Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

90 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
developed a smokeless powder that proved more effective. Appearing on the
battlefield during the Russo-Turkish War of 1887–88, smokeless powder permitted
a more rapid rate of fire and, in the absence of smoke clouds, also helped conceal
gun positions. Furthermore, its range and penetrating power were far superior to
that of black powder. 48 The Ordnance Department had tried to provide the artillery
with the newer smokeless powder, but the shipment arrived at Tampa too late to
accompany the expedition to Cuba.
Postwar Reforms
At the end of the War With Spain, the Army had an aggregate authorized
strength of 64,586 officers and men, of whom a little less than 16 percent were in
the artillery. Around 60 percent of the artillery units were in the United States, 20
percent in the Philippines, and the remainder in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska. 49
The United States had developed into a world power, with possessions from Puerto
Rico in the Atlantic to the Philippines in the Pacific. To protect these possessions
Congress authorized the postwar Regular Army twenty-five infantry, ten cavalry,
and seven artillery regiments. Each artillery regiment contained fourteen batteries
(an increase of two), twelve for manning coastal fortifications (eleven in the 5th
and 7th Regiments, since one battery in each of these organizations was organized
as siege artillery) and two for field service, plus a band. The coast artillery batteries
in each regiment were organized into three four-battery battalions. The act of
2 March fixed the enlisted strength of the Regular Army at 65,000 men, of whom
almost 12,000 were authorized as artillerists. 50
Prior to the War With Spain, reformers had suggested radical changes in the
structure of the artillery. Under consideration were measures to separate the coast and
field artil lery units, whose functions were vastly different; to abolish the regimental
organization of artillery, which had almost always operated on the company or battery
level; and to create a chief of artillery in order to establish credible representation
for the arm. 51 In general, artillerymen perceived the regimental organization as too
inflexible for manning the harbor defenses, some of them requiring few companies
and others considerably more. They wanted a corps structure with no established
organization above the company level. At the time, little thought was given to field
artillery on the very same issues.
New in office, Secretary of War Elihu Root was sympathetic. In November
1899, he recommended an increase in personnel, for he considered the strength of
48 Annual Reports of the War Department, FY1898, 1(pt.2):153, 232, 236, 596, 598; Dwight E. Aultman,
“Personal Recollection of the Artillery at Santiago,” in The Santiago Campaign (Richmond, Va.:
Williams Printing Co., 1927), pp. 182–94.
49 Annual Reports of the War Department, [FY1899], 1(pt.2):5–6, 383–84.
50 Act of 2 Mar 1899, ch. 353, 30 Stat. 977–79; WD GO 36, 4 Mar 1899; WD GO 37, 9 Mar 1899;
WD GO 50, 17 Mar 1899; WD GO 152, 21 Aug 1899; WD GO 153, 29 Aug 1899.
51 “Organization of the Seacoast Artillery,” Army and Navy Journal, 17 Dec 1898, p. 367; Ranson,
“Endicott Board,” p. 83; Simpson, “Our Artillery,” pp. 48–51; Henry Loomis Nelson, “Our Crippled
Artillery,” Harper’s Weekly, 21 Oct 1899, pp. 1071–72.