The 9th US Cavalry (CEC)

Men of the 9th US Cavalry

On July 28, 1866, president Andrew Johnson singed An Act to increase and fix the military peace establishment of the United States which significantly reduced the standing army of the United States back to near antebellum levels. This new army allowed for 10 regiments of cavalry and 45 regiments of infantry including six regiments composed of Black enlisted men and white officers were to be among this number.  Among the mounted troops, this included the 9th and 10th United States Cavalry.  The black 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st US infantries also came into being, but a further reduction of the military in 1869 caused these regiments to compress into the 24th and 25th United States Infantry.

The white officers of these regiments came from regular and volunteer regiments of the US Army, while the vast majority of the black enlisted men came from the ranks of the USCT, or United States Colored Troops mustered in during the Civil War.

The 9th US Cavalry emerged from recruits enlisted from Louisiana and Kentucky and mustered into service in New Orleans, Louisiana.   In March 1867, its twelve troops of cavalry–numbering about seventy men each–deployed to Texas with troops L and M serving in the Lower Rio Grand Valley and the rest of the regiment reporting at San Antonio.  That June, 9th Cavalry troops fanned out along the San Antonio to El Paso road, in garrisons in posts along that route including forts Stockton, and Davis but patrolling the region maintain law and order between the Rio Grande and Concho rivers from forts Clark to Bliss.  The 9th US Cavalry would stay in Texas until 1875 before transferring to New Mexico.