The realities of life serving in the U.S.

cavalry on the Great Plains in the 1800s may have differed greatly from the Hollywood depictions of classic westerns.

But the blue-coated soldiers galloping in the battle, sabers flashing, guns ablazing, is an iconic image of the American West that still captures imaginations.

[music] To start to learn more about the real-life history of America's cavalry, we visited with Dr.

Robert Smith, Director Emeritus at the U.S.

Cavalry Museum at Fort Riley, Kansas.

The interesting thing that I always thought fascinating about the United States cavalry is that it was born three times in Army history.

We had cavalry during the Revolutionary Wars, and at the end of the revolution, Congress says, "Hm, horses are too expensive.

Training cavalry is too expensive."

That's the way it stays until 1812, and we have that second dust up with Great Britain.

We create two regiments of dragoons.

In the European sense, it's basically a mounted infantryman, someone that could ride into battle and then fight both on horseback and on foot.

War of 1812 ends, and guess what?

Congress says it's too expensive.

We get rid of it.

The problem that occurs at that point is the United States is moving towards the Mississippi River.

We're encountering something that we had not encountered before, and that is horse-mounted Native Americans.

So in the 1830s, Congress designates a mounted unit.

Now, it has some what we would call very serious birth pangs, and they didn't even use the word cavalry.

Mounted soldiers says, "Well, we can do it really cheaply by having the individuals bring their own horses, bring their own weapons, and equip themselves.

This lasts about one year.

Everybody brings different caliber weapons, different types of uniforms or clothing and things like that.

So Congress finally says, "No, we've got to create a mounted unit."

So the First Dragoons is created in the early 1830s.

Given its success, a second regiment of dragoons is created, and then the army decides, "We need another regiment, but let's call them something different."

They're mounted, so they call them the mounted rifles.

The army then says, "We need cavalry."

So they create two cavalry regiments.

So the cavalry are successful here in the 1840s and the 1850s out here in the Kansas territory.

Well, in that mix, in 1853, the United States Army decides to establish Fort Riley.

And a number of cavalry officers that make some fame in the Civil War are sent out here as young lieutenants and captains.

The Civil War, though, occurs in 1861, and what happens?

Well, all of the regular troops, they go to the Eastern Front.

And so who are we going to garrison Fort Riley with?

The army decides we're going to put in local people, Kansas regiments, volunteer regiments, and a regiment from Wisconsin.

The United States Army, after the Civil War, sends a number of American army officers out here.

The issue is, is we're not very good initially at how to take on what's considered the finest light cavalry in the world, the Native Americans, and how to fight them efficiently.

And so it's decided that we need to professionalize and teach new officers.

The big thing with military training even today is what's called finding the enemy and fixing them, making them fight you.

And the big problem is with Native Americans, finding them and then fixing them is a big issue.

So how do you do that?

Well, one of the cavalry officers, a guy by the name of George Crook, who's a Civil War guy, too, but he realizes that when do the Native Americans not operate as mounted as a nomadic people, hunting buffalo?

This is the horse culture.

It's in the winter.

So why not attack if we need to and fight them in the winter when they're sedentary?

The second thing, we start to recruit Native Americans to serve as scouts and interpreters, and they're the ones that actually teach our soldiers the tools of their craft, how you can find them and how you can fix them.

Because the problem with Custer at the Little Bighorn, I'm going a little far a field here, is Custer finds them and he wants to fix them.

The only problem is he doesn't realize that he has around 600 soldiers, four soldiers, and there's 1500 to 2000 Native Americans there.

So there's a problem, but he was able to find them and fix them.

And so that's one of the issues that they learn here.

And they learned that they learned that craft from the Native Americans.

The cavalry fought with, I would say, standard European methods.

If you found the Native Americans, the order was you would dismount, form a line.

Well, you lose a little in attrician because when they dismount, somebody has to hold the horses.

