The United States 4th Cavalry Regiment was a United States Army cavalry regiment, whose lineage is traced back to the mid-19th century. Today, only two elements remain of the regiment, the 1st and 2nd Squadron of the 4th Cavalry. The "1st of the 4th Cavalry's official nickname is "Quarter Cav", which alludes its being the only operational element of the old 4th Cavalry. The 2nd of the 4th Cavalry's official name is "Raiders". Today the "1st of the 4th Cavalry" and "2nd of the 4th Cavalry" are parts of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division.

Origin of the 4th Cavalry

---

The 4th Cavalry was the outgrowth of the growth of mounted US Army units that started in the early 1850s. As early as 1854 it had been advocated to redesignate all mounted regiments as cavalry and to renumber them in order of seniority. This was done on 3 August 1861. As the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment was the fourth oldest mounted regiment it was redesignated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment.

The 4th United States Cavalry regiment, one of the most effective units of the United States Army against Indians on the Texas frontier, was organized on March 26, 1855, at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, as the First Cavalry Regiment.

One year after its establishment, the 1st Cavalry Regiment's first military action was a peacekeeping mission in "Bleeding Kansas," where pro-slavery and free state factions clashed violently. It also fought against hostile Plains Indians. Its first commanders were Colonel Edwin V. Sumner and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Johnston. The Regiment first fought on the 30 July, 1857, at the Battle of Solomon River, Kansas, against a large force of 'southern Cheyenne warriors. This unit was Robert E. Lee's last command in the Federal Army before the American Civil War. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the 1st Cavalry Regiment was dissolved in 1861. Many of its maneuver commanders rose to prominence during the war; including Lee as well as George B. McClellan and J.E.B. Stuart.

Civil War

---

Overview

Having been redesignated on August 3, 1861, as the Fourth United States Cavalry, the Regiment fought against Confederates in Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory. The unit fought in the major battles of First Bull Run, the Peninsula, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chickamagua, Murfreesboro and Nashville. In 1861-62 two companies served with distinction in Virginia before being reunited with the regiment in Tennessee. The regiment fought gallantly and continuously in the western theater from Shiloh to Macon.

Details of Civil War Service

With so many units being sent east for the war the 1st Cavalry was initially kept on the frontier until militia type units were raised to protect against Indian raids. On June 22, 1861 George McClellan now a Major General, requested Company A and Company E to serve as his personal escort. The two companies saw action in the Bull Run, Peninsula, Antietam and Fredericksburg campaigns, not rejoining the Regiment until 1864. The rest of the 1st Cavalry was committed to action in Mississippi and Missouri.

Since 1854 it had been advocated to redesignate all mounted regiments as cavalry and to renumber them in order of seniority. This was done on 3 August 1861. As the 1st Cavalry was the fourth oldest mounted regiment it was redesignated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment.

During the early years of the Civil War Union commanders scattered their cavalry regiments throughout the army conducting company, squadron (two company) and battalion (four company) operations. The 4th Cavalry was no exception with its companies scattered from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic coast carrying out traditional cavalry missions of reconnaissance, screening and raiding.

In the first phases of the war in the west companies of the Regiment saw action in Missouri, Mississippi and Kentucky campaigns, the seizure of Forts Henry and Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh. On 31 December 1862 a two-company squadron of the 4th Cavalry attacked and routed a Confederate cavalry brigade near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In 1863-64 companies of the 4th saw further action in Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi. On 30 June 1863 another squadron of the Regiment charged a six-gun battery of Confederate artillery near Shelbyville Tennessee capturing the entire battery and three hundred prisoners.

By the spring of 1864, the success of the large Confederate cavalry corps of Jeb Stuart had convinced the Union leadership to form their own cavalry corps under General Phillip Sheridan. The 4th Cavalry was ordered to unite as a regiment and on 14 December 1864 joined in the attack on Nashville, Tennessee as part of the cavalry corps commanded by General James Wilson. In the battle the 4th help turn the Confederate flank, sending them in retreat. As the Confederate forces attempted a delaying action at West Harpeth, Tennessee an element of the 4th Cavalry led by Lt. Joseph Hedges charged and captured a Confederate artillery battery. For his bravery, Lt Hedges received the Medal of Honor, the first to be bestowed on a member of the 4th Cavalry.

