These bring back memories. My reenactment battery frequently portrayed Battery K, 1st Illinois back in the 1990s, and I have a 38-page unfinished battery history researched and prepared back then that I would like to turn back to in a few years and complete. The battery operated with cavalry and was in numerous actions in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.
The battery was initially raised as an artillery company for Grierson's then-forming 6th Illinois Cavalry. Original Colonel T.H. Cavanaugh had "full authority from the War Department" to attach a battery of light artillery to the regiment to be armed with Woodruff guns. But, since the regiment had a full complement of twelve cavalry companies, federal mustering officers at Camp Yates would not allow the artillery company to form part of the 6th Illinois. Instead it became Battery K, 1st Illinois Light Artillery in February and received "ten small cannon" in May/June 1862. In early November of that year two sections were detached and formally attached to the 6th Illinois Cavalry, an association that would last until the battery was mustered out in December 1864.
By October 1863 the battery had exchanged one section of Woodruffs for a pair of 12-pdr Mountain Howitzers and it eventually had six Mountain Howitzers. It concluded its service armed with 3" Ordnance rifles.