers first moved into central Texas, the fierce Comanche warriors raided frontier settlements, stealing horses and cattle, killing men and carrying off women. After Texas became a state, the 2nd Cavalry was sent to guard the Texans and attack the hostiles. The result was a mixed bag of successes and failures as the cavalry companies grappled with the weather, civilians, hostile and friendly Indians, loneliness and isolation, and oftentimes lack of adequate supplies. Arnold writes of the unit's weapons and uniforms, its selection of horses, training at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, and its long march overland to the Texas frontier. The next five years were spent in frustrating combat and patrol against the Indians. There were occasional successes, such as Lt. John B. Hood's aggressive patrolling in 1857 and Earl Van Dorn's attack on a Comanche village at Crooked Creek in 1859. The regiment left Texas in 1861 and was redesignated the 5th U.S. Cavalry when the War Department reorganized the army's mounted units that year. Not since William Price's 1883 regimental history have the early years of this famous unit, which produced more general officers of Civil War fame than any other, received their due coverage. While this book will be a hard sell beyond its niche of regional war buffs, Arnold has produced an elegantly written narrative that will captivate anyone interested in this facet of American frontier history. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The author of Grant Wins the War (1997) provides a thorough, readable overview of the raising of the U.S. Second Cavalry and its activities on the Texas frontier. After the Mexican War, the U.S. was obligated to defend settlement in Texas and keep Indians in the new state out of Mexico. So restraining the Comanches, few in number but large in ferocity and skill, required cavalry. So Secretary of War Jefferson Davis generated the first two cavalry regiments, whose first three commanding officers were Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, and George Thomas; 13 other officers also became Civil War generals. The cavalrymen were a motley lot, who on the whole gave useful service despite unsuitable horses; the climate, terrain, and size of Texas; the quality of the opposition; shortages of supplies; and the Texans' total lack of cooperation in any sort of peaceful relationship with the Comanches. More historians should produce books as balanced, erudite, and smoothly written as regularly as Arnold does. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 27, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471333646
• ISBN-13: 978-0471333647
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #698,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Supposed to be History, not a Novel., January 9, 2003

By 

Christopher R. Fischer (San Antonio, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches and the Battle for the Texas Frontier (Hardcover)

I must say I've read just about every book on the US Army in the 1850's...and while this book is OK it was little more than the original book by Col. Simpson "Cry Comanchee". I was surpirsed that this book was three times as thick and really offered almost NO new information...furthermore I was very trouble by the author's attmepts to make his work into an easy read novel...a very scarry trend in history today in order to reach the greater public. He describes the gut feelings of men who never left a record of how they felt that morning, nor that they knew this patrol would be different from the rest...I was disappointed as I realized that all the additional pages were filler about conjections of peoples emotions that have been long gone. He even talks about the troopers packing their saddlebags...a quick look at the VERY published inspector General reports of the 2nd shows the companies had no saddlebags! There is little academic research, there has been alot of information of the arms, equipments, etc of the old 2nd Cavalry (now 5th Cavalry) come to light in the last 20 years and it is obvious the author has not spent any real time at the US Cavalry Museum nor researched and primary sources that Col. Simpson didn't already. All in all I am not usually this harsh, but I did pay full price (which was TWICE what I paid for a new copy from the pubilsher of the long out of print "Cry Comanchee") and was very upset. The original publisher still has several copies of "CC" for sale and I sadly must suggest you go to them and buy that book instead.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lacks a little, February 8, 2001

By 

Mitchell (Jacksboro, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier (Hardcover)

This book is a very smooth read on a subject of American History seldom treated.

Although it is NOT the first book written on the 2nd Cavalry (Cry Comanche), it was a good treatment of the subject.

It is for the most part, however, insufficiently footnoted leaving a dedicated historian to wonder where the story's facts derive.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent choice, January 11, 2005

By 

Gerrick "Gerrick" (down east, North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jeff Davis's Own: Cavalry, Comanches, and the Battle for the Texas Frontier (Hardcover)

Yes, it may be a small slice of the American experience but the story will stay with you for a long time as we see history repeat itself in Iraq. Excellent writing, well researched, you will shake the dust off your worn out boots after this book.