In March 1865, General Wilson was ordered to take his cavalry on a drive through Alabama to capture the Confederate supply depot at Selma. General Wilson had devoted much effort in preparing his cavalry for the mission. It was a superbly trained and disciplined force that left Tennessee led by the 4th Cavalry. It was more than a traditional cavalry raid rather it was an invasion by a cavalry army, a preview of the blitzkrieg of World War II. As the column moved south into Alabama it encountered the famed Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Union force was too strong and defeated the Confederate cavalry allowing the Union forces to arrive at Selma the next day.

On 2 April 1865, the attack on Selma commenced led by the 4th Cavalry in a mounted charge. A railroad cut and fence line halted the mounted attack. Dismounting the Regiment pressed the attack and stormed the town. Selma's rich store of munitions and supplies were destroyed along with the foundries and arsenals.

General Wilson next turned east to link up with General Sherman. His force took Montgomery, Alabama, Columbus, Georgia and had arrived in Macon, Georgia when word came of the end of the war. The Regiment remained in Macon as occupation troops.

After participating in the Battle for Columbus, Georgia - the last battle of the war - the Regiment captured the fugitive Confederate President, Jefferson Davis.

Indian Wars

---

In August 1865, the Fourth Cavalry was sent to Texas. At various times during the next thirteen years units of its twelve companies occupied the military posts between the Rio Grande and Jacksboro, between San Antonio and San Angelo. Before 1871, the operations of the regiment were limited to guarding the mail and settlements against Indians and to desultory attempts to overtake bands of Indian raiders. Colonel Lawrence Pike Graham never led a major campaign, and none of the regiment's fourteen skirmishes with Indians was of major significance.

In December 1870, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie was given command of the Fourth Cavalry, with orders to put a stop to Comanche and Kiowa raids along the Texas frontier. On February 25, 1871, Mackenzie took command of the Fourth Cavalry at Fort Concho. A month later he moved the headquarters of the regiment to Fort Richardson, near Jacksboro; companies of the Fourth remained at Fort Griffin and Fort Concho. In May, while General William T. Sherman, commanding general of the army, was at Fort Richardson, the Kiowas brutally mutilated some teamsters with a wagon train on nearby Salt Creek Prairie (see Warren Wagon Train Raid). A few days later at Fort Sill, Sherman had three leaders of the raid, Satanta, Satank, and Big Tree arrested and had Mackenzie return them to Jacksboro for trial for murder. On the way a trooper killed Satank when he tried to escape; Satanta and Big Tree were sentenced to life imprisonment.

In August 1871 Mackenzie led an expedition into Indian Territory against the Comanches and Kiowas who had left the agency, but he was later ordered to return to Texas. He then led eight companies of the Fourth Cavalry and two companies of the Eleventh Infantry, about 600 men, in search of Quahadi Comanches, who had refused to go onto the reservation and were plundering the Texas frontier. On October 10 he skirmished with a group in Blanco Canyon, near the site of present Crosbyton, but the entire band escaped across the plains. The following summer Mackenzie, with six companies of the Fourth Cavalry, renewed his search for the Quahadis. After establishing his supply camp on the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos (now the White River) southeast of present Crosbyton, Mackenzie with five companies of cavalry followed a cattle trail across the unexplored High Plains into New Mexico and returned by another well-watered Comanchero road from Fort Bascom, near the site of present Tucumcari, New Mexico, to the site of present Canyon. At the head of 222 cavalrymen on September 29 he surprised and destroyed Chief Mow-way's village of Quahadi and Kotsoteka Comanches on the North Fork of the Red River about six miles east of the site of present Lefors. An estimated fifty-two Indians were killed and 124 captured, with a loss of three cavalrymen killed and three wounded. For almost a year both the Kiowas and Comanches remained at peace.

