Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

eOrganizing The arm
traveling forge was authorized for each company of light artillery and for every two
companies of foot artillery. 34
During most of the period since 1784, procurement and development of materiel
had been functions of the artillery, but on 14 May 1814, Congress established
the Ordnance Department. The Commissary-General of Ordnance, the title of the
department chief, was charged with not only inspecting and approving all ordnance
pieces, cannon balls, shot, and shell but also directing the construction of carriages
and other apparatus for field and garrison service. Col. Decius Wadsworth, a former
artillery company commander, was appointed to this position and was later designated
as Chief of Ordnance on 8 February 1815. 35
The principal fighting strength on both sides during the War of 1812 lay in the
infantry. During the war, most of the artillerists manned various ord nance pieces
wherever they might be posted and fought as infantry when necessary. The 3d
Artillery Regiment served primarily as infantry on the New York–Canadian frontier,
with some companies performing as foot artillery along the Atlantic coast. Many of
the line officers were detached as district commanders or as staff officers in other
departments. Few artillerymen were capable of employing artillery in a battlefield
environment, fewer yet understood the value of “field” artillery, and infantry commanders
had even less knowledge of field artillery tactics. There was little hope
of salvaging the situation, for the Army had no senior artillery officers to direct
any emphasis toward the arm. During the war, a few com panies of the 1st and 2d
Regiments served as true field artil lery and were occasionally effective—the 12pounder
batteries at the battle of Chippewa, for example—but they never concentrated
their efforts. The infantry battle lines usually formed just beyond effective
artillery range (about 500 yards), and accompany ing artillery was employed primarily
as “position artillery,” its use limited to repelling the opposing force’s attack. 36
The War Department had intended to mount the Regiment of Light Artillery, but
within six months of the declaration of war, only half the companies were equipped
as such. The regiment seldom operated as light artillery, however, and when it did,
it was by small detachments. Light artillery was a new institution in the United
States, and the officers and men lacked peacetime, much less wartime, experience.
Because the terrain did not favor massed cavalry, many viewed horse artillery as
unnecessary. By the end of the war, most of the companies in the Regiment of Light
Artillery had been reequipped as infantry. 37
34 Military Laws, and Rules and Regulations for the Army of the United States (Washington City,
December 1814), p. 84.
35 Callan, comp., Military Laws, pp. 226–27, 263–66; Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and
Dictionary of the United States Army . . . , 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1903), 1:43–44.
36 Birkhimer, Historical Sketch, pp. 193–200; American State Papers, Class 5, Military Affairs,
1:439–512; H[enry] M. Brackenridge, History of the Late War Between the United States and Great Britain
. . . , 6th ed. (Philadelphia: James Kay, Jun. and Brother, 1836), pp. 180–86; Nathaniel Herbert Claiborne,
Notes on the War in the South . . . (Richmond, Va.: W. Ramsey, 1819), pp. 21–23; Robert S. Quimby, The
U.S. Army in the War of 1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997), pp. 521–27.
37 Birkhimer, Historical Sketch, pp. 192–99.
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