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| Trumpeter Parade Uniform Jacket, Gold's Dragoons, 1932 |
As war clouds gathered
in the early 1930s the members of the Fairfield County Hunt determined to follow the example of other local horse owners
and offer their services to the State of Connecticut as a mounted home guard. An early example was the Litchfield Light Horse.
They supplied their own horses but were otherwise uniformed, armed and equipped by the State. When the gentlemen of Fairfield
chose to organize and name their new unit, they reached back to the last century and reraised Gold’s Dragoons in 1932,
confirmed by state charter in 1933, using their hunt colors of scarlet, blue and gold as the basis for their scarlet drill
uniform, and adding the chain mail epaulettes of British Army cavalry regiments. For the ceremonial parade uniform of the
troop trumpeter (illustrated) they "reversed" the facings to make the jacket blue with the collar and cuffs scarlet,
as was normal military practice.
There followed years of
nighttime patrols, formation riding drills, weekend horse shows and – no doubt – some serious drinking in the
bar of the Fairfield County Hunt club. The “image of war without the guilt” of their foxhunting passion was to
find a new meaning in a real war. "...Gold's Dragoons were well-placed young men who loved horses, certainly as
much as they loved their wives. They dressed themselves in beige britches, scarlet jackets, chains of silver epaulets, wide-brimmed
hats with chin straps, black leather boots, and dazzling spurs. Each Saturday they met on Greenfield Hill and rode about in
the imitation of drills and cavortings of cavalry..." "The Other
Side of Loneliness", by Ned O'Gorman, copyright 2006. The
troop attracted many veterans of the Great War, including Paul Daly, West Pointer, and Jock Hanchet-Taylor, who was British
and had served in The Black Watch regiment. Jock was the commander from 1936 until 1940 when he resigned and headed north
to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. A truly exotic member was Cossack general Konstantin Agoeff, who fought under the Czar
and later commanded a division of White Russian troops against the Bolsheviks. His equestrian feats were legendary. In 1942 troop was converted into motorized cavalry two months after Pearl Harbor
and were recommended for enrollment in the State Guard Reserve by the Connecticut Adjutant General. In June they mounted their
armored cars, with live ammunition, locked and loaded, and headed up Route 1 to attack a group of Germans who had landed further
up the Connecticut coast. This turned out to be a training exercise gone awry so they may have promptly returned to the bar
of the Fairfield County Hunt Club to celebrate their great adventure. We hope to memorialize their trip in a road rally on
a future date. As 1942 advanced the troop was overtaken by events and all
members joined the United States national armed forces.
No former member of Gold’s Dragoons better exemplifies their patriotism and service
than Captain Michael Daly. He joined the army in 1942, landed at Omaha Beach, won a battlefield commission and received the
Medal of Honor, fighting as an infantry officer in the closing days of the war. Mike Daly died in 2008 and is greatly missed.
Working with Ken Powers and Bud Brennan, he had been instrumental in reviving the annual dinners in the 1970s at the Hunt
club and attended all of them until prevented by ill health, at which point he demanded a prompt report of each dinner from
the secretary/treasurer. He relished the thought that the spirit of Gold’s lived on and it is to him, and the men he
served with, that we dedicate our annual Nominating Dinner. Captain Daly is remembered by the Michael Daly Memorial Cup which
is awarded each year to the member of Gold's Dragoons with the highest individual score in the annual spring sporting
clays shoot.
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