Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

The civil war
General Pendleton
Confederate States Army
63
the battle took remedial measures. In
the Chickamauga campaign of October
1863, the Army of the Cumberland had
transferred control of the artillery to the
divisions, and in July of that year, the
artillery was transferred to the corps
level. In sum, the same evolutionary
organization of command that had
occurred in the Army of the Potomac
was eventually repeated in the Army of
the Cumberland and in other western
commands. 40
In determining the most efficient
means of organizing artillery units for
field service, the Confederate States
Army faced problems and confusion
similar to those encountered by
the Union army. Col. Edward Porter
Alexander, one of the Confederacy’s
outstanding artillery officers, had advocated
a battalion organization for
field artillery as early as the summer of
1861, when he was only a captain. But
it was not until the early months of 1863 that Colonel Alexander and the Army of
Northern Virginia’s artillery chief, Brig. Gen. William Pendleton, worked out a plan
for a reorganization to improve that arm’s mobility and firepower. One brigade of
six artillery battalions, each containing between four and six batteries, was attached
to each of the two corps in the army. Two of the six battalions in each corps were
designated as corps reserve artillery. All the battalions of each corps were under
the command of the corps artillery chief, and the artillery of both corps were under
the army artillery chief. A medical officer, an ordnance officer, and an assistant
quartermaster and commissary officer were assigned to each artillery brigade. 41 In
Alexander’s words, “It would have been a decided step in advance had we inaugurated,
so soon, a battalion organization of several batter ies. We came to it in about a
year, but meanwhile our batter ies had been isolated and attached to infantry brigades.
So they fought singly, and in such small units artillery can do little.” 42
In June 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia was reorganized into three corps,
each with five artillery battalions attached (one for each division and two in reserve).
Each battalion contained an average of four batteries, usually comprising four guns
each. There was no general reserve artillery for the army. The cavalry division had
40 Tidball, “Remarks Upon Field Artillery,” pp. 94–95, 140–41, 166, FA School files; Larry J. Daniel,
Cannoneers in Gray (University: University of Alabama Press, 1984), p. 132; Griffith, Battle Tactics,
pp. 66, 166.
41 War Department, War of the Rebellion, 1/25(pt.2):625–26.
42 Alexander, Military Memoirs, p. 14.