Upon the evacuation of Mexico in 1848 the First Artillery was stationed upon the
Atlantic coast from New York to Fort Washington, Md., with the exception of
Companies L and M, which were sent to Oregon. In the following year, however,
four companies went into the interior of Florida, and in 1850 four additional
companies went to the Gulf States and Battery I to California. Companies L and M
were in Oregon but four years when they were transferred to the Atlantic coast,
reorganized, and sent to Florida.
Service in that State was found to consist, as usual, of fruitless marches
and countermarches, scouts in this direction and in that, and in years of
service scarcely an event worthy of record. Filibusters in Louisiana and Texas
in 1851 made some slight break in the monotony of garrison life for several of
the companies, and in 1856 Indians were fought, once in Florida and several
times in Texas. In 1859 the outlaw band of Cortinas attacked and then blockaded
Brownsville, Texas, but was in turn attacked, beaten, and broken up by a force
including three companies of the First Artillery.
With the closing months of 1860 the regiment completed its tenth year of
continuous service in the Southern States. During this long period no foot
company of the regiment (except the Oregon companies) had been stationed farther
north than Fort Monroe, and the regiment had never had less than four companies
in the Gulf States, while the usual number was eight. The detail for the
Artillery School took two companies northward, and the companies in Florida were
occasionally sent to Charleston to recuperate, but the
regiment—generally—had been a stranger to the northern climate for ten long
years.
In January, 1861, Companies A and C were at Fort Monroe; B at Key West
Barracks; D at Baton Rouge Barracks, La.; E and H at Fort Sumter, S. C.; F. L
and Battery K at Eagle Pass (Fort Duncan), Texas; G at Barrancas Barracks, Fla.;
Battery I at Leavenworth, Kansas, and M at Brownsville, Texas.
The excitement throughout the South at this time in regard to the secession
of the States bid fair to lead to violent seizure of Government property, and
made it necessary for individual commanders to judge for themselves in many
cases as to the proper course to pursue for the protection of the public
property under their charge or the preservation of their commands.
n the exercise of this judgment Major Robert Anderson had just transferred
his command—Companies E and H—from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter; Company B,
in January, occupied Fort Taylor; and Company G, also in January, moved from
Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. Company D, at Baton Rouge Barracks, La., 500
miles from any possibility of support was forced to leave for the North in
January; and the garrison of Eagle Pass—Companies F and L and Battery K—just
escaped being included in Twigg’s surrender by marching to Brownsville, where,
with Company M, it embarked for loyal territory in March.
On the 1st of April, 1861 but five posts within the limits of the
seceded States were still occupied by United States troops. These were Fort
Monroe, Va.; Fort Sumter, S. C.; Fort Taylor, Key West, Fla.; Fort Jefferson,
Tortugas, Fla.; and Fort Pickens, Pensacola Harbor, Fla. Of these the four last
named were garrisoned wholly or in great part by the First Artillery, and
Company C was among the troops composing the garrison of Fort Monroe.
The story of Sumter has been told again and again. It fell to the lot of the
First Artillery to fire the first shot in defense of the flag, and that shot had
a result such as the wisest Southerner could not have foretold. Few Northerners
even could foresee that it announced the beginning of the end of human slavery
in North America.
At an early period of the war it became evident that the companies of the
regular artillery were all or nearly all to serve as light batteries. No
explicit orders to that effect appear to have been issued, but company after
company was mounted until the twelve companies of the regiment had all been
equipped either as mounted or as horse artillery. The practice of uniting the
batteries by twos to man single batteries began early in the war and continued
till the end.
Until May, 1864, Batteries E, G, H, I and K, served with the Army of the
Potomac; B, C, D and M, on the southern Atlantic coast; and A, F and L, in
Florida and Louisiana; but in the latter part of 1864 all were in Virginia.
