1st Mississippi Mounted Rifles (US)

[Mississippian]

http://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewconten...=honors_theses

A nice little thesis on a very little known unit. This was the only white Unionist unit raised for Mississippi during the war. Some other tidbits I have found show that the unit had some Colt Revolving Rifles at one point, and maybe Whitney Revolvers.

Will MacDonald

[Choatecav]

Will,
That was a huge amount of data on a unit that I knew nothing about prior to reading this. I noticed that it was just written in May of this year. To your knowledge, has there been anything else of note on this unit? They must have been considered such traitors in their home state. Some items of interest to me:

a) They came from counties all over the state!

b) While a "Mississippi" unit, they formed in Memphis TN.

c) All of their officers were from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc. and not home grown.

Good stuff, Will.

Mark

[The Bloody 6th]

A very interesting thesis Will.

How did you first hear about the 1st Mississippi Mounted Rifles (US)?

[Mississippian]

I've always been interested in Unionist units. I had several relatives in the 2nd & 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantries, U.S. Which were raised from western North Carolina Unionists. If you want to look up units, I suggest this link: http://www.civilwararchive.com/regim.htm

In many of these units it's true there were a large percentage of officers who were Northern born, these men were usually NCO's from various units looking for an officers rank somewhere. I think the Col. of the 2nd NCMI had been a captain on the staff of Maj. Gen. Schofield. But usually there were a few "Home Grown" officers in each unit.

Sadly, these units, particularly those not from Tennessee, are not well known. The 1st Alabama Cavalry (US) has a good website dedicated to it, but other units from Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, and other states are virtually unknown. Most of them weren't attached to the larger armies, and were used mainly in an anti-partisan role or in small raids behind the front lines.

One question I have about the 1st Mississippi Mounted Rifles is whether they got green trimmed mounted service jackets, it would be awesome if they did.....

Will MacDonald

[Mississippian]

I've been going through the CSR and found several men charged for Colt Rifles, Colt Pistols, and SABERS! hmmmm....less like the mounted infantry that I thought and more like traditional cavalry.....

Will MacDonald

[Mississippian]

Another thing I've noticed: I've only been through a fraction of the CSR's for this unit and I have already come across at least 10 men who were convicted of various crimes and then sent north to serve from 1-10 years of hard labor. Larceny, attacking officers, and disobeying orders seem to be the common offenses. Sounds like a real shady unit.

Will MacDonald