William Brooke Rawle - Blue-blooded Cavalryman: Captain William Brooke Rawle in the Army of the Potomac, May 1863-August 1865

In preparing William Brooke Rawles writings for publication, I have used his letters to form the basis of the work, supplementing them with information from his transcribed diary entries when they provide additional detail not mentioned (or adequately addressed) in his correspondence and fill time gaps in his letters. In several instances, principally where its inclusion in the proper chronological place within the body of a letter would have disrupted the composition and flow of the correspondence, an entry either follows the letter or is incorporated into the endnotes. Left out are those entries that convey information already contained in Rawles letters or address only brief, trivial matters. The reader may find that there is occasional redundancy between a diary entry and a letter; in most of these cases, removing the duplicate information from either would have compromised its structure. In order to help the reader follow the young officers activities, at various times I have inserted dates, in brackets, into the body of his lengthier letters.

Rawle misspelled very few words, and I have not corrected his errors except in cases where he misspelled a place or proper name. On those occasions I have left the initial mention uncorrected, noted it, and corrected future mentions. In the interest of economy, Rawle liked to abbreviate words such as would, should, and could; I have spelled these out. Other words that he shortened and whose meaning remain clear (for example, Depment and tho) I left alone; abbreviated words judged to be confusing if left as written are now spelled out.

Regarding the content of the letters, matters of a purely personal nature; repetitive material; inquiries after friends, relatives, and other civilians not frequently mentioned or otherwise unidentified; and complimentary closes have been expunged. With respect to the endnotes, the reader will notice that most contain a fair amount of detail. I wrote the notes as I like to read them, and my hope is that, much like in my own experience, they will provoke curiosity, provide enlightenment, and encourage further reading and research into the topics they address.

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In the same way that no one can write about the Army of the Potomac without being influenced by the works of Bruce Catton and Stephen Sears, it is impossible to chronicle any events relating to the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, even in a work as narrow in scope as this, without acknowledging the contributions of three historians: Stephen Z. Starr, Edward G. Longacre, and Eric J. Wittenberg. Starr produced a groundbreaking, three-volume study of the Union cavalry that was published between 1979 and 1985; two of these volumes cover the war in the East and treat largely the Army of the Potomacs cavalry. Longacre wrote a seminal study on the role of the cavalry of both armies during the Gettysburg Campaignutilizing Rawles letters and postwar correspondence in his researchand followed it up years later with a history of the Army of the Potomacs cavalry, mining many original sources that Starr had not. Wittenberg has supplemented his excellent examination of the coming of age of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomacthe period from just before the Battle of Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862) to Brandy Station (June 9, 1863)with battle studies, soldiers memoirs, and biographies of prominent cavalrymen, all of which have shed much light on the armys cavalry operations. Eric also provided encouragement after reading an early draft of the manuscript, for which I am grateful. The research, opinions, and conclusions of these three historians have informed much of the material contained in my introduction and in many of my notes.

To John J. Meko Jr., executive director of the Foundations of the Union League of Philadelphia; James G. Mundy Jr., director of education and programming; and Theresa Altieri Taplin, archivist and collections manager, go my thanks for graciously granting permission to publish the Rawle letters and diary, which compose a part of the foundations collection. John, Jim, Theresa, and the rest of the staff have made great strides over the past decade in their ongoing efforts to preserve the archival materials of the former Civil War Library and Museum of Philadelphia.

At Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Chief Historian John Hennessy and Lead Historian Frank OReilly were very supportive, reading preliminary chapters of the work and providing constructive feedback. OReilly also graciously shared the interestingand distressingstory of Rawles original diaries and medals, which have been lost for many years now. Clark C. Bud Hall of Culpeper, Virginia, an authority on all things Civil War in Northern Virginia, also provided support and helped me identify and locate obscure (and misspelled) landmarks mentioned in the letters and diary.