During these days another great cavalryman has taken his place at the head of the regiment. Philip St. George Cooke has taken command. If in the swamps of Florida, the fields of Mexico or the plains of Texas, there has been little time to devote to the finer points of drill, the defect’ is remedied now. On the prairies of Kansas, with new mount and splendid equipment, Colonel Cooke gives a new impetus to the military detail of the regiment. He cannot add to its esprit de corps. There have grown upon it no excrescences for his keen knife to lop off, but he can and does give them a grand drilling, the like of which they have never had before. For the first time in many years, from four to six companies of the regiment were together at Fort Riley in 1856-57, without a war of some kind to engage their attention. There was no nonsense about the old soldier who had them in charge, and the young officers joining there, learned lessons they found invaluable, and which a few years later, upon the fields of Virginia, enabled them to add fresh laurels to the regimental wreath.

A few short years of pleasant garrison life in Kansas, and (1856) “once more, my men, into the saddle and show the world what you can endure and live.” ‘Tis the Mormon, that religious barnacle upon the western civilization of the nineteenth century that demands your attention now. Secure in the fastness of the Rockies, in the valley which he has reclaimed and converted from a wilderness to a garden, their prophet, priest and king defies the power of the Government, and practically proclaims his independence. It is unnecessary for the soldiers to analyze too closely the history of the Mormon War. Whether it was, in whole or part, a move in the great game of conspiracy then being played; whether it was a shrewd effort on the part of Brigham Young to get a market for the agricultural products of the Mormons; whether he actually supposed that his position was strong enough to enable him to defy the Government; or whether it was a part of all of these causes, matters not to the Dragoon. “His not to reason why,” and he did not attempt it.

In the month of August, 1857, the regiment started on its march overland for Utah. The route was long and weary, but that did not matter. They were used to that, but when the early snows fell upon them at South Pass and the mercury went down into the bulb of the thermometer to keep from freezing, and the starved horses laid down to die on the trail, the light-hearted Dragoon, like Mark Tapley at Eden, began to think there might be some credit in being jolly. Jolly he was not always, but the survivors of that terrible winter all testify to the invariable cheerfulness and pluck of the soldiers; on foot, half starved and more than half frozen, they struggled on as far as Fort Bridger, and, there, passed a winter of suffering.

The casualties reported from 1840 to the outbreak of the Civil War were: Killed, 4 officers and 47 men; wounded, 8 officers and 84 men.

Then was reached the climax in the life and history of the regiment. Those gallant, simple-minded soldiers were called upon to meet a question of divided duty. Heretofore they have ridden and fought, worked and starved with but one thought, one aim—Duty. Had you asked the officer if the cause was just, he might have said, “I do not know, here are my orders.” Had you said to the soldier, “You would not fire on your own people, would you?” he would probably have answered with the old artilleryman in Pittsburg in ‘77, “I don’t know sir, that depends upon the Captain.” Now, however, the Captain is troubled. If from the South, he has been taught to believe that the Union is a voluntary compact on the part of each State, from which it may withdraw. If this State withdraws or secedes, as a citizen of the State he will owe his allegiance to her and not to the Union with which she has severed her connection. On the other hand, he has followed the dear old flag from Florida to Utah, sprinkling it with his blood m many a combat, and how can he ever fight against it? How he hopes and prays that his State will not go; that he will not be obliged to make the choice. But the time comes and he must choose. As he reads and re-reads the letters from the dear ones at home, urging him to come to their protection, and looks at his brothers-in-arms from whom they want protection, who will condemn him whichever way he goes? We have his history for years before and we have all known him for years since. Little more need be said. On the Confederate side “Dick” Anderson and Hardee became lieutenant-generals; Pegram, Sibley, Robertson, Geo. Anderson, Armstrong, Stuart and Field were major generals.

The crisis has come and passed, and another year (1862) finds the regiment in Virginia, a grand old Virginian still its colonel. The vacancies are filled and the regiment is ready once more to enter the lists. In a sketch like this it is impossible to follow in detail its history through such a period as that from ‘61 to ‘65. However, it seems proper to take notice of the personnel at the commencement of, what an ancient dragoon always called, “our late lamented circus.” The regiment in 1861 was twenty-five years old, and its officers had received their training in its school. Whatever they became as soldiers in the great war, then commencing, they owed to that training. Many were detached from the organization at the commencement of hostilities. Cooke was made a brigadier-general in the regular establishment; Wood, Palmer, Davidson and Pleasanton were starred and assigned to command volunteer troops; while Buford, who was perhaps more than any other a typical 2d Dragoon, first commanded the Regular Brigade and afterward the First Cavalry Division of the Army of the Potomac. One feels inclined to stop at this period, and enter into detail. There is so much of brilliancy in every day life, from the time when Hooker organized the cavalry, until when our horsemen with characteristic impudence hold the way against Lee’s retreating army at Appomatox, that a “sketch “ seems inappropriate. The scholars of that 2d Dragoon school are now operating on the great war theatre, where history is being made. Some have gone far to the front, like Buford, and Merritt, and Sanders, but they have at their elbows such lieutenants as “Jake” Gordon, Rodenbough, Leoser, Harrison, Blanchard and Dave Gordon, as well as those splendid fellows whose military cradle was a dragoon saddle, like Ball, Mix, Wells, Spaulding, Dewees and Quirk, whose feats on the field of Beverly Ford, alone, should immortalize them. While these old soldiers are still with the regiment, there is hardly an army in the country which has not a brigade, division or corps commanded by some one of those detached. Pleasanton, Graham, Buford and Merritt in the Army of the Potomac, Wood and Davidson in the West, Palmer in North Carolina, while “Doc” Sanders is the hero of the day at Knoxville, where he lost his life. The regiment paid fearfully for its share in the struggle for the Nation; its Roll of Honor is long. Buford, Sanders, McQueston, Canfield, Lawless, McMasters, Selden—all dead on the field of battle. Others survived the War and dropped off one by one, leaving but few of that gallant band remaining. Of them, Harrison—popular, brave, conscientious-is now a citizen in that peaceful city, Philadelphia; Rodenbough, who made much history for the regiment then, now uses the arm left from that glorious charge at the Opequan, in preserving it; and Leoser, “the cool captain,” whose iron frame shows little evidence of war wounds and prisons, is now residing in New York. Space does not permit one to follow individuals farther. The list of combats from 1861 to 1865 shows what the regiment accomplished. Always in front, under Pleasanton, Buford or Merritt, with Stoneman or the brilliant Sheridan, from Bull Run to the Appomatox, there was hardly an affair of any importance at which it was not represented. Its losses during the War were: Killed, 5 officers and 60 men; wounded, 20 officers and 206 men.

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