I am not totally green to the ways of Mudcat and did a search for subjects on Shenandoah. But I missed this thread started by Lighter and am thankful to cnd for pointing it out. I searched once again and find this thread quite a ways down the list. Having already found some very helpful information here I will end my thread and hitch it to this one.

I thank Gibb for directing interest to Shenandoah. I have been looking for any evidence of Shenandoah actually being sung by the U.S. Cavalry in the 1800s. I keep finding second hand references that the song was a favorite of the cavalry, the 6th and 7th
regiments in particular. But I find little to support this. The military is very good at keeping records and there should be something out there. I've reviewed several songbooks relating to the time period that mention it being a cavalry song, nothing more. It has been stated as such by John Lomax and Carl Sandburg who both refer to it as "The Wild Miz-zou-rye". Very specific. That may be to avoid confusion with another song, "Shenandoah
A Trooper's Song". I have the 1896 sheet music for that and it resembles in no way the song about crossing the wild Missouri. I have looked carefully through "Sound Off: Soldier Songs" by Edward Arthur Dolph and found nothing there. I also contacted the curator for the 1st Cavalry Division Museum at Fort Hood. He had no information available to him. Has anyone in Mudcat found anything to connect Shenandoah to the U.S. Cavalry?