Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

100 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
3-inch field gun, model 1902
separate batteries, recommending the organization of divisional battalions and
regiments, and pointed out that there were no senior field-grade branch officers
serving in the field. 15 Also, the 1901 reorganization had specified that artillery officers
be promoted from the same list and that their assignments alternate between
coast and field artillery, all of which undermined the growing specialization of the
two branches. 16
The Army had already organized provisional field artillery battalions for maneuvers
and instruction. In 1902, it authorized provisional battalions at posts having
two or more batteries and, in the fall of 1903, combined the 14th and 21st Field
Artillery Batteries and an Indiana National Guard battery into a battalion at West
Point, Kentucky, for maneuvers. The battalions were organized as light artillery
but for the 5th Battalion (horse artillery) at Fort Riley, Kansas; the 11th Battalion
(mountain artillery) in the Philippines; the 13th Battalion (mountain artillery) at
Vancouver Barracks, Washington; and the 8th Battalion (siege artillery) at Buffalo,
New York. The War Department in 1904 directed that a regiment be formed from
the 4th and 5th Battalions at Fort Riley and the 9th Battalion at Fort Leavenworth,
also in Kansas, and the following year, a second provisional regiment was organized
at Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory (later Oklahoma). 17
In 1905, the War Department directed the Chief of Artillery to prepare a report
on the organization of artillery, which later served as the basis for a bill in Congress
separating coast and field artillery and providing field artillery with a regimental
15 Annual Reports of the War Department, 1904, 2:418–20.
16 “Report on Reorganization and Increase of the Artillery Corps of the U.S. Army,” 26 Oct 1905, p.
17, file 3710, box 20, Entry 296, RG 165, NARA.
17 WD Cir 7, 27 Feb 1902; WD GO 11, 8 Sep 1903; WD GO 152, 14 Sep 1904. In 1906, the 12th
Battalion was also authorized as a mountain artillery unit (WD GO 164, 27 Sep 1906).