The Charge of the Fifth Regulars at Gaines Mills, 27 June, 1862. U.S. Cavalry Museum, Fort Riley, KS 


Charge of the 5th Regulars at Gaines Mills, 27 June, 1862,  1893

(5^th US Cavalry Charge at Gaines Mill; The Federal Charge at the Battle of Gaines Mills; Charge of the Fifth Cavalry at Gaines Mill; 5^th Cavalry Charging at Gaines Mill, Virginia, 1864)

o/c, 24 1/8 x 30 1/16 inches 

Signed and dated, ll: "W. T. Trego 1893"

U.S. Cavalry Museum, Fort Riley, KS

Reproductions: As “The Federal Charge at the Battle of Gaines Mills,” in Guy Carleton Lee, ed., The History of North America, George Barrie and Sons, Philadelphia, 1905; As “Charge of the Fifth Cavalry at Gaines Mill,” in John K. Herr, The Story of the U.S. Cavalry, 1775-1942, Little Brown and Co., 1953; As “5^th Cavalry Charging at Gaines Mill, Virginia, 1864,” Mary Lee Stubbs, Armor-Cavalry, U. S. Dept. of the Army, Office of Military History, 1969; This image has proven to be one of Trego’s most popular. In addition to the prints that sold well in the late 19^th Century, prints and even hand-painted oil copies of the work continue to be produced and made available today.

Condition: The painting was recently cleaned and conserved and is in excellent condition.

The painting is one of seven commissioned by publisher, George Barrie, of Philadelphia as illustrations for his monumental The Army and Navy of the United States, published in Philadelphia, 1889-1895. The painting was reproduced in Section III as a photolithograph, 9½x13¾, hand colored in deluxe editions. The image was also issued separately as a b/w mounted print. A photograph taken in Trego’s studio in 1893 shows the artist sitting in front of his easel working on the painting.  

At the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, Virginia, during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, a small unit of Union Cavalry charged the rapidly advancing Confederate forces in a brave attempt to prevent their artillery pieces from being captured. An account of that desperate charge had been published in 1891, only two years before Trego painted this version of the events, and likely served as one of his reference points: “In all, the loss in killed, wounded and missing, was fifty-eight, and twenty-four horses were known to have been killed….The guns which were in condition to retire were saved….no cavalry charge was ever ridden better or against more hopeless odds of numbers.” (Eben Swift, The Fifth Regiment of Cavalry, Military Service Institution, 1891.)