In March 1873 Mackenzie and five companies (A, B, C, E, and K) of the Fourth Cavalry were transferred to Fort Clark with orders to put an end to the Mexican-based Kickapoo and Apache depredations in Texas, which had cost an alleged $48 million. On May 18, 1873, Mackenzie, with five companies of the Fourth Cavalry, surprised and burned three villages of the raiders near Remolino, Coahuila; the cavalrymen killed nineteen Indians and captured forty-one, with a loss of one trooper killed and two wounded. The soldiers recrossed the Rio Grande into Texas at daybreak the next morning, some of the men having ridden an estimated 160 miles in forty-nine hours. The raid and an effective system of border patrols brought temporary peace to the area.

When the Southern Plains Indians opened the Red River War in June 1874, the Grant administration discarded its Quaker peace policy and authorized the military to take control of the reservations and subdue all hostile Indians. General Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Division of the Missouri, ordered five military expeditions to converge on their hideouts along the upper Red River country. In the ensuing campaign the Fourth Cavalry was the most successful. On September 26-27 it staved off a Comanche attack at the head of Tule Canyon and on the morning of September 28 descended by a narrow trail to the bottom of Palo Duro Canyon. There it completely destroyed five Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne villages, including large quantities of provisions, and captured 1,424 horses and mules, of which 1,048 were slaughtered at the head of Tule Canyon. Afterward, Mackenzie, with detachments of the regiment, made two other expeditions onto the High Plains. On November 3, near the site of Tahoka, in their last fight with the Comanches, the cavalrymen killed two and captured nineteen. In spring 1875 Mackenzie and the units of the Fourth Cavalry from various posts in Texas were sent to Fort Sill to take control of the Southern Plains Indians.

Meanwhile, the Indians in Mexico had renewed their marauding in Texas. In 1878 General Sherman, at the insistence of the Texans, transferred Mackenzie and six companies of the Fourth Cavalry to Fort Clark. This time Mackenzie led a larger and more extensive expedition into Mexico, restored a system of patrols, and reestablished peace in the devastated region of South Texas.

Outside Texas, Mackenzie and the Fourth Cavalry administered and controlled the Kiowa-Comanche and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservations for several years, and after the annihilation of George Armstrong Custer's command on the Little Big Horn in June 1876 forced Red Cloud and his band of Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes to surrender. In the autumn of 1879 Mackenzie with six companies of the Fourth Cavalry subdued the hostile Utes in Southern Colorado without firing a shot and in August 1880]] forced them to move to a reservation in Utah. Immediately thereafter, the Fourth Cavalry was transferred to Arizona, where Mackenzie was to assume full command of all military forces in the department and subdue the hostile Apaches. Within less than a month the Apaches had surrendered or fled to Mexico, and on October 30, Mackenzie and the Fourth Cavalry were transferred to the new District of New Mexico. By November 1, 1882, when W. B. Royall replaced Mackenzie as colonel, the Fourth Cavalry had forced the White Mountain Apaches, Jicarillas, Navajos, and Mescaleros to remain peacefully on their respective reservations.

From 1884 to 1886 the Fourth Cavalry operated against the Apaches in Arizona and helped capture Geronimo. Thus ended the Regiment's participation in the Indian Wars. In 1890 the regimental headquarters was moved to Walla Walla, Washington.

Early 20th Century

---

The regiment was on the Mexican border in Texas from 1911 to 1913. From 1913 to 1919 the regiment served at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii and did not participate in World War One.

World War II

---

In World War II, the regiment put ashore the first allied soldiers of the D-Day invasion on islands off the coast of France. The regiment added to its laurels in fierce fighting among the hedgerows of Normandy and in the Huertegan Forest during the Battle of the Bulge.

Vietnam War

---

In 1965, the First Squadron of the 4th Cavalry, "First of the Fourth Cavalry", (1-4 Cavalry) deployed to the Republic of Viet Nam, spending eight years fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The Squadron's firepower, mobility, and shock effect led to their use as "Fire Brigades" at the scenes of the hottest action.

