History (from 1892 Revised Roster)
By Hon. Josiah Grout, Major Frontier Cavalry.
The Frontier Cavalry was born of a frontier fear created by the St. Albans raid. This raid was perpetrated by a few daring Southern refugees, or, perhaps more properly speaking, spies who gathered in St. Albans from Montreal, and in open day appeared at points covering the banks and in the twinkle of an eye, robbed them of their contents, returning to Canada. They fled mounted, securing horses from the livery stables. The principal features accomplished by the raid, were bank booty, livery horses and fear.
The whole northern frontier was in a short time guarded by a provisional force raised and equipped hastily for temporary service, which was soon succeeded by troops from the invalid corps and a regiment of cavalry. The raid was in the fall of 1864, and the frontier cavalry was recruited early the following winter. This organization was composed to seven companies from New York, three companies from Massachusetts, and two from Vermont. The regiment was never in camp together, and rendered its service during the winter and early summer of 1865 in detachments stations at points contiguous to Canada, in New York, and the two Vermont companies at Burlington and St. Albans.
These two companies were organized at Burlington by General Washburn early in January, 1865, where they remained quartered in barracks on the old fair ground until midwinter, when they moved to St. Albans into new barracks. They continued in these new quarters until the latter part of June, when, with the balance of the regiment, they were mustered out, the war having closed.
At Burlington they were occupied with daily drill on foot and the ordinary duties of camp life. On reaching St. Albans, they received horses and soon became quite proficient troopers. Picket duty was regularly observed and all the expedients, customary in such service, resorted to for occupying the soldiers, and upon the whole they were a well behaved command.
The regiment was called the Twenty-sixth New York Cavalry and the Governor of New York issued all the commissions above the line.
The two Vermont companies were denominated the First and Second Vermont Companies of Frontier Cavalry.
The Vermont soldiers on the frontier service did not encounter danger or hardship, yet they did promptly, patriotically and faithfully all they found to do, and being ready for any emergency, as in equipment and preparation they always were, would gladly have met the more earnest work of the war had not its happy termination prevented.
From the Vermont Adjutant and Inspector General's 1865 Report:
On the nineteenth of December, 1864, authority was given by the War Department to Major General John A. Dix, commanding the Department of the East, to raise one regiment of cavalry for service in his department. On the twenty-eighth of December authority was given by Major Gen. Dix to the Governor of Vermont to raise within the State two companies of cavalry, as a part of such regiment, and on the twenty-ninth of December General Order No. 6, (Appendix A,) was issued, authorizing enlistments for such companies, and prescribing the time. Within a very few days nearly eight hundred recruits were offered for these companies. From the recruits thus offered the number assigned to each Congressional District and mustered into the service of the United States; and on the tenth of January, 1865, both companies, with one hundred and three men each, were organized by the election of company officers.
The remaining companies of the regiment were raised in the States of Massachusetts and New York; and it was ordered by Major General Dix, that all the Field Officers of the regiment be commissioned by the Governor of the State of New York,--the Colonel and Junior Major upon the recommendation of the Governor of the State of Massachusetts,--the Lieutenant Colonel and Senior Major upon the recommendation of the Governor of the State of New York,--and the second Major upon the recommendation of the Governor of the State of Vermont. The Governor of this State recommended, as Second Major, Captain Josiah Grout, Jr.,--commanding the company known as the First Vermont Company of Vermont Cavalry,--and he was commissioned accordingly.