So every fourth man has to hold the horse.

So you have three on the line.

It was believed, and it was in Army regulations, that continual volley fire from cavalry in a skirmish line could defeat Native Americans.

That they could, that aimed shots were much better than riding a horse and shooting away.

We have an exhibit, Hollywood movies and their conceptions about the United States cavalry.

And we have an exhibit here, which is myth versus reality.

Most of the reality is the hard life they had, the uniforms that they wore, very utilitarian uniforms.

Speaking of representing cavalry in movies, Don Rowlison visited with J.D.

Perry, Vice President of the Fort Wallace Memorial Association, and Dr.

Jake Bauer, veterinarian and avocational historian specializing in Great Plains military history, as they were preparing saddles, weapons and other authentic cavalry materials to be used in an upcoming project.

Today these guys are quickly reconditioning some military saddles, cavalry saddles, dating from the 1850s up through later years in the early 20th century.

So with these water genomics called McClellan saddles, there's no saddle horn on them like you see on TV, or green white.

McClellan went all over Europe studying the different military saddles, and then he came back to the United States and then they put together what they were going to make for the cavalry saddle.

So after the Civil War, they had so many of them left that they didn't change it.

The total style of them hasn't changed.

This here is like an 1872-74 model, covered in leather.

Still, this is all about the same girth up.

So right beside is the 1904 model you can see on it.

They started changing this up so they could fit a wider variety of horses.

They have a really down to sea, so let the horse's spine be a little bit looser.

They were primarily made for the horse and not for the man.

That's what I thought they'd see.

And I'm going to insert in one sentence.

It was 40 miles a day on beans and hay for the cavalry.

The life was really rough.

Well, they always talk about 40 miles a day on beans and hay.

And that seems like it's stretching a little bit, 40 miles.

But it could be, I think, Custer went from Wallace to Hayes in the 82 hours or 72 hours, something like that.

My dad and a couple of other guys, when they got out of high school, they rode from Leo to Kansas to Grand Lake, Colorado.

And when they got done, they averaged 40 miles a day.

And most of the time, they said they just tried to stay in a fast walk.

They would actually make more time in a fast walk than if they would try to lope and trot.

For the authenticity of this filming or movie, what other horse gear you're going to do?

I've got halters and bridles.

They're accrued-a-months, I think is what they're called.

You know, this is their martingales.

This was not an issued item.

But it's been my experience.

If you don't have a horse that has a good withers, more like a thoroughbred, McClellan will like to roll on you.

So you talked about the horses they were using.

How big were these horses?

Didn't like them over 16 hands, but they had to be, I believe, at least 15 hands.

Down in Texas, in that area, they would let them use mustangs down there because they were short on horses.

But they wanted them to be at least 14-2 to be that way.

When you talk about a hand of a horse, that's the height measurement, but a hand is four inches.

They said there was one hitch to it, that these guys that were raising the horses to sell for the government were feeding them up big.

So they would be bigger when they got there.

And then when the horses got into the military and got out in the field, they didn't last as long because they weren't used to the harshness of everything.

Because those horses weren't used to just living on grass and hay.

Oh, the United States Army realized that during the Plains Indian Wars that the Native Americans were mounted on much better horses than what they were buying.

And that causes the creation of what we call the U.S.

Remount Service, where the Army, in the late 1880s, 1890s, starts to look at what is a good cavalry horse.

And for the horse lovers, it was decided that a cross between a quarter horse and a thoroughbred would be the ideal cavalry mount.

And these horses not only was carrying a 125-130 pound person, but there's a lot of pounds in all of their gear.

With their blankets, their tin cups that went on, the clothes they were wearing, the feeds, there's a lot of weight.

Yep, five pound rifle or six pound rifle, five pounds of ammo.

You got your canteen, another five, you know, everything was five pounds, five pounds.

And that adds up to 150 to 200 pounds pretty quick.

