The Man Behind The Guns

[gary]

From page 27 of Maj. Thomas Osborn's account of the war as published under the title: The Fiery Trail.

"The artillery of the U.S. Army is by far its worst or most slipshod organization of any branch of the service. This arm has in the regular army always been considered the aristocratic one and sought for assignments by old officers, yet from the beginning of the war it has been permitted to remain without an organization of its own, except such as it has received as the result of incessant begging and intercession by its officers for a recognized position. The artillery owes most of its effectiveness in the field of all the armies and all of its organization to the earnest and effective work of General Hunt, Chief of Artillery of the Army of the Potomac. In his labors in this interest he has received the endorsement and encouragement of General Barry. But for these two officers the batteries would still have been scattered about, attached to divisions and brigades any where and every where that a general officer had sufficient personal influence to get a battery assigned to his command.

"The ignorance of some of our general officers in regard to the proper uses of artillery is simply stupendous. I have seen a well appointed light battery ordered by a general officer 300 yards in advance of his skirmish line for the protection of that skirmish line, and that when the enemy was expected to attack any minute. That is one specimen and I will give one more. At one time I went to look after one of my batteries which had been ordered on picket duty with a brigade commanded by a brigadier general. I found it in a heavy forest filled with dense undergrowth. The brigade was entrenched across the road. A quarter of a mile in advance were his advanced pickets, also well entrenched, and between 200 and 300 yards in advance of this picket was the battery standing ready for action with not a musket nearer than the picket, without a shovel full of earth thrown up or even a rail or other barricade to give the battery the slightest protection. I called the general's attention to the position of the battery and he asked with all seriousness, 'What is artillery for if not to protect the infantry?' I could give many more illustrations of like foolishness of general officers and colonels who have only had experience in the command of infantry, but these are sufficient to show how necessary it may be, and often is, to have men in command of artillery who have made it their special study.

"The great fault in this particular lies in the primary organization of the Army. It is one of the unfortunate results growing out of the building up of an army of three-quarters of a million of men upon the frame-work of a toy army of twenty thousand men. As a whole the increase of the Army upon this diminutive frame-work has been successful, but in some of its parts it has been woefully defective. With the infantry and cavalry it has worked well, but with the artillery and army staff it has been a dead failure."

(Message edited by Gary on October 28, 2003)