The whole army, with very few exceptions, was impressed with the necessity of this corps, for which the most distinguished men in their several grades of the service applied. On its organization, Major Kearny was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, and on him depended almost exclusively the discipline, the colonel, Dodge, though a brave man, not having the military education or experience requisite to make him the active head of a new corps, in the details of which not only men but officers were to be instructed. Col. Kearny, during his long seclusion in the west, had been a patient student, and had made himself master of all the theory of his profession, and in a short time made his regiment one of the best in the world. Within less than a year after the first muster of the regiment, it was sent, under its colonel, as a part of the command with which the lamented Gen. Leavenworth marched to the Spanish Peaks. This disastrous march, in the course of which so many men and officers died, was most trying to a new corps, which had no guide to direct them. Here all the experience of the old world was at fault. Cavalry had there to march but from one hamlet to another, finding forage and grain everywhere. Here eight hundred miles of wilderness were to be overcome, and more than once the jaded horses were without even water. This proved the perfectness of the regiment, and the thoroughness of the discipline which induced the gallant and veteran Gen. Gaines to speak, in an official letter, of the first dragoons as “the best troops I ever saw;” and the officer who had defended Fort Erie, beaten back a victorious enemy at Chrysler’s Field, and received the keys of St. Augustine, certainly knew what a soldier was.