And you compare those to the Native Americans that were riding like.

Well, a lot of those was riding bareback.

And had a little satchel onto them or a bag that they had.

Maybe a rifle, but many times... A lot of times a bow and arrows.

A bow and arrows, because they could shoot faster than a single shot rifle.

When you think about it, the life the horses had out here on the prairie was pretty tough.

It was pretty tough and they were worn out fairly quickly with all of that, of all of their uses.

And here at Fort Riley, one of the interesting things, we have here at the museum a monument, one of only two in the country, a monument to the horses that have served and lost their lives in America's wars.

So we kind of take that bow about the horses because we know that their life wasn't a better roses out here.

Cavalry, when they were on campaign, took only what they could take on horseback.

And then other things, you got their saddlebags that they would have carried.

There's where you would have your spare horseshoes, your brushes, maybe some stuff of your own.

Another thing is a nose bag.

They would use this to put their grain in.

Sometimes they would even be issued three days rations of grain that they'd carry with them.

But on the horse, when they were carrying it, they also used it for accessory pocket to put stuff in that they'd want to take with them.

For uniforms, they had a blue wool shirt and what we call cursey blue pants.

It was a lighter blue.

Actually, if you look at Civil War cavalry, you can see basically the same stocks were actually used.

A lot of times, civilian articles, straw hats, straw boater hats were out here, and even the cork sun helmets were actually issued out here.

Now, that being said, the dress uniforms were rather ornate.

They wore a helmet with a horsehair crest, yellow being the cavalry color, and wearing a full dress for officers double-breasted jacket with gilt buttons.

A lot of things that probably weren't regulation were used out here on the cavalry.

If you saw a cavalry unit trotting here in the plains, not one uniform would match the other.

A lot of the stores, the clothing stocks, were left over from the Civil War because Congress really didn't want to spend the money.

In 1877, the Army appropriation for the calendar year did not occur until November, so the Army did not have any money for all of 1877.

Basically, Congress says, "Whoops, we forgot."

Basically, they were using what they could, and they were basically fighting and patrolling out here on the plains on a shear string budget.

We got boots.

These are more of the style of what the artillery or the cavalry would have.

A lot of times in the movies, you see them clean up over the knee.

But those two, and we'll point out the low heels.

Instead of seeing what would be called a cowboy boot today with the high heels, these guys were walking a lot.

So these were walking boots with the lower heels, but it was high enough to keep their foot in a stirrup, usually.

You always think about the cavalry is they're wearing their cavalry boots, well, a lot of them are brogans, too.

Whatever was issued, and they all had leather soles on them.

And those things are slicker than snots.

They are.

Another part of their equipment, their cavalry sling, for their carbine.

They would snap their carbine on that.

And the barrel went down into the boot.

Yeah, this here boot here.

So the barrel went down there, so when they said, "Draw carbines," they were pulling out of their boot and taking this and snapping it from the... Now, a lot of times they even left them snapped, but there he is here.

If you got dismounted from your horse one way or the other... Your gun was with you.

And then they would have a belt and a sidearm.

The biggest thing on the cavalry is their sabers.

A lot of times in the West, they never got close enough to anything to use them, so they would leave them back in the thing.

But it's still the epic thing you see sabers you think cavalry.

So most of them didn't have to carry them, but I knew that some of the officers wanted them so they could direct the movement.

Many of the movies show that carrying inaccurate weapons and things, because from 1866 up to the Spanish-American War, the American cavalrymen carries a single-shot carbine.

And so all of the movies set in the 1870s or the 1860s with the Indian Wars, they didn't have the Winchester 94, which you see on TV all the time.

Per the 92?

A lot of infantry groups in the Civil War had muzzle-loading muskets.

Right, which would have been very similar to this.

Originally, this was a muzzle-loader.

And then in 1966, they did an Allen conversion when they cut a chunk out of the barrel to put this trapdoor mechanism on.

