More Regular Volunteers

I continue my efforts to track down as many as possible of the soldiers from volunteer units who transferred to the Regular Cavalry in 1862, primarily from infantry units. I spent some time yesterday and today with a few Pennsylvania and Ohio regiments, and found another 31. Not all of them from the 6th, of course, but the idea is to work on all six regiments.



Rather than work completely at random, I decided to make a list of the regiments in the Army of the Potomac from about this time period (the majority seem to be November-December 1862). I was helped in my choice by the remarks section for two privates from the 28th Pennsylvania Infantry: "wounded at Antietam, transferred to US Cavalry." The timeframe being about right, I quickly navigated my way over to Brian Downey's excellent Antietam On the Web site and checked his order of battle listings for the Army of the Potomac. To be sure, all of the AoP didn't fight at Antietam, but it's a solid starting point.



Using this listing, I've since been chasing muster roll lists. The best site for this that I've found is Pennsylvania in the Civil War. The organization and detail of the site is absolutely fantastic. I really like the format, and will likely use something similar as I complete each regiment. I found a good Ohio site as well, but haven't had any luck as yet with the New York regiments.



Not all regiments had people volunteer for the cavalry, though they appear to have been targeted by particular branches of service. In the 27th Pennsylvania, for example, every soldier but one who volunteered for Regular service chose the artillery (1st or 2nd Regiment) except one. In the 28th, nearly all chose the cavalry. In several Ohio regiments, many transferred to the navy.



It's slow and tedious, but progress is being made. And I'm almost happy with the officer database format. Other than that, I've simply been transcribing a number of manuscripts, but that's a post for another time.