What is a dismounted calvary in the civil war?

Answer 1

"Dismounted cavalry" usually refers to a unit, most often a regiment, that was raised at the start of the war to serve as cavalry, but due to a shortage of horses or the inability to obtain enough replacement horses had to transition and fight as foot soldiers. There were quite a few such units from Texas which came east of the Mississippi, and by a year or two into the war were out of horses. Ector's Brigade of the Army of Tennessee had several such regiments. Confederate cavalrymen were supposed to supply their own horses. If your horse got killed, it was hard to obtain another anywhere near where the armies were operating. The army took all they could find for its own purposes, to pull its many cannon and wagons and so on. And Confederate troopers trying to buy a horse usually had only Confederate paper money, which was worth less each passing day. So these men would be given "horse leave", a leave of absence from the army, to travel all the way back home to try to get a horse, from family or friends. If they couldn't get a horse they'd have to transfer, by themselves, to the infantry, where they'd be a new guy, a stranger without friends, which is a bad place to be in for a soldier. The government supplied the horses to northern units, so they did not have these problems, and I cannot recall any that had to become "cavalry (dismounted)".

Cavalry often fought dismounted. When they got into a battle every fourth man was detailed to hold the horses - his own plus those of three other men. The main difference between cavalry fighting dismounted and infantry was that infantrymen had bayonets to affix to the end of their guns, and cavalrymen did not. With the slow loading of the weapons of the day, the bayonet charge decided many an engagement, and cavalry fighting dismounted had a hard time trying to stand up to a determined bayonet charge. Usually they'd run for the horses and fall back. Mounted infantry, as opposed to cavalry, was hard to tell apart at a glance, but the mounted infantry had a standard infantry rifle with bayonet, not the shorter carbine cavalry was supposed to have. Cavalrymen did have sabres, or they were supposed to, anyway. By late in the war most cavalrymen were carrying as many revolvers as they could get, up to four if they could find them. They'd wear a holster or two and have extra pistols in saddle holsters.

When cavalry had to transition to fight dismounted they'd exchange their carbines, if they had them, for the standard infantry rifles with bayonet.