15th Cavalry Division (United States)

History

• Headquarters, 15th Cavalry Division
• 1st Cavalry Brigade
  • 6th Cavalry Regiment
  • 14th Cavalry Regiment
  • 16th Cavalry Regiment
• 2nd Cavalry Brigade
  • 5th Cavalry Regiment
  • 7th Cavalry Regiment
  • 8th Cavalry Regiment
• 3rd Cavalry Brigade
  • 1st Cavalry Regiment
  • 15th Cavalry Regiment
  • 17th Cavalry Regiment
• 82d Field Artillery Regiment (Horse)
• 9th Engineers (Mounted)
• 7th Field Signal Battalion
• Headquarters Troop
• 2d Aero Squadron
• Train Headquarters and Military Police, 15th Cavalry Division
  • Ammunition Train, 15th Cavalry Division
  • Supply Train (motor), 15th Cavalry Division
  • 9th Engineer Train
  • Sanitary Train, 15th Cavalry Division
    • 10th, 24th, and 39th Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals

For the next several months, the division conducted methodical training by concentrating two out of three regiments in each brigade, with the third regiment periodically rotating off border duty. When it left the border, the division was intended to be replaced on border duty by new National Army cavalry regiments, then in the process of organization. The organization of the division was completed in February 1918 with the organization of the 1st Cavalry Brigade headquarters, and the 6th, 7th, 14th, and 15th Cavalry Regiments were alerted for deployment to the AEF in response to a request from Pershing for corps troops. However, only the 6th and 15th Cavalry were sent to the AEF via Camp Merritt, New Jersey on 4 March.

Brigadier General DeRosey Caroll Cabell became commanding general on 30 April, and commanded it for the rest of its brief existence. The Commanding General of the Southern Department, Major General Willard Ames Holbrook, proposed that the division be broken up on 6 May 1918, as he considered the National Army regiments insufficiently trained to be able to replace the Regulars within nine months, and the divisional organization unwieldy for border patrol duty. In response, the War Department disbanded the division on 12 May; its subordinate units remained on the border. Pershing was informed by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker that all remaining cavalrymen were required for border duty, ending the possibility of employing a cavalry division on the Western Front. The brigade headquarters remained active in the border until they were demobilized in July 1919.

Perpetuation

The 1st Cavalry Division was constituted in the Regular Army on 20 August 1921 and was activated on 13 September 1921. It was formed from two of the three reconstituted cavalry brigades that were formerly part of the 15th Cavalry Division. Only the 1st and 2nd Brigades were part of the 1st Cavalry Division because of a reduced table of organization for the cavalry division developed after the war; the 3rd Cavalry Brigade (3rd Brigade, 15th Cavalry Division) became part of the new 2nd Cavalry Division.

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