A Cavalryman's Reminiscences

by Howell Carter
Louisiana 1st Cavalry Regiment

When the actors in a great drama are about to have the last curtain rung down, they strain every nerve to so reach the climax that the audience may go away with the scene forever stamped upon their minds, and, thus it is in this case; thirty-five years have passed away and the dust and cobwebs have so accumulated that even the names of the actors are almost obliterated, but with a supreme effort we have brushed and swept until the walls have whitened and the names of most of the members of "Scott's Famous Cavalry," as the Federals called them, are written herein, and, if it means for preservation, then the author, when the curtain is about to rung down, will say "this is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done."

In June, 1861, Colonel John Simms Scott, native son of East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, serving as a Scout, for General Magruder's Confederate Command in Virginia, was ordered back to Louisiana to raise a regiment of cavalry for the Southern Cause. The 1st Louisiana Cavalry Regiment was one of the most heavily endowed regiments, receiving some $500,000.00, largely from Louisiana planters, as many of the troopers of the regiment were sons of planters or their relatives.
While in camp in Russellville, the regiment was decimated with the measles, killing many of the troopers and others were sent home, only to die from the illness. At Shiloh, the 1st La. Cavalry was a part of Col. Nathan B. Forrest's Cavalry on the extreme right of the Confederate line.

The 1st Louisiana continued through the war with the Army of Tennessee, On August 4, 1862, General Kirby Smith placed Col. Scott in charge of a brigade of cavalry that consisted of the 1st Louisiana Cavalry, 1st Georgia Cavalry, 1st Louisiana Mountain Howitzers, and the Buckner Guards, to be known as the Kirby Smith Brigade of Cavalry. The brigade, with a strength of 896 officers and troopers, led the Army of Tennessee as the scouts for Smith's Army. They fought at Fort Donelson, Tenn; Shiloh, Tenn; Richmond, Ky; Munfordville, Ky; Perryville, Ky; Murfreesboro, Tenn; Danville, Ky; Chickamauga, Ga; Missionary Ridge, Tenn. They ended the war in their own homes protecting southern Mississippi and Louisiana.

Few cavalry records survive and even fewer records exist for Louisiana troops, perhaps because the storms which hit Louisiana after the war destroyed the letters and reminiscenes of the families who survived the war. This book is a true jewel for showing the service of the cavalry in the war.