Need Help From TOCWOC Readers: Mounted Pioneer Corps?

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5 responses to “Need Help From TOCWOC Readers: Mounted Pioneer Corps?”

1. 

   Fred Ray

   July 10, 2011

   Interesting. You’re going to run into the same problems I did with the sharpshooters — the pioneers were not regular units but detailed ones, so finding records is going to be a challenge. You’ll probably have to do like I did and dig it out from a lot of scattered sources.

   All Union divisions in Virginia did have pioneer detachments, just as they did sharpshooters. From what I’ve seen they were detailed from the regiments and were about company size. There were also some small outfits like the 17th Michigan (about a hundred men) who acted as pioneers/provost guard for the IX Corps. You might also look at the history of the 57th Mass., which has a section on their pioneer detachment.

   To find the organizing orders you’ll probably have to consult the order books and letters files at the NA rather than the OR.

   Good luck — maybe Miller will write a history of the pioneers like mine of the sharpshooters!

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   1. 

      Brett Schulte

      July 10, 2011

      Fred,

      I immediately thought of your work on the sharpshooters when I read Myron’s work on the Mounted Pioneers. The similarities are remarkable. Thanks for the leads into what will probably be a lengthy and sometimes frustrating journey for Myron, and something I’ll be looking into as well from time to time. I was afraid someone might say that the orders for the formation of the Pioneers are more than likely in an order book in the National Archives rather than in the Official Records. But that’s really what makes research fun in a way. It’s a great feeling to possibly find something which no one has looked at before.

      Brett

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2. 

   Fred Ray

   July 10, 2011

   It can be both fun and rewarding, and it’s another one of those subjects that no one’s yet done. At Petersburg the pioneers, like the sharpshooters, became more and more important, eventually being used with the sharpshooters as assault troops.

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3. 

   Myron Miller

   July 24, 2011

   My thanks to Fred Ray. I’ll follow up on his suggestions and do additional searching. A peculiarity of this Mounted Pioneer Corps is that they had no weapons and were not involved in assaults, nor tearing down the abitis, etc. On the assault by the IX Corp on April 2, 1865, pioneers of the IX Corps led the assault, but Samuel K. Miller’s Mounted Pioneer Corps were kept at a safe distance, but could see all of the action. While detailed as other types of units were – the sharpshooters – these men were somewhat distinct because they were mounted. Now, if I can just find the orders!

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4. 

   Dan O’Connell

   October 20, 2012

   I am a late to this party but have something that may be of value to add. In my recent readings i discovered a reference to mounted pioneers/engineers.
   In the period just prior to the start of the overland campaign General Benham, commander of the engineer brigade, sought out recommendations from his senior leaders on ways to improve the engineer service. (see Or’s Vol. 33 pg 413) One of the responses argued that one comapny of each train (Engineer assets for the upcoming campaign were divided to form five seperate trains each comprised of two or three companies assigned at the corps level) be used as a mounted force serving as pioneers. The suggestion was not adopted but it may have planted the seed for formation of such a force from the traditional detailed pioneers.

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