Let me preface my response by saying that all reenactors absolutely must study the School of the Soldier, School of the Company, and Instruction for Skirmishers. NCOs should also study the School of the Battalion, and commissioned officers should also familiarize themselves with Evolutions of the Line (brigade and division drill).
@Zack So let's back up and review the composition and conduction of a company, all per Hardee's instruction. A full-strength company is composed of:
- 1 captain
- 3 lieutenants
- 5 sergeants
- 4 corporals and a handful of informally recognized corporal-candidates who we might call "high privates"
- the privates
- any other company staff or miscellaneous personnel
Please also see the attached illustration by Hardee of a battalion line of battle, to which I have added labeling of the corporals and sections.
So, the captain commands the company. In company drill, the captain is the company right guide and the 2nd Sgt is the company left guide. The 1st sergeant is called the covering sergeant because he becomes the right guide when the captain has to go do something else. This becomes more important when the company is broken into divisions and in battalion drill.
The use of these guides in a battalion line of battle is overdone because of, frankly, the lack of study and practice of drill by reenactors. When the battalion is formed in line of battle, the only company officers and NCOs in the line are the corporals, the captain, the covering 1st Sgt, the 10th company 2nd Sgt who is the battalion left guide, and the NCOs of the color guard. Other company officers and NCOs hang out in the line of file-closers.
Anyone in the line of file-closers keeps an eye on the company line and makes sure its members are doing what they're supposed to be doing. When the company or battalion is firing, the captains and sergeants in the company line of battle retire to the line of file-closers.
The only person who's doing any real commanding of the company is the captain; even when the company is broken into platoons or sections the chiefs of those "divisions" are only conducting their divisions to execute the desires of the captain. The lieutenants and sergeants aren't commanding those divisions in the manner of the militaries of today.
The command of the divisions can vary depending on the situation. The captain is the "chief" of lead division and the lieutenants are the chiefs of the subsequent divisions. Please see Hardee's School of the Company for more details.
The company is divided roughly in half into two platoons. The corporals are posted in the front rank and first and last files of each platoon. They do not command anything but are responsible for seeing that the privates are doing what they're supposed to be doing, helping with alignment, and keeping the step.
The platoons are divided roughly in half into two sections. Sections are not really intended to be a functional unit of the line, they merely give company commanders flexibility to approach certain situations. Sections can also be ad-hoc divisions of the platoons; they are not totally set in stone.
Side note: in theory, since all of the companies and sections are supposed to be of approximately the same size, the platoons and sections of the color company should be adjusted to make up for the additional men of the color guard, to the point of sending privates to other companies to level out the number of men in the color company. I did not mention this in the paper because I thought it trivial, and it can be accounted for with proper adherence to guides.
Finally in skirmish drill there is the addition of the "comrades in battle"; the 4 men in each group of two files. They are not commanded by, but rather conduct certain motions on, the front rank man of the 2nd file.
When skirmishing, the two mean of each file work together to ensure that at least one of them always has a loaded weapon.
Squads are purely an instructional division, and are not used in the field. If you had a small group of guys for a living history, you might as well act as a section commanded by a NCO or "high private" and conduct yourselves according to company drill. You don't need a captain for two sergeants and three privates; its goofy.
A group of soldiers with a particular task, typically related to camp or sentry duty, is a detail.
Now, back to the color guard. The members of the color guard are drawn from NCOs across the battalion. It is not specified how this is done, but maybe certain NCOs who are recognized for their excellence might be nominated by their captain or a battalion officer for the honor. Those NCOs live with their companies, as normal. When the battalion is formed, those NCOs leave their companies and form the color guard as an extension of the color company, tacked on to the left of the 2nd platoon / 4th section. The companies from which they are pulled will have to adjust accordingly. I would suggest that the color company not contribute any NCOs because it already has the honor of being the color company, and those NCOs will be the most readily available if the color guard takes casualties. Perhaps an equitable way to assign members of the color guard would be for each other company to contribute one NCO, with the most distinguished company contributing the sergeant.
[Add this to future document update.]
The ranks of the members of the color guard depends on the situation. As I explain in the paper, the authors only consider the use of a single color, so I made certain wording choices to reflect the intent of certain points of drill so that a reader may more easily interpret it for the use of two colors.
The battalion center guide is a sergeant, to whom I refer as the color sergeant. In the manuals, he is referred to as the color bearer. Again, this is because the manuals only assume the use of a single color; his true job is as the battalion center guide. He is selected from the battalion's sergeants. It does not appear to matter which sergeants, but a captain might want to hang on to his 1st and 2nd sergeants. The color sergeant is in the center file of the front rank of the color guard.
The other 8 members of the guard consist of corporals pulled from across the battalion.
If two colors are used, we assume that the color sergeant retains his position. However, instead of 8 corporals we now have 2 sergeants and 6 corporals. I do not believe this is required, but I explain my logic for suggesting two sergeants. I believe the national color would be carried by the sergeant to the right of the color sergeant, and the battalion or state color would be carried by the sergeant to the left of the color sergeant.
Does this answer your question? I know it's a lot, that's why I spent a lot of time reading many manuals yet still at times find corrections to make.