Archive for December 22nd, 2008

MARCH INTO MEXICO CITY

December 22nd, 2008

From:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS WITH THE SECOND CAVALRY
By Joseph I. Lambert, Major, Second Cavalry
Copyright 1939 Commanding Officer, Second Cavalry, Fort Riley, Kansas
Capper Printing Company, Inc.

On the night of September 13 the Mexican authorities sent word to the Americans that their army had withdrawn beyond the city. At eight o’clock in the morning of the 14th, General Scott and his staff entered the city escorted by the Second Dragoons. These men, proud of the honor and the occasion, worked most of the night cleaning their uniforms and equipment. As the general reached the plaza the mounted band of the gallant Second played Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle.

But the day was marred by street fighting which soon broke out. First, the apparent curiosity of the natives was so great that they crowded upon the troops. The Second was ordered to clear the plaza. More than 2,000 convicts had been released by the Mexican army before withdrawing from the city. Also, a number of deserters from our army were desperately trying to evade capture. These malcontents soon began firing at our troops from the buildings. In the street fight which followed the regiment lost one sergeant killed and five men wounded. Continue Reading »

WESTERN EXPANSION

December 22nd, 2008

dragoonAfter the Mexican war, the Regiment moved west to secure the country’s newly acquired territories for the influx of settlers. In June of 1849 troopers from Company F under the command of Major Ripley Arnold established an encampment along the banks of the Trinity River in Texas, which they named Fort Worth in honor of General William J. Worth, whom the Regiment had served with during the final years of the Seminole War. This area is now known as “the fort that became a city”, Dallas/Fort Worth.

The Regiment spent the pre-Civil War period fighting Indians and securing the routes that brought settlers into the new territories of the United States. In 1854, the Second Dragoons took part in a campaign against the Sioux Indians and soundly defeated a sizable Brule Sioux force near Ash Hollow, Nebraska, without incurring a single loss. This action forced the Sioux to sign a peace treaty.

In late 1857, in response to reports of harassment and abuse of Federal officials from Mormon settlers in Utah, a Battalion formed from the Regiment was sent to put down Mormon resistance to U.S. authority as part of a 2,500 man expeditionary force. Expecting a confrontation, the Mormon leader and Utah governor, Brigham Young, mobilized the Utah militia, but agreed to terms just before the expeditionary force reached the state. This long and arduous winter march is immortalized in the Don Stivers print, “Never a Complaint.” Continue Reading »

John Wynn “Black Jack” Davidson

December 22nd, 2008

6th-davidsonJohn Wynn “Black Jack” Davidson

By Dave Chagnon, Scout Section, 3rd Platoon, K Troop, 3rd Recon Squadron, 2nd ACR (’66 & ’67); Sennachie, Clan Davidson Society (USA)

If you walked into the average college American history class in this country and asked “Which American military leader was known as ‘Black Jack‘?”, probably a million out of a million respondents would reply “Black Jack Pershing” (if they knew at all). And every one of those million respondents would be wrong!

Wrong, that is, if you were thinking of Black Jack Davidson!

John Wynn Davidson was a 19th C. US Cavalry officer who served in the US Army from 1845 to the time of his death in 1881. He was given the sobriquet “Black Jack” because he at one time commanded a Squadron of the 10th Cavalry, a military unit comprised of free Negroes or recently freed slaves also know as “Buffalo Soldiers”. It was for this very same reason that “Black Jack” Pershing got the same nick-name some thirty years later when he served first as a Lieutenant in the same Regiment, the 10th Cavalry, in 1892 and later as a Captain during the Spanish American War in 1898. Quite obviously, the “Black” part of the name refers to their mutual service as a commander of Black soldiers. I’m not entirely sure this mark of service would be held in high esteem in these more politically correct times… but history is history, despite those revisionists who would like to remake the past to suit the more liberal palates of today. Certainly not the style of the Sennachie…

It was the 10th Cavalry, by the way, that pulled Teddy Roosevelt’s 1st U.S. Volunteer Regiment’s (the Rough Riders) bacon out of the fire during their famous (but frequently mis-reported) ride up Kettle & San Juan Hills.

I first became aware of the existence of John Wynn Davidson when I was reading the history of the 2nd Cavalry, the military unit to which I was attached when I did my mandatory military duty in the mid-60′s. The specific unit I was a part of was the Scout Section, 3rd Platoon, K Troop, 3 Reconnaissance Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. I was stationed near Amberg, West Germany although I spent the bulk of my time patrolling the barbed-wire, machine gun-guarded Iron Curtain borders of East Germany and Font color=blue>Czechoslovakia.

But I digress… one of my great failings (but not certainly my only one). The more I read, the greater my true connections to the 2nd Cav became apparent. And the spookier these connections became, too! There are or have been thousands of regiments in the US Army – how come I ended up in the 2nd Cav, seemingly as the result of a totally random “luck of the draw” impersonal assignment by some nameless clerk in some nameless personnel unit in some nameless place? Continue Reading »