It is not possible within the limits to which this sketch must be confined to
give any adequate account of the 98 battles, sieges, combats, actions,
skirmishes or affairs, in which the regiment was represented during the Civil
War. Batteries were present in all the chief engagements in Virginia, Maryland,
Florida, Louisiana, and the coast of South Carolina. They were at Antietam,
Appomatox, Bull Run, Cedar Creek, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Drury’s
Bluff, Fair Oaks, Fisher’s Hill, Fort Bisland, Fort Pickens, Fort Sumter,
Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Glendale, Irish Bend, Mansura, Olustu, Petersburg,
Pleasant Hill, Port Hudson, Trevillian Station, Winchester and Williamsburg.
Two batteries, one of the First and one of the Fifth, were in the very vortex
and crisis of the battle of Bull Run; a battery of the First was in action
nearly all day not far from “Deadman’s Lane” at Antietam; in the line of
thirty pieces which finally checked the victorious Confederates on our right at
Chancellorsville were six belonging to the First; the “Crest of the
Rebellion” at Gettysburg found two batteries of the First in the line against
which it broke; when the last obstacle to the free navigation of the Mississippi
was overcome at Port Hudson, three batteries of the First Artillery could claim
their fair share of credit for the achievement; and when Early was sent
“whirling through Winchester” two batteries of the First were there to
assist him along.
On the 12th of April, 1861, a First Artillery garrison opened the
war, and on the 9th of April, 1865, a battery of the regiment fired
the last cannon-shot at the principal army of the Confederacy and almost the
last shot of the war. The flag of the United States which was first lowered to
the Confederate forces in Charleston Harbor, was, almost exactly four years
later, raised in the capital of that Confederacy by an officer of the First
Artillery.
The number of officers, then or formerly of the regiment, who were made
general officers during the Civil War is so considerable as to merit notice. On
the Union side these were:
Daniel Tyler, Geo. D. Ramsay, Jacob Ammen,
Montgomery C. Meigs, Israel Vogdes, Wm. H. French, Joseph Hooker, Irvin
McDowell, Joseph A. Haskin, James B. Ricketts, John M. Brannan, Seth Williams,
Abner Doubleday, Truman Seymour, James B. Fry, Jefferson C. Davis, Absalom
Baird, Adam J. Slemmer, Alvan C. Gillem, Henry W. Slocum, John M. Schofield,
John W. Turner, Robert Anderson, Erasmus D. Keyes, Richard H. Jackson, Edmund
Kirby, Judson Kilpatrick, Lewis G. Arnold.
On the Confederate side they were:
J. B. Magruder, H. C. Wayne, J. G. Martin, Samuel
Jones, T. J. Jackson (Stonewall), A. P. Hill, Daniel Leadbetter, J. E.
Slaughter, A. R. Lawton, F. A. Shoup, I. R. Trimble, W. W. Mackall.
The theory upon which our army is said to be maintained,—for the purpose of
providing trained officers for higher rank in the militia or volunteers,—would
seem to have been justified in the case of this particular regiment, since it
was able to furnish 40 general officers when called upon for that purpose.
Between December, 186l, and the 1st of January, 1865, sixty-eight
officers are named upon the regimental return, and 38 of these were, for a part
of their service at least, on detached duty. This number includes those serving
with increased rank in the volunteers. When the number absent on account of
wounds or from sickness is taken into account it becomes more easy to comprehend
why it was, that during the Civil War it was very seldom the case that one-half
of the officers belonging to the regiment were actually serving with it.
Up to the date of the battle of Gettysburg the average number present was
twenty; but from that time till the close of the war the average was only
thirteen, and there were at no time so many as twenty officers with their
batteries. From the battle of Bull Run to the surrender at Appomatox the average
number present was only 16.57, yet the regimental returns for that period show a
total of 19 killed and wounded, and—what is a little remarkable—no deaths
from disease.
The average strength of the regiment in enlisted men for this period was 770.
Of these 54 were killed, 216 wounded, 71 missing, and 91 died of disease; making
the total loss 432. In Fox’s “Regimental Losses of the American Civil War”
a list of the light batteries (regular and volunteer) which suffered the
heaviest losses is given on page 463. Sixty-two batteries are named and among
them are Battery M, at Olustee; I, at Bull Run and again at Gettysburg; H, at
Chancellorsville; and A, at Port Hudson.
