The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac: Volume 1

by Adolfo Ovies

Overview

The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac is the first installment in a remarkable trilogy to examine the strategy, tactics, and relationships of the leading Union army’s mounted arm and their influence on the course of the Civil War in the Eastern Theater.

George Armstrong Custer’s career has attracted its fair share of coverage, but most Custer-related studies focus on his decision-making and actions to the exclusion of other important factors, including his relationships with his fellow officers. Custer developed his tactical philosophy within the politically ridden atmosphere of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps. His relationship with his immediate superior, Wesley Merritt, was so acrimonious that even Custer’s wife Libbie described him as her husband’s “enemy.”

The Boy Generals examines in detail the steadily deteriorating relationship of two cavalrymen with opposing tactical philosophies, and how this relationship affected events in the field. Custer was a hussar—a firm believer in the shock power of the mounted saber charge—while Merritt was a dragoon, his tactics rooted in the belief that the purpose of the horse was to transport the trooper to the battlefield, where he could fight dismounted with his carbine. With these diametrically opposed belief systems, it was inevitable that these officers would clash. What has often been described as a spirited rivalry was in fact something much darker, an association that moved from initial distaste to acrimony, and finally, outright insubordination on Custer’s part.

Author Adolfo Ovies mined deeply Official Reports, regimental histories, and contemporary newspaper accounts, together with unpublished and little used primary sources of men who fought in their commands. This rich and satisfying study exposes the depths of one of the most dysfunctional and influential relationships in the Army of the Potomac and how it affected cavalry operations in the Eastern Theater.

The Boy Generals will change the way Civil War readers think of the premier Union army’s mounted arm, as well as George Custer’s legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611215359
Publisher:	Savas Beatie
Publication date:	06/15/2021
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	118,470
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Adolfo Ovies migrated to the United States from Cuba in 1960, making his new home in Connecticut. With Gettysburg just a short distance away, ten-year-old Adolfo made his first trip to the battlefield. It turned out to be one of the most impactful moments of his young life, as the American Civil War bug bit him deeply. The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac trilogy springs from Ovies’s life-time passion for the Civil War and George Custer’s role in particular.

Ovies serves on the Advisory Board of America’s Civil War magazine, where his article on the battle of Yellow Tavern was recently published. Ovies is an active member of the Miami Civil War Round Table as well as the administrator of the group’s Facebook page.

Adolfo currently resides in Miami, Florida, with his wife Juliet.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Preface: Following the Guidons to Glory xi

Prologue: Glory Was Their Destiny; Rancor Was Their Legacy xxi

Chapter 1 A Cadet's Soul Must Be Malleable 1

Chapter 2 Days of High Adventure with the Army 35

Chapter 3 We Thought We Were Soldiers 71

Chapter 4 An Army Cannot Dawdle 97

Chapter 5 To Joke, Or Not to Joke-That is the Question 117

Chapter 6 Finally, Cavalry the Way It Was Meant to Be 141

Chapter 7 This Game Determines Who Is the Best Man 173

Chapter 8 A Hussar Is a Thing of the Past 209

Chapter 9 The Stars Don't Shine on Just Anybody 231

Chapter 10 If You Can't Find Glory at Gettysburg 255

Chapter 11 Merritt Finds Mediocrity 287

Chapter 12 Charges of Madness; Charges of Grandeur 315

Epilogue: One Man's Word is as Good as Another's 335

Bibliography 343

Index 361

Editorial Reviews

“The Boy Generals makes a valuable contribution to the study of cavalry in the eastern theater.

Emerging Civil War

The Boy Generals is a grand effort and falls into that rare category of a ‘Must Read.’ It will be a standard bearer; a marvelous book that should remain among the very best. In fact, without even seeing the other volumes, this one has achieved that goal already, lofty and heady as it may seem. It will certainly grace my library.

Frederic C. Wagner III

Ovies scholarship is excellent. He uses multiple primary sources, including multiple manuscripts and official government documents. He expertly weaves these sources into a compelling story that shows the changing nature of the men’s relationship.

Collected Miscellany

The Boy Generals offers a compelling dual biography of two remarkable officers who facilitated the rise of the Union cavalry to tactical dominance in the second half of the Civil War. Equally ambitious, brave, and able, Wesley Merritt and George Armstrong Custer embodied different approaches to leadership and combat. Adolfo Ovies’s gift for poetic prose, combined with his commitment to exhaustive research, has resulted in a book that is both riveting and illuminating.

Gregory J. W. Urwin

I heartily endorse this forthcoming book by my good friend Al Ovies—the first in a trilogy of a groundbreaking study focusing on the contentious relationship between George A. Custer and Wesley Merritt. I’ve read every word of this grand undertaking, and can confirm without qualification that it is some fine work: well-written, thoroughly researched, and entertaining. This is one you cannot miss.

Eric J. Wittenberg