Marches of the dragoons in the Mississippi Valley: an account of marches and activities of the First regiment United States dragoons in the Mississippi Valley between the years 1833 and 1850

Front matter

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Author's Preface

Three regiments of dragoons have appeared upon the military rosters of the United States. The First Regiment of Dragoons — the subject of this volume — existed from March 2, 1833, to August 3, 1861. Until about 1850 this unit served largely in the Mississippi Valley in the work of frontier defense, garrison duty, treaty negotiations, marches, expeditions, patrol duty, exploration, and in the enforcement of federal laws.

These services influenced the westward drift of population, complementing the work of the explorers, the missionaries, the boatmen, the Indian traders, the surveyors, and the engineers. The annals of our western posts have not yet passed into such picturesque accounts as hover about Quebec, Ticonderoga, or Pitt. The names of great soldiers in the frontier army are few. Nor do military glory and renown follow the American soldiers over their western trails. But homage and recognition are due to the thousands of plain, frontier soldiers for their quiet unadorned and often unheralded services — whether at lonely Mississippi River posts, in the protection of trade caravans, in travels over the cacti-covered plains, or in marches from post to post.

viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE

A regimental history of the First United States Dragoons yields a cross sectional view of the work of the frontier army in the West. Such history has been preserved in officers' reports, the accounts of travellers, post records, diaries, journals, order books, and correspondence. This material, containing facts, descriptions, narratives, and impressions, enriches our knowledge of the staples of western history.

This volume of western military history is an outgrowth of the writer's Henry Dodge. Chapters IV and VI of the present volume are a recasting of chapters VIII and IX of that biography. Other chapters have been read at the spring meetings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association at Nashville and at Chicago. The author believes that Captain Boone's Journal in the appendix is printed for the first time. In the case of the spelling of Indian names the author has attempted to follow that of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Acknowledgments are due to Dr. Benj. F. Shambaugh, the Editor, and to Dr. Dan E. Clark, the Associate Editor, of The State Historical Society of Iowa, for critically editing the manuscript. The index was compiled by Dr. John E. Briggs.

Louis Pelzer State University of Iowa Iowa City Iowa