I met my great grandfather’s commanding officer this weekend. Jeremiah Lott served as a bugler in the 4th Dragoon Regiment, commanded by Col. Stephen Moylan. Jim French, who portrays Moylan, and a few other members of the 4th Dragoons were in town at the living history encampment at Gettysburg High School, which was held in conjunction with the Gettysburg Film Festival.
Early in the Revolution, the American army was significantly handicapped by the lack of a cavalry arm. Besides being used for scouting, screening the army, and carrying messages, the cavalry was a vital part of the attack in the 18th century. A cavalry charge was one favorite way to break up the enemy’s line and a cavalry counter-charge one of the few ways to defend against the opposing cavalry. In 1778, Washington ordered the formation of four regiments of dragoons (light cavalry), one of which was commanded by Moylan, an Irishman from Philadelphia.
The main weapon of the dragoon was the saber. One history noted, “… it was only the light dragoon who expected to meet his enemy in hand-to-hand combat every time he was engaged. Therefore, a light dragoon had to believe he was good enough to charge through his enemy, sword in hand, and come out the other side in one piece. Other military arms certainly inflicted greater casualties, but when light dragoons closed, they were expecting a knife fight every time. …It was no easy task to take aim and kill a man by pulling a trigger from fifty yards, but another thing entirely to rise up in the stirrups and cut the enemy to the ground from three feet away …”
Moylan’s dragoons served with George Washington’s main army in the area around New York City. From the spring of 1778 until 1781, the main British army was bottled up in the city. There were no major battles but constant skirmishing and probing the enemy’s lines – the mission of cavalry. Moylan’s men sparred with the British in northern New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, constantly looking for a weak spot in the British lines and screening Washington’s army from British probes. In 1781, the 4th Dragoons accompanied Washington on the long march to Yorktown and protected the flank of the American army during the siege at Yorktown.
The 4th Dragoons living history unit is very active. Several members recently traveled to Ireland to attend the unveiling of a plaque honoring Moylan in his hometown of Cork. Both the Lord Mayor of Cork and the prime minister spoke at the ceremony. As with other living history units, their primary mission is to inform a younger generation about the valor and sacrifices of the Revolutionary generation. They take great pains to portray the Revolutionary War soldiers accurately. When asked if the unit had a bugler, French replied that they had a musician but hadn’t yet been able to acquire an authentic bugle. “If we find the right bugle, yes.” In discussing the unit’s deployment after Yorktown to Georgia to evict the British from the last colony they occupied, he described their painstaking research to determine the uniforms the unit wore during its southern deployment. Pointing at his green and red wool topcoat, he observed that they quickly shed those outfits. “We think they wore a linen coat,” he said. He was eager to meet a descendant in hopes that some stories might have passed down.
