Mixed artillery pieces

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Aug 25, 2012
I was doing some research for a fellow forum member today on Battery B, Michigan Artillery. They had their guns captured at the Battle of Shiloh. At the time they had 6 pieces; i.e.. one Parrott Gun, three brass field pieces and two howitzers. These pieces had different ranges, different capabilities as well as different ammunition. How much would this affect the performance of the battery? Was it not better for a battery to have matching pieces?
 
I was doing some research for a fellow forum member today on Battery B, Michigan Artillery. They had their guns captured at the Battle of Shiloh. At the time they had 6 pieces; i.e.. one Parrott Gun, three brass field pieces and two howitzers. These pieces had different ranges, different capabilities as well as different ammunition. How much would this affect the performance of the battery? Was it not better for a battery to have matching pieces?
Might that be because it was still early in the war? A year or 2 later northern industry was cranking out a lot more weapons. Didn't a full strength battery consist of 8 guns too?
 
I was doing some research for a fellow forum member today on Battery B, Michigan Artillery. They had their guns captured at the Battle of Shiloh. At the time they had 6 pieces; i.e.. one Parrott Gun, three brass field pieces and two howitzers. These pieces had different ranges, different capabilities as well as different ammunition. How much would this affect the performance of the battery? Was it not better for a battery to have matching pieces?

It was easier logistically, as well, since you'd only have to get ammunition for one type of gun. However, particularly among the Confederates where it was almost the norm, having mixed batteries throughout the war didn't seem to impede their abilities too much.

Ryan
 
Yes and no. Having a mix of guns meant a battery could perform some function at a variation of ranges. However, a mix of guns would also mean that some functions would be limited if not eliminated. I think that's why Union batteries moved toward all of one kind. Confederates, though, didn't really have that luxury so mixed batteries remained the norm.

So, to answer your question, a mixed battery would have been able to engage to a limited degree at maximum ranges as well as point-blank ranges. It wouldn't, though, have been the best at either extreme. Rifles would be the best for targets at distance and smooth bores the best for targets at shouting distance.
 
Might that be because it was still early in the war? A year or 2 later northern industry was cranking out a lot more weapons. Didn't a full strength battery consist of 8 guns too?

Yes I am guessing it is because it was early in the war.
 
It was easier logistically, as well, since you'd only have to get ammunition for one type of gun. However, particularly among the Confederates where it was almost the norm, having mixed batteries throughout the war didn't seem to impede their abilities too much.

Ryan

I am not trying to disagree, but is it true that it did not impede their abilities too much?
 
As mentioned above, the Union army quickly tended to phase out mixed batteries. During Meade's large scale initial assaults at Petersburg, the batteries with rifled tubes were used to hit the city of Petersburg itself while the batteries with 12lb Napoleons targeted Beauregard's actually trench line for suppression.

In the Confederate army, especially early in the war, mixed batteries could prove a hindrance, especially with obsolete Model 1841 6lb guns often compromising half of the battery. During a pursuit in the Valley Campaign, Jackson had to order individual rifle pieces up from batteries so he could mass fire on retreating Union soldiers in the distance who were out of smoothbore range. This was a rather helter-skelter method of attempting fire control. The Confederates could and would adapt, like at Perryville where Confederate proved tactically superior in one of the few occasions of the war (even with mixed batteries and six pounders) but there was also occasions like the artillery hell at Antietam, where Confederate smoothbores didn't have the range to effectively respond to Union rifle cannon fire.

The Army of Northern Virginia, benefiting from Tregedar manufactoring, blockade imports, and the fruits of Lee's victories, was able to phase out almost all of the six pounders by the middle of 1863 and replace them with rifled cannon or Napoleons. The Army of Tennessee was able to phase out its six pounders under Johnston and Pendleton in the spring of 1864 and by Atlanta most of the Army of Tennessee's field pieces were Napoleons. The Trans-Mississippi rebels continued to use six pounders during the last major field operations of 1864 (and even a few Federal batteries used them west of the Mississippi). Despite these transitions, the Confederates were unable to avoid mixed batteries in most circumstances.
 
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This is a generalization...

