Army - Cavalry Guidons (U.S.)

Last modified: 2002-09-28 by rick wyatt
Keywords: united states | cavalry | guidon | ninth | buffalo soldiers |
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by Rick Wyatt, 20 May 1998

• Flags and Colors of the U.S. Army
• Regimental Guidons
• Ninth Cavalry

See also:

• 1st Cavalry Division
  
• U.S. Army flags
• Army Organizational, Rank, and Positional Flags List
• United States of America

The Cavalry Guidon was a pennant shaped flag with two rows of circles in the canton. The U.S. Cavalry used guidons in the Civil War as well as the Plains Indian Wars later on. The cavalry were the last of the three branches of service of the U.S. Army to get to carry the Stars & Stripes in battle - artillery was first in 1836, infantry then in 1842 and the cavalry at the start of the Civil War.

There were several contract flag makers for the U.S. Army in the Civil War and each had a certain canton star arrangement that once you get to know them you can tell the manufacturer. I think - but am not sure - that the cavalry flags were the same way. The infantry flags definitely were.
Greg Biggs, 11 January 1998

Here's the chronology.

• 1834 - General Regulations for the Army authorize a red-over-white guidon for companies of dragoons, of which there was a single regiment at the time. It was silk, 27 x 41 inches, with a 15 inch swallowtail, with the letters "U.S." in white on the upper half and the company letter in red on the lower.
• 1836 - Second Regiment of Dragoons is raised, leading to the issuance of guidons with regimental des