Pique Charlie Carlson's curiosity, and he will write a book.

That's why I'm not surprised that Christine Kinlaw-Best's The History of Fort Mellon was quickly followed by a pamphlet from Carlson, From Fort Mellon to Baghdad, A Time-line Evolution of the 2nd Dragoons.

Back in April, I wrote a three-part review of the dragoons, tapping into Kinlaw-Best's research. Best's book came out just as U.S. soldiers were deployed to the Middle East in preparation for war in Iraq. News reports confirmed that a few thousand soldiers from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment had left Fort Polk in west-central Louisiana to join the forces preparing for the invasion.

Military historians note that the 2nd ACR, created in May 1836, when President Andrew Jackson formed the 2nd Regiment of Dragoons and sent them to Florida to fight the Seminoles, is the oldest continually serving cavalry unit in the Army. The dragoons (mounted riflemen) were formed for the Florida wars and stationed at Fort Mellon on Lake Monroe and elsewhere in Florida.

Now, I thought I was a step ahead of Carlson, but the retired Army sergeant major just marched right on by.

Carlson's great-grandfather, Pvt. William C. Hawkins, served with the First Florida Cavalry Regiment during the Civil War. That provided the inspiration for Carlson's The First Florida Cavalry Regiment, C.S.A., published in 1999 by Luthers.

Kinlaw-Best's research for her book got him thinking about the 2nd Dragoons' heritage. Then, the Army shipped off Carlson's son, Staff Sgt. Charlie Carlson III, and the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment to the Middle East. With a son in Baghdad, Carlson set off to document the connections between the 2nd Dragoons of Fort Mellon, at what today is Sanford's First Street at Mellonville Avenue, and the 2nd ACR in Iraq.

Along the way, he also found a few notable firsts about those dragoons.

After their service during the Second Seminole War, members of the dragoon regiment patrolled the border between the United States and what was then the Republic of Texas. In 1845, Congress angered Mexico by beginning steps to admit Texas as a state.

On April 25, 1846 -- one year after Florida became a state -- the Mexican Army ambushed two dragoon companies. Nine soldiers died, two were wounded, and the others were captured.

The ambush, Carlson writes, "provided President Polk with a reason to invade Mexico . . . "

Gen. William J. Worth, who fought in the Seminole and the Mexican wars, would be honored by the naming of Florida's Lake Worth and Texas' Fort Worth.

The Orlando grave of Col. William S. Harney, for whom Seminole County's Lake Harney is named, reads simply: "Harney, Second Dragoons."

Sgt. Martin Hagin earned the regiment's first Medal of Honor during the Civil War at the Battle of Fredericksburg "for holding off one of J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalries while Union forces withdrew across the river," Carlson writes.

The regiment was back in the West after that war when Gen. George Armstrong Custer declined an offer for some of the 2nd Cavalrymen to join his forces. He died a few days later at the slaughter at Little Big Horn.

The 2nd Cavalry also would fight in Cuba during the Spanish-American War that brought fame to Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.

After deployment to the Philippines, then back to the Mexican border in the early 1900s, the 2nd Cavalry established training camps in Plattsburg, N.Y., Philadelphia and Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. The 13,000 civilian business leaders trained by the dragoons in military leadership and tactics "evolved into the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)."

In Europe, then-Capt. George S. Patton Jr. commanded some of the 2nd Cavalrymen.

"The 2nd Cavalry Regiment was the only American horse-mounted regiment that served in the first World War," Carlson writes.

Troops B, D, F and H were the last to fight an enemy as a mounted cavalry, he adds.

After that war, the 2nd Cavalry would become the first regiment "to experiment with armored vehicles in battle maneuvers," ending the era of horse-mounted cavalry.

But the 2nd Cavalry's horse era was not over.

After landing with now-Gen. Patton at Normandy during World War I, some members of the 2nd Cavalry were named "Ghosts of Patton's Army" by German soldiers because the cavalrymen's success in getting behind German lines.

"The 2nd Cavalry gain fame for the deepest penetration of the war for U.S. forces going all the way to Czechoslovakia," Carlson writes. "It was under the command of Colonel Charles Reed that the 2nd Cavalry Regiment made a bold drive right through German lines to rescue the world famous Lipizzaner stallions."

Carlson completes the historic circle, noting that some of the Lipizzaners at White Stallion Productions in Oviedo share bloodlines to the horses rescued by soldiers who trace their military heritage to the shores of nearby Lake Monroe.

Books by Carlson, Kinlaw-Best and others are available at the Sanford Museum on First Street and the Museum of Seminole County History off U.S. Highway 17-92 in Sanford.

More information about the 2nd Cavalry's rescue of the Lipizzaner Stallions can be found at White Stallion Productions' site at lipizzan er.com/2nd-Calvary.asp