Later in the war a typical 6 gun US battery of light arty was supposed to have 4 x 3" Ordnance Rifles & 2 x 12lb Napolean. A battery was split into 3 x 2 gun sections containing like guns. 10 lb Parrots often substituted 3" Rifles until 3" Rifles became available. As the war progressed quite a few US batteries also shifted to a 2 section 4 gun battery. This was for a variety of reasons which most often related to lack of horses but also often . Also this obviously simplified the work of the QM. Pre ACW a combo of guns might be 4 x 6 lb guns and 2 x howitzers. Specialized batteries (mortars, 20lb Parrots etc) were something altogether different.

Battery sizes shifted throughout the war due to the inevitable equipment & manpower loss and replacement cycle of a war. Unlike the typical US infantry Regiments arty units received a near constant flow of replacements. Sherman considered one gun worth a thousand men and his attitude was far from uncommon. If men were needed ot crew guns they were voluntold from attached Infantry units and transfers to the arty were not unusual. Sometimes they were on a permanent basis sometimes on a temporary one.

The CS typically went with the smaller 4 gun battery for the lack of horses as well as a lack of guns. More radical mixes of guns were not at all uncommon with CS forces. CS 6 gun batteries were not unknown even to the end of the war.
 
Off topic just a little... I'm currently reading the book "Hurrah for the Artillery" by James Brady and he states there were times when some Federal Artillery Batteries (including Battery "E" of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery) were over-staffed as a result of their continuing recruitment activities, and that these additional men were often temporarily assigned to Infantry units, but could be pulled back to man the guns as disease and causalities took their toll on the Battery. It seems logical that it might have been easier and more effective to initially train a recruited Artilleryman (regardless of the type/caliber of artillery pieces the battery was using) and then temporarily send him off to an Infantry unit until they were needed as an artilleryman replacement, than to pull untrained volunteers from an Infantry or Cavalry unit with no Artillery experience?
 
All one need do is drive down Confederate Ave on Seminary Ridge, stop at the markers and read the composition of the batteries. You would be hard pressed to find many that were not mixed.
 
All one need do is drive down Confederate Ave on Seminary Ridge, stop at the markers and read the composition of the batteries. You would be hard pressed to find many that were not mixed.

Indeed. In the Army of Northern Virginia, mixed batteries were the rule while they were the exception in the Army of the Potomac.

By 1863, that is.

Ryan
 
Indeed. In the Army of Northern Virginia, mixed batteries were the rule while they were the exception in the Army of the Potomac.

By 1863, that is.

Ryan

....but can one imagine how it was in the Western Theater? Is it likely that what the Army of the Tennessee (Grant, et. al,) had was akin to what the ANV had in the Eastern Theater? I know in 1863, Grant utilized 6-pound smoothbores and James Rifles. A lot of those type weapons were no longer extant in the AOP and partly by the ANV- or, at least, that's my understanding.
 
....but can one imagine how it was in the Western Theater? Is it likely that what the Army of the Tennessee (Grant, et. al,) had was akin to what the ANV had in the Eastern Theater? I know in 1863, Grant utilized 6-pound smoothbores and James Rifles. A lot of those type weapons were no longer extant in the AOP and partly by the ANV- or, at least, that's my understanding.

I'm much more familiar with the details of the eastern armies so I can't really speak of the gun types among Grant's army. That being said, IIRC, the Army of the Cumberland had a great deal of unanimity among gun types.

Ryan
 
I was doing some research for a fellow forum member today on Battery B, Michigan Artillery. They had their guns captured at the Battle of Shiloh. At the time they had 6 pieces; i.e.. one Parrott Gun, three brass field pieces and two howitzers. These pieces had different ranges, different capabilities as well as different ammunition. How much would this affect the performance of the battery? Was it not better for a battery to have matching pieces?

Major Bill,

Are you referencing the 7th Michigan artillery?
 
No I researched 1st Michigan Light Artillery Regiment, Battery B, a.k.a. Battery B 1st Michigan Light Artillery Regiment, a.k.a. 2nd Battery Michigan 1st Michigan Light Artillery Regiment, a.k.a.Ross's Battery.

After the first few Michigan artillery battery the State usually dropped the numbing of these batteries so the 7th Battery was usually called 1st Michigan Light Artillery Regiment Battery G or Lampher's Coldwater Artillery Battery.
 
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Just to throw a curve ball here, has anyone identified Whitworth breachloaders in batteries other than Co I 1st CT Hvy Art, Munn's at Fort Fisher or Hurt's Battery AL Art? I'd read somewhere (non-primary source, IIRC) that there were only seven breechloading and five muzzleloading 12lb Whitworths in the US during the war.
 

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