Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

18 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
to under a hundred, Congress passed legislation recommending that four states furnish
a total of seven hundred men to serve as garrison troops and to provide general
protection to the country north of the Ohio River. The resolution called for a hybrid
regiment of eight infantry and two artillery companies to fulfill twelve months of
duty. Pennsylvania was to supply 260 men; Connecticut and New York, 165 men
each; and New Jersey, 110. The regiment was to include a lieuten ant colonel (from
Pennsylvania), two majors (one from Connecticut and one from Pennsylvania), eight
captains, ten ensigns, a chaplain, a surgeon, and four surgeon’s mates. 3
Having a large unprotected border, Pennsylvania quickly began to raise its quota
of three infantry companies and part of one artillery company, selecting the newly
commissioned Lt. Col. Josiah Harmar as the regimental commander. Capt. Thomas
Douglass recruited fifty men of the seventy-man artillery company and went with
the rest of the regiment to the Pennsylvania frontier. This company, together with
Capt. John Doughty’s New York company added in July 1785, constituted the two
artil lery units authorized by Congress for Harmar’s First American Regiment. The
other states made little effort to raise their quotas. 4
In April 1785, Congress resolved to continue the First American Regiment for
three years, adopting the same arrangements under which it was formed the year
before. 5 State quotas remained unchanged, and most of the men and officers of the
former regiment were retained. The addition of two companies from Connec ticut, two
from New Jersey, and one from New York completed the eight infantry companies
authorized for the First American Regiment. Capt. William Ferguson, also from
Pennsylvania, succeeded Douglass. Harmar continued in command and concentrated
the regiment in the Fort Pitt area. There the 3-pounders and 6-pounders were placed
3 Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 27:530–31; Roll 31, Item 24 (3 Jun
1784 entries), Microfilm 247, Papers of the Continental Congress, p. 103, RG 360, NARA. Planning
for the peacetime army had begun in April 1783. But Congress had declined to decide on a peace
establishment in May, directing Washington to use men enlisted for fixed terms as temporary garrisons,
and once again in October. In 1784, it also rejected an alternative plan submitted in April and
subsequently another proposal. On 2 June, Congress authorized the discharge of most of the Army
and the following day created a peace establishment that was acceptable to all interests. See Wright,
Continental Army, pp. 180–82.
4 Ltr, Joseph Carleton to President of Pennsylvania, 28 Jul 1784, in Pennsylvania Archives, 1st
ser., 12 vols. (Philadelphia: Joseph Severns and Co., 1852–56), 10:302–03; regimental returns, in ibid.,
1/10:309–23, 337–38; Jonathan Heart et al., Journal of Capt. Jonathan Heart . . . (Albany, N.Y.: J.
Munsell’s Sons, 1885), pp. 27–40; Roll 74, Item 60 (Ltr, Joseph Carleton to President of Congress,
1 Nov 1784), Microfilm 247, Papers of the Continental Congress Papers, p. 91, RG 360, NARA.
The other twenty men for Douglass’s artil lery company apparently were never recruited, the returns
recording only fifty men in the unit. The two artillery com panies in the First American Regiment are
perpetuated by the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery. In addition to the troops from Philadelphia, New
Jersey provided a company, and Connec ticut began recruiting the following spring. Massachusetts,
in the throes of a dispute with New York over the Oswego and Niagara land claims, did not want to
cause additional problems by sending troops. New York wanted to use its own militia and make its
own treaties with the Indians. See James Ripley Jacobs, The Beginnings of the U.S. Army, 1783–1812
(Princeton: Princeton Univer sity Press, 1947), p. 18.
5 Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 28:223, 239, 247; John F. Callan, comp.,
The Military Laws of the United States . . . , 2d ed. (Philadelphia: G. W. Childs, 1863), p. 78.