Booknotes: The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio

New Arrival:

• The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio: A Civil War History by Dennis W. Belcher (McFarland, 2024).

Over the past decade, historian Dennis Belcher has become the most prolific chronicler of cavalry operations in the Civil War's western heartland. Beginning in 2014 with a biography of General David Stanley, one of the chief architects of Union mounted forces in the western theater, Belcher has since authored Chickamauga, Stones River, and Nashville campaign cavalry studies and a comprehensive history of the Army of the Cumberland's mounted arm. A companion to the last is Belcher's latest book, The Cavalry of the Army of the Ohio: A Civil War History.

As the Army of the Ohio had more than one life, lack of continuity will be a big part of the story. The first Army of the Ohio under Don Carlos Buell was dissolved by his successor William Rosecrans and renamed the Army of the Cumberland, but the Army of the Ohio was revived by Ambrose Burnside in spring 1863. By the beginning of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, the army was one in name only, consisting of just the Twenty-Third Corps under John Schofield. From the description: "At the outset of the Civil War, the cavalry of the Army of the Ohio (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee) was a fledgling force beginning an arduous journey that would make it the best cavalry in the world. In late 1862, most of this cavalry was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland and a second cavalry force emerged in the second Army of the Ohio."

The study is divided into two parts, with Part I following the first Army of the Ohio during 1861-62 and Part II the second Army of the Ohio in the years 1863-64. While there is a Nashville Campaign coda of sorts, the study essentially ends in October 1864 with the post-Atlanta consolidation of the Union cavalry in Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi. More from the description: "Throughout the war," Army of the Ohio cavalry forces "fought in some of the most important military operations of the war, including Camp Wildcat; Mill Springs; the siege of Corinth; raids into East Tennessee; the capture of Morgan during his Great Raid; and the campaigns of Middle Tennessee, Perryville, Knoxville, Atlanta, and Nashville. This is their complete history."

As is the case with Belcher's other books, this one is profusely illustrated with photos and contemporary drawings. At regular intervals in the text, readers will also find detailed orders of battle and information tables of numerous kinds. Excellent George Skoch maps were also commissioned for this volume. All of the expected source types are strongly represented in the bibliography, including a large number of unpublished letters, diaries, memoirs, and records housed in manuscript repositories located all across the country. I was quite impressed with Belcher's similarly formatted Army of the Cumberland book and expect to have the same reaction to this one.