Kearny’s Dragoons Out West: The Birth of the U.S. Cavalry by Will Gorenfeld, John Gorenfeld (review)

The authors offer a highly detailed study that ranges across more than three antebellum decades of the 19th century. They comprehensively describe and analyze important events as well as tangential episodes involving the exploits of the US First Dragoon Regiment. The Gorenfelds focus their analysis on the decisions and actions of the regiment’s most notable commander, Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny, without neglecting the dragoons’ first commander, Henry Dodge, and the regiment’s companies sent on detached assignments elsewhere.

The authors assess the dragoons’ colonels, Dodge and Kearny. An abrasive character, Dodge brought the US Army’s first major mounted regiment into existence in 1833, but he lacked the education and sophistication in decision making that later generations expected of a regimental commander. Turning to Kearny, the authors bestow accolades on his leadership when deserved but also criticize him several times. Taking command of the First Dragoons in 1836, Kearny instilled discipline in the regiment, inspired its officers, and led its companies in important engagements during the US-Mexican War.

The authors delineate Kearny’s 1846–47 risky campaigns across the Great Plains to New Mexico and California, and, in one of the book’s best features, reevaluate Kearny’s leadership at the Battle of San Pasqual near San Diego. Kearny underestimated the enemy and returned three companies of dragoons to Kansas when Americans needed those troops to occupy New Mexico. Basing their criticisms on numerous sources, the Gorenfelds contend that the battle of San Pasqual was an American “debacle” (279). They assert that Kearny committed several errors leading up to and during the engagement against local Mexican troops. Kearny again underestimated the enemy, and dragoon discipline broke down. Furthermore, according to the authors, Kearny wrote his report on the battle to put the most favorable light on his decisions and actions, thus influencing the views of later historians, such as biographer Dwight Clarke. Even if readers are not persuaded by the Gorenfelds’ conclusions, they present the most complete account of San Pasqual.

Occasionally there are examples where authors slip in their descriptions or cramp their own writing style. Although they cite secondary works on American volunteer officers Sterling Price and William Doniphan, the Gorenfelds confuse the regimental unit numbers those colonels commanded when serving with elements of the First Dragoons (229, 235). On many pages the authors insert lengthy block quotations that hinder the flow of their narrative. At two locations they may confuse readers by mixing the terms “strategy” and “tactics” (254–55, 264–67). The authors indicate that William H. Emory’s dependable and widely cited 1848 report, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, has been “overlooked by many historians” (188, 281).

Neglecting only a few secondary works, the Gorenfelds’ study is the product of remarkably diligent research in many primary sources. The authors’ colorful writing takes readers back to the transcontinental marches across the Great Plains and to the minor skirmishes and major battles of one of the US Army’s most notable units.