[3] "The war with Mexico had resulted in adding a vast territory to our national domain, and the government was bound, in the interests of civilization, to open this immense area to settlement.

Colonel (LTC): Robert Edward Lee Majors (MAJ): William Joseph Hardee; George Henry Thomas Captains (CPT): Earl Van Dorn; Edmund Kirby Smith; James Oakes; Innis Newton Palmer; George Stoneman; Albert G. Brackett; Charles Jarvis Whiting First Lieutenants (1LT): Nathan G. Evans; Richard Woodhouse Johnson; Joseph H. McArthur; Charles William Field; Kenner Garrard; Walter H. Jennifer, William B. Royall Second Lieutenants (2LT): George Blake Cosby; William Warren Lowe; John Bell Hood; Junius Brutus Wheeler; A. Parker Porter, Wesley Owens; James Patrick Major; Fitzhugh Lee [8] After receiving cavalry training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, the regiment, under COL Albert Sidney Johnston, began riding out to Fort Belknap, Texas.

The journey to the fort was long and hard; the 700 men and 800 horses of the 2nd Cavalry marched over the Ozark Mountains, through Arkansas, and into Indian Territory until they arrived on 27 December 1855.

On 22 February 1856, Company C of the 2nd Cavalry, under the command of Captain James Oaks, engaged the Waco Indians in their first battle just west of Fort Terrett, Texas.

[7] On 15 February 1858, MAJ William J. Hardee was instructed to proceed from Fort Belknap with Companies A, F, H & K to Otter Creek, Texas and establish a Supply Station.

[7] Led by MAJ Earl Van Dorn, four companies trapped and defeated a sizable force of Comanches on 1 October at the Wichita Village Fight, and followed it up on 13 May 1859, with a similar victory at the Battle of Crooked Creek in Kansas.

The 5th Cavalry's most notable action came at Gaines Mills, when the regiment charged a Confederate division under command of a former comrade, General John Bell Hood.

On 8 July 1869 at the Republican River in Kansas, Cpl John Kyle made a valiant stand against attacking Indians resulting in him receiving the Medal of Honor.

As the Indian Wars continued, an officer of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, Lieutenant Adolphus Washington Greely, who had overseen the construction of some 2,000 miles of telegraph lines in Texas, Montana, and the Dakota Territories, was selected to lead an exploratory expedition to the Arctic.

On 7 July 1881, Greely and his men left St. John's, Newfoundland, and arrived at Lady Franklin Bay on 26 August, where they established Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island, Canada, just across the narrow strait from the northwest tip of Greenland.

The rest had succumbed to starvation, hypothermia, and drowning, and one man, Private Henry, had been shot on Greely's order for repeated theft of food rations.

A shortage of naval transports and an abundance of military units eager to get into the action meant that the 5th Cavalry Regiment had to be split up, and only a few troops made it to Puerto Rico in time to engage the enemy.

In July 1898, the regiment was split into four columns of both dismounted scouts and mounted cavalry, and in early August began patrolling across the mountainous enemy-held countryside.

The Regiment remained split up for five years until January 1909, when Headquarters along with 1st and 3rd Squadrons were reassigned to Pacific duty to strengthen the U.S. military presence in the new territory of Hawaii.

[11] In 1916, the Regiment was dispatched to the Mexican border to serve as part of the Pancho Villa Expedition commanded by General John "Black Jack" Pershing.

Airplanes and mechanized vehicles were not reliable enough or adapted for ranging across the rugged countryside, setting up ambushes, conducting stealthy reconnaissance missions and engaging in fast moving skirmishes with minimal support.

[7] In one skirmish in June 1919, four units, the 5th and 7th Cavalry Regiments, the 8th Engineers (Mounted) and 82nd Field Artillery Battalion (Horse) saw action against Pancho Villa's Villistas.

From 1933 to 1936, the troopers of the 5th Cavalry Regiment provided training and leadership for some of the 62,500 people of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Arizona-New Mexico District.

[11] World War II in Europe began on 1 September 1939 with the German Invasion of Poland, the same day the 1st Cavalry Division was doing maneuvers near Balmorhea, Texas.

[7] On 27 February 1944, Task Force "Brewer", consisting of 1,026 troopers, sailed from Cape Sudest, Oro Bay, New Guinea under the command of Brigadier General William C. Chase.

Their objective was a remote Japanese-occupied island of the Admiralties, Los Negros, where they were to make a reconnaissance in force and if feasible, capture Momote Airfield and secure a beachhead for the reinforcements that would follow.

SSG McGill, of Ada, Oklahoma, was the senior man in charge of a line foxholes dug in 35 yards ahead of the main American positions.

[11] On Columbus Day, 12 October 1944, the 1st Cavalry Division departed its hard earned base in the Admiralties for the Leyte invasion, Operation King II.

Over the next five years, until the Korean War began, the regiment performed many important duties and services that helped Japan reconstruct and create a strong economy.

[15] On 25 January 1951, the 5th Cavalry Regiment moved with the rest of the Eighth Army to counterattack, and advanced 2 miles per day despite fierce resistance and extreme weather.

Once the dynamic attacks and counterattacks by UN and Chinese forces were spent, the 5th Cavalry Regiment was then part of the "see-saw" fighting against the Communists for control of strategic hills and ridges across Korea.

[17] They arrived on the American line and quickly engaged enemy forces, eventually rescuing the "lost platoon" led by SGT Ernie Savage.

Six 5th Cavalry Regiment Troopers received the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War; Billy Lane Lauffer, Charles C. Hagemeister, George Alan Ingalls, Edgar Lee McWethy Jr., Carmel Bernon Harvey Jr., and Jesus S. Duran.

[citation needed] The battalion was deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina in December 1995 The "Black Knights" returned to Southwest Asia in March 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II.

Although a reflagging of G Troop, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division; the BRTs of Europe remain the Warding Eye and Fulda Gap presence in Germany.