The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 465
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Diary of Eliza (Mrs. Albert Sidney) Johnston 465
were mere Cotton [?] & prunella. Johnston's merits should have given
him a regiment years ago, but his pride & delicacy have always pre-
vented him from pressing his claims-Mag is as happy as a queen. She
did rare electioneering for Genl. [Winfield] Scott who was our guest
for seven weeks before his bill passed and now that Johnston has a
new, full, & to-be-crack cavalry regiment, her ladyships cup is full-.4
On March 9, 1855, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis formally
notified the unsuspecting Johnston of his appointment to com-
mand the regiment.
The 2nd Cavalry Regiment was destined shortly for stern
duties on the Texas frontier, where the fierce Comanche were
rampaging. Lines of widely spaced army garrisons running from
Fort Belknap on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River to Fort Clark
near the Rio Grande were designed to keep the Indians docile,
but these measures had failed, because in the penetrating judg-
ment of one observer, "Keeping a bulldog to chase musquitoes
[sic] would be no greater nonsense than the stationing of six-
pounders, bayonets, and dragoons for the pursuit of these red
wolves."" The War Department created the mounted regiment
as the solution to this vexing problem.
The 2nd Cavalry Regiment, formed by Congress on March 3,
1855, was a remarkable organization. Jefferson Davis personally
selected the officers, and they perhaps possessed more military
talent than any similar group in American history. Johnston was
the commander; Robert E. Lee was second-in-command; William
J. Hardee and George H. Thomas were majors; included among
the captains were Earl Van Dorn, E. Kirby Smith, Nathan G.
Evans, Innis N. Palmer, George Stoneman, and Richard W.
Johnson; and among the lieutenants were John B. Hood, Charles
W. Field, William P. Chambliss, Charles W. Phifer, and Kenner
Garrard. All of these men achieved renown during the Civil
War. The deeds of Johnston and Lee in the Confederate cause
need no recounting. Hardee, Van Dorn, Smith, Evans, Field,
Hood, Chambliss, and Phifer were well-known Southern generals
in the great internecine conflict, while Thomas, Palmer, Stone-
4William Preston to "My dear Eliza" [Johnston], March 4, 1855 (MS., Johns-
ton Papers, Tulane University Archives, New Orleans).
6Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas (2 vols.; New York, 1857),
II, 298.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957, periodical, 1957; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101163/m1/502/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.