2nd Regiment Indiana Cavalry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2nd Regiment Indiana Cavalry, also designated the 41st Regiment Indiana Infantry or the 41st Regiment Indiana Volunteers, was the first complete cavalry regiment raised in the U.S. state of Indiana to fight in the American Civil War.
Organized at Indianapolis, Indiana, on September 20, 1861, with John A. Bridgeland as colonel, the regiment moved to Kentucky in December as part of the Union Army of the Ohio. It saw its first action in a skirmish at Bowling Green in February 1862. Later that month it took part in the occupation of Nashville, Tennessee. In April, it fought in the Battle of Shiloh, where it sustained light casualties with two wounded and one missing. Its later major actions included the Siege of Corinth, Mississippi, and the Battle of Stones River in 1862, and the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863, after which it took up the defense of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. A skirmish with a Confederate force on October 2, 1863, in defense of Union communications, brought the 2nd Indiana fame when a sketch of the action appeared in Harper's Weekly for October 31.
The regiment saw futher action through the end of the war. It was mustered out of service in Tennessee in July 1865.
According to Frederick H. Dyer (see references) the 2nd Indiana's total service fatalities were four officers and 38 enlistees killed and mortally wounded, and three officers and 211 enlistees dead of disease.
[edit] References
- Dyer, Frederick Henry. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Des Moines: Dyer Publishing Co. 1908.
- Indiana Battle Flag Commission, Indiana Battle Flags and a Record of Indiana Organizations in the Mexican, Civil and Spanish-American Wars, Indianapolis, 1929, pp .581-588.
- Indiana Commissioners, Chickamauga National Military Park, Report of, Indiana at Chickamauga, Indianapolis: Sentinel Printing Co., 1900, p 272; pp. 275-276.