During the Civil War the headquarters of the regiment never took the field.
For several months in 1861 there was actually no regimental commander. The
sergeant-major probably received and filed the company monthly returns, but no
regimental orders were issued nor any other business transacted such as properly
pertains to the office of a regimental commander. Colonel Erving was retired in
October, 1861, and was succeeded by Colonel Justin Dimick with station at Fort
Warren, Boston Harbor. In November he named Lieutenant Dimick as the regimental
adjutant but in the July following the adjutant applied for field service and
from that time until the close of the war there was no officer actually serving
as adjutant of the regiment. There had been no regimental quartermaster since
June, 1860, and none was appointed till June, 1876. Colonel Dimick nominally
commanded the regiment until the close of the year 1863, when Captain Wm. Silvey,
the senior officer in the regiment not holding higher rank in the volunteer
service, was directed to relieve him. He acted as regimental commander, with
station at Concord, N. H., until January, 1866.
Almost at the very beginning of the Civil War, therefore, the regimental
organization simply went to pieces. All the field officers held higher volunteer
rank or were superannuated, and there was no regimental staff. The sole duty
left to the nominal regimental commander was to consolidate the monthly returns
of the individual batteries. Captains appointed and mustered their own
non-commissioned officers without any reference to him, and he exercised no
control of any kind over his companies. Yet the artillery, without exception,
did exceedingly well during the war and contributed largely toward the final
result.
The natural inference is, that the regimental organization is wholly
superfluous when artillery is called upon to fulfil the principal end and object
of its existence, though very good and even necessary during peace times, to
provide for the systematic conduct of affairs and to furnish promotion to the
officers of the arm. Whether organized in regiments or as a corps, the actual
result, so far as regimental or corps control is concerned, would undoubtedly
have been the same, with the resulting inference that, for actual service, no
organization higher than the single battery is necessary.
It is simply impossible that this can be true.
The practice which obtained from the very outbreak of the war of using the
single battery as the highest organization of light artillery was vicious in
theory and in practice. The highest authority we have upon artillery has stated
this fact, and our practice in the later years of the war,—the result of
experience in the field,—proved that the battalion of batteries, under a
responsible head and with still higher grades of authority to control
battalions, would give results wholly impossible of attainment with divided
commands.
Had the colonel of a regiment of artillery taken the field as the chief of
artillery for a corps, with his field officers in their proper places as chiefs
of battalions, to serve with divisions or directly under the corps commander as
occasion might demand, can any one doubt for a minute the increased efficiency
of that regiment as a fighting machine?
In actual practice the field officers of the regular artillery were all given
volunteer rank to command infantry, and no field officers for volunteer
batteries (the exceptions were very few in number) were commissioned; and when
it was found by experience that artillery gained power in a geometrical ratio by
concentration, captains were taken from their batteries to act as the field
officers which must be had, but never, to the very end, was the point conceded
that light artillery, fully as much any other arm, must have its field officers
actually with it in the field.
The necessity for experienced officers to command volunteers was undeniable,
and the gain to the whole service by depriving the artillery of its legitimate
leaders was greater, perhaps, than the loss to the artillery itself; but there
is something radically wrong in the system which brings about such a crippling
of one arm.
The senior officers remaining should have been given at least temporary rank
in the higher grades of their own arm to commend artillery, and had this been
done, we have the assertion of the artillery officer best qualified by
experience to express an opinion, that the efficiency of our arm great as it
was, would thereby have been increased from one-third to one-half.
Whether the organization of the arm should be regimental or corps is a
subject upon which there will always be wide divergencies of opinion; but the
assertion that artillery should be so organized that when it goes into active
service it shall have its complete hierarchy of command present with it, will
find not one artillerist in opposition.
This can be secured under either form of organization.
With the close of the Civil War the companies of the regiment, excepting the
two which were light batteries before the war, were promptly dismounted and
stationed upon the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to New York Harbor. The light
batteries went to Texas. The field officers rejoined and the regimental staff
was again established, so that the regular routine of garrison life was soon in
operation as smoothly as though it had never been interrupted.