And then they put a liner in the barrel to bring them from 58 caliber or 56 caliber down to 50 caliber.

During the Civil War, that was a big advancement for all different kinds of weapons.

But the cavalry needed something, and I don't know how many different companies come up with their version of what would be best.

And most of them were breech loaders.

This is a 1973 Springfield carbine.

Just like JD had said earlier, you know, they made the Allen conversion and whatever.

Well, for some reason they thought that people were going to waste a lot of ammo unless they shot them that one round at a time.

It is believed that if a soldier has just one round and can cook that off, he will aim rather than having multiple shots.

And so you see in the Western cavalry movies, they pull out these Winchester's and Henry's.

Army never used those, never bought them.

They were afraid, Congress was afraid, too much ammunition would be spent and the cost would be prohibitive.

So we're going to go with aimed shots.

One of the big things at that time was they used copper case bullets and copper is pretty soft and they were having jams.

They'd have to pull out their knife to get a shell out.

Also, cavalry carried the Colt pistol.

They called it the thumb breaker.

It was a single action Colt.

It was firing metallic cartridges, but those metallic cartridges didn't come until the 1870s.

And so basically prior to that, from the Civil War time, you had what was called a cap and ball pistol.

You had a round ball, you had some powder and you had to load each cylinder with that.

So the metallic cartridge, when it comes in in the 1870s, very popular.

And then a lot of people, you know, we'll see a McClellan saddle and they'll say, boy, those aren't very big.

But they don't realize that people were a lot smaller than we were because what was the average weight of a cavalry?

Maybe a hundred and a quarter.

Yeah, one hundred and twenty five, one hundred and thirty pounds.

And about five six on height.

And yet pound for pound, they were a lot tougher than we were and probably stronger.

And a considerable number of those soldiers, those enlisted soldiers, were immigrants, mainly German and Irish immigrants.

They were over here.

And it was said that the 7th, Custer's 7th Cavalry, that a number of the soldiers in the 7th Cavalry were not very proficient in English.

If they joined the military, they could get their citizenship by the way they joined and get paid for it.

And so a lot of these people, even from the Eastern United States, had never ridden a horse very much.

They might have, you know, they had horsepower, but they were workhorses.

But a lot of them hadn't ridden.

But it was also done that the life was extremely hard.

It was very hard on the soldiers out here with the weather and the elements because the weather can just get so brutal so quick.

I got to listen to a historian talking about here a couple of years ago, we got down to 40 below Windchill during January.

And he went back and read in some of the doctor notes of Fort Dodge.

And he said in one month they had almost a hundred amputations from frost bite.

And then the brutal winds.

I mean, you can have a day that's pretty decent or breezy like it is here today.

You know, this is kind of maybe 20 mile an hour gust and we can go to having 50, 60 mile an hour winds.

They started studying the skeletons of cavalry soldiers and found out that by age 30, 35, they were pretty much physical wrecks from being eight hours in the saddle every day and surviving on hard tack and beans.

That it was very difficult life.

The legacy is that they were peacekeeping.

Like I said, they were the peacekeepers.

Although, you know, we have a lot of things that happened which really shouldn't have.

But still, the legacy is rather good because they provided stability out here for the Kansans that were out here settling.

Well, the biggest thing all of these forts along here was to protect commerce.

So you had the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, you had the railroad, you had the Santa Fe Trail, and they would patrol it so commerce could get from point A to point B and back.

And like I had said earlier, even during the Bleeding Kansas period, they were respected.

The Army was respected.

When the Army came in, the townspeople respected.

And they also worked very closely with the civil authorities.

And if I may say that the cavalry still has, you know, still provides those, even though they're not mounted on horses today, they're still providing those same missions that the cavalry did many years ago.

Scouting, although now they're doing it mechanized or with drones or things like that or with helicopters.

So the cavalry still has its place in military, you know, in military organizations.

Very much so.

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