Book Review: The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio: A Civil War History

The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio: A Civil War History. By Dennis W. Belcher. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2024. Softbound, 389 pp. $49.95.

Reviewed by Darryl Smith

The Army of the Ohio, as an entity, has received limited scholarship from Civil War historians. In 1994 Richard J. Reid published The Army That Buell Built, a small booklet that touched on Buell’s period of command. In 2001 Gerald J. Prokopowicz authored the exceptional All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862, which focused on soldier experiences in the early portion of the war. Dennis W. Belcher, author of several books that focus on the cavalry forces in the Western Theater, has added The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio: A Civil War History to the small number of works focused on this important and overlooked field force.

The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio is a straightforward accounting of the mounted arm for both iterations of the Army of the Ohio. The first version formed in the fall of 1861 from units within the Department of the Ohio and was commanded by Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell until he was relieved of command in late October 1862. This first iteration of the army was involved such actions as Mill Springs, Shiloh, and Perryville.

The second version of the Army of the Ohio was created by May 1863 and placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. Made up of the newly formed XXIII Corps and two divisions of the IX Corps, this army was tasked to secure east Tennessee, and particularly Knoxville, which Federal forces entered on September 1. Burnside, upon his own request, was relieved of command, and the army went through a series of commanders such as John G. Foster, John M. Schofield, Jacob D. Cox, and then Schofield again. The army saw fighting around Knoxville, during the Atlanta Campaign, at Franklin, Nashville, and the Carolinas Campaign.

Belcher blends a no-nonsense style of information sharing interspersed with first-person accounts to bring the reader a month-by-month, week-by-week, and in some cases a day-by-day accounting of the Federal mounted arm. As regiments and units join the army, he provides background on each. Spread throughout the book are organizational charts showing the various cavalry arrangements as they moved through the war. About 40 percent of the book is dedicated to the first Army of the Ohio; the remainder of the chapters focus on the latter version of the army. The second portion of the book is of great interest as the author details many actions that occurred in 1863 and 1864 that will be unfamiliar to most Civil War buffs.

The author also provides details on the several raids, both Confederate and Federal, that fell within the Army of the Ohio’s area of responsibility. Not only are the better-known Morgan raids discussed, but also smaller actions such as William Sanders’s 1863 Tennessee and John Pegram’s 1863 Kentucky raids are included. Here again these details bring more learning opportunities about topics not known to most readers, particularly from the Federal perspective.

However, the book does unfortunately include several, though fairly minor, errors that probably should have been caught. Most of these inaccuracies occur in describing an individual’s rank, incorrectly denoting a specific command, and placing a command in the wrong location for the time under discussion.

Despite these minor errors, The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio is a pleasant and informative read. The book brings to light a command in the Civil War not often discussed or studied by scholars or enthusiasts and adds a great amount of detail to the Federal mounted arm in the Western Theater.

 

Darryl Smith is the owner and operator of Walking With History LLC. Darryl is an avid hiker and backpacker, who also is a Civil War and American military history enthusiast.  Darryl was the founder of the Miami Rivers Chapter of the Buckeye Trail Association, served as the Activities Chair for the Cincinnati Civil War Round Table, served as the Communication Coordinator for the Military Heritage Chapter of the League of World War One Aviation Historians, and was a board of trustees member for the Buckeye Trail Association. He served as membership chair for the Cynthiana Battlefields Foundation and is currently involved in helping develop a Civil War organization in Augusta, Kentucky. In addition, Darryl serves as blog writer and co-administrator for the Western Theater in the Civil War website. He has always believed that the most effective way to understand our history is to walk the ground where history took place.