Gulf War

---

In 1990, the Squadron deployed to Saudi Arabia, as part of Operation Desert Shield. This led to the Squadron's spearhead of the division assault into Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Balkins Conflict

---

In 1995, 1-4 Cavalry was the first unit deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina, supporting the peacekeeping mission set forth by the Dayton Peace Accord, for a period of eleven months. 1999 and 2000 saw the air cav elements of the Quarterhorse returning to the Balkans, this time Kosovo, as members of Operation Joint Guardian II.

2002 - Gearing Up for the planned "Serbia Invasion"

---

In mid-October 2002 soldiers with 1st Infantry Division's 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment were abruptly told they would not deploy to Kosovo for peacekeeping duties. 1st Infantry Division officials in Kosovo said they could not comment on the change, while a spokesman for V Corps, the division's parent headquarters, referred all questions to US European Command. A EUCOM spokesman, however, said he could not comment on the change, referring all questions back to V Corps. The first trainloads of the squadron's equipment bound for the Balkans from Germany had to be called back over the weekend. The Schweinfurt-based Quarter Cav was to be part of the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade task force due to rotate into Kosovo. The squadron was to lead the US contingent's aviation task force of OH-58 Kiowa and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, as well as provide perimeter guards at the US headquarters at Camp Bondsteel.

Post Yugoslavia

---

Honors

---

Campaign Participation Credit

• Indian Wars:

1. Comanches;
2. Solomon River, Kansas; July 1857
3. Little Big Horn;
4. Red River;
5. Ramonlina;
6. Pale Duro Canyon;
7. Geronimo's Apaches Expedition; 1886

• Civil War:

1. First Bull Run;
2. Peninsula Campaign;
3. Fredericksburg;
4. Antietam;
5. Chickamagua;
6. Murfreesboro;
7. Nashville;
8. Columbus, Georgia;
9. Captured of Jefferson Davis;

• World War II:

1. D-Day - hedgerows of Normandy;1944
2. Huertegan Forest, Battle of the Bulge;1944

• Korean War:

• Vietnam:

1. Defense;
2. Counteroffensive;
3. Counteroffensive, Phase II;
4. Counteroffensive, Phase III;
5. Tet Counteroffensive;
6. Counteroffensive, Phase IV;
7. Counteroffensive, Phase V;
8. Counteroffensive, Phase VI;
9. Tet 69/Counteroffensive;
10. Summer-Fall 1969;
11. Winter-Spring 1970;
12. Sanctuary Counteroffensive;
13. Counteroffensive, Phase VII;
14. Consolidation I;
15. Consolidation II;
16. Cease-Fire

• Southwest Asia:

1. Defense of Saudi Arabia;
2. Liberation and Defense of Kuwait;
3. Cease-Fire

Decorations

1. Presidential Unit Citation (Army) for BINH THUAN PROVINCE
2. Valorous Unit Award for QUANG TIN PROVINCE
3. Valorous Unit Award for FISH HOOK
4. Meritorious Unit Commendation (Army) for SOUTHWEST ASIA

Bibliography

---

• 4th U.S. Cavalry Regiment Association
• GlobalSecurity.org (search for 4th Cavalry)
• United States Army Center of Military History; CMH Publication 60-1; "Army Lineage Series: ARMOR-CAVALRY, Part I: Regular Army and Army Reserve." Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 69-60002.
• Shelby L. Stanton; ORDER OF BATTLE: U.S. ARMY, World War II; 1984; Presidio Press; ISBN O-89141-195-X.
• Spurs to Glory: The Story of the U.S. Cavalry, Merrill, James M., (Chicago: Rand McNally 1966)
• Ranald S. Mackenzie on the Texas Frontier, Wallace, Ernest, (Lubbock: West Texas Museum Association, 1964)

External links

---

• http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/redriver/battles.html Battle of Red River
• //www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/1746/feud.html 4th US Cavalry and the Lee-Peacock Feud {Texas} 1869 {For Reference only

Cavalry regiments | Robert E. Lee | George B. McClellan | JEB Stuart | Regiments of the United States Army | World War II U.S. forces | Native American wars | Union Army regiments

4. konjeniški polk (ZDA)