The Second Colorado Cavalry

During the Civil War, the Second Colorado Volunteer Regiment played a vital and often decisive role in the fight for the Union on the Great Plains—and in the westward expansion of the American empire. Christopher M. Rein’s The Second Colorado Cavalry is the first in-depth history of this regiment operating at the nexus of the Civil War and the settlement of the American West. Composed largely of footloose ’59ers who raced west to participate in the gold rush in Colorado, the troopers of the Second Colorado repelled Confederate invasions in New Mexico and Indian Territory before wading into the Burned District along the Kansas border, the bloodiest region of the guerilla war in Missouri. In 1865, the regiment moved back out onto the plains, applying what it had learned to peacekeeping operations along the Santa Fe Trail, thus definitively linking the Civil War and the military conquest of the American West in a single act of continental expansion. Emphasizing the cavalry units, whose mobility proved critical in suppressing both Confederate bushwhackers and Indian raiders, Rein tells the neglected tale of the “fire brigade” of the Trans-Mississippi Theater—a group of men, and a few women, who enabled the most significant environmental shift in the Great Plains’ history: the displacement of Native Americans by Euro-American settlers, the swapping of bison herds for fenced cattle ranges, and the substitution of iron horses for those of flesh and bone. The Second Colorado Cavalry offers us a much-needed history of the “guerilla hunters” who helped suppress violence and keep the peace in contested border regions; it adds nuance and complexity to our understanding of the unlikely “agents of empire” who successfully transformed the Central Plains.

Union horse soldiers in the far west Curiously for a work that is at least in part the regimental history of a cavalry unit, its author was a woman, Ellen Williams, who was not only a mere chronicler of the horse soldiers fortunes but who also campaigned with them as the wife of a bugler of the regiment. This remarkable camp follower recounts the activities of the Colorados in combination with her own first hand experiences which illuminate the text with a unique female perspective. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry's campaigns during the American Civil War involved combats with the Confederate Army, guerrillas and the hostile Indians of the western frontier. Organised in St Louis, Missouri in late 1863, the regiment was principally put to use as detached companies working in concert and numbers as the task required. For example three companies were despatched to Fort Lyon in the Colorado territory and then to various posts before being assigned to the protection of the Kansas border region from depredations by guerrillas which put them perpetually on the firing line until late 1864. Other companies were involved in the scout from Pleasant Hill, the expedition into Missouri, the scout to Lafayette and Jackson county and more. The principal engagements of the regiment against the Confederates were the battles of Camden Point, Second Lexington, Little Blue River, Second Independence, Byram's Ford, Westport, Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek and Second Newtonia. The regiment then moved to the District of the Upper Arkansas to engage in operations against hostile Indians around Forts Riley, Zarah, Ellsworth and Larned. It took part in numerous skirmishes including Godfrey's Ranch, Pawnee Rock and Plum Butte whilst also protecting the overland stage route from Denver to Julesburg until September of 1865. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.

Having been born and raised on the Missouri River at Atchison, Kansas, and having the ghosts of the Civil War about me constantly, I have been passionately interested in the Civil War as long as I can remember. The Victorian and antebellum homes with servant quarters still behind them, the wooded bluffs and caves where escaped slaves were hidden, and the mystique of the Missouri River area itself have maintained this feeling of the war for me. My mothers immediate family was from the Missouri River bottoms on the Missouri side and my fathers immediate family was from rural Atchison on the Kansas side. From my incomplete and somewhat misinformed family and formal history education, I assumed for most of my life that my mothers family was Confederate in its leanings and that my fathers family was Union. I was unaware that the town and countys namesake, Sen. David Rice Atchison, was from Missouri and had much Pro-Slavery activity. No effort has ever been made to change the towns name since the war. No Confederate tie to him was taught in any of my classes in school.

Originally published in 1885, this is the recounting of the history of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry during the Civil War.

Details the history of Arkansas Valley, Colorado, with a emphasis on county history.