Cobb’s Legion Cavalry: A History and Roster of the Ninth Georgia Volunteers in the Civil War
by Harriet Bey Mesic, McFarland Publishers
The 9th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, more famously known as Cobb’s Legion Cavalry after the organizer of the mixed force by which it was originally formed, Colonel Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, served throughout the war with exceptional distinction. The 9th frequently headed Rebel charges in most of the war’s greatest cavalry battles, but ended up surrendering after Appomattox.
As the great-great granddaughter of a Legion member, Harriet Bey Mesic has an occasional tendency to let her South Carolina loyalties show in her narrative—which all in all might be taken as an understandable and forgivable quirk. What is perhaps most impressive in Cobb’s Legion Cavalry is the attention to detail that Mesic brings not only to the “big picture” of the regiment’s wartime campaigns and battles but also to the “little picture” of the men who upheld the unit’s impressive record. The latter focus includes listing casualties by name and company in each action fought by the 9th Georgia, lists of disease casualties and prisoners of war, and short biographies of 1,457 of its personnel.
The overall result is clearly a labor of love, but it’s also a Civil War unit history that stands out as much as did the unit it profiles.
Originally published in the August 2009 issue of Civil War Times. To subscribe, click here.
