If the unit had only four to eight companies, it was called a battalion rather than a regiment. Union brigades were named with numbers, but Confederate brigades were often named after their current or former commanding officers. Confederate divisions tended to contain more brigades than their Union counterparts. Confederate divisions often had twice as many men as Union divisions had. A corps had approximately 36, men and was commanded by a major general Union or a lieutenant general Confederate.
The Union often named its armies after rivers or waterways, i. The Confederacy named its armies after states or regions, i. The rank of a Civil War soldier indicated his duties and responsibilities within the army. The vast majority of soldiers were enlisted men—they made up the bulk of the fighting force. Above them were noncommissioned officers also considered enlisted soldiers and commissioned officers.
While officers had more prestige than privates, they also carried added burdens, since they were accountable for all the soldiers under their command. A major general had the command and administrative responsibilities for an infantry division. He had to ensure that his division was well cared for and ready to fight when needed. In battle, he commanded his division by issuing orders to his brigade commanders on where to position their troops.
A brigadier general had the command and administrative duties for an infantry or cavalry brigade, made up usually of four regiments. He had to keep his men in good condition and ready to fight. Army is normally made up of three platoons, which means 60 to soldiers, but it can have more. An artillery unit is called a battery and an armored air cavalry is called a troop. Leading a company, battery or troop is a Captain, 1st Lieutenant, or Major.
The company in Vietnam that became infamous for the civilian massacre at My Lai in was the Charlie Company. A 2nd lieutenant commands a platoon, which is comprised of three to four squads soldiers. A squad is commanded by a staff sergeant or sergeant. An immersive degree narrative, the series tells the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. See thirteen. In the episode, Curry helps two Vietnam veterans search for the heroes who saved them.
An Army officer searches for the helicopter pilot who rescued him, while another soldier wants to reconnect with the surgeon who saved his leg from amputation. Skip to main content Skip to footer site map. Inside Thirteen. Updated July 31, Military terms like platoon, company, battalion, brigade may sound familiar, but do you know how many soldiers make up these units, and how they comprise one another?
Soldiers who fought on horseback were known as cavalry. Often dominating the battlefield, they performed a variety of roles, from smashing enemy formations to scouting and reconnoitring. The regiment or corps is the key administrative component of the British Army. Each has its own long history, traditions and insignia. To its soldiers, the regiment is a military family that provides comradeship and a unique identity. The Black Watch can trace its origins back to the early 18th century.
It went on to fight in nearly all the British Army's campaigns and is now part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Be the first to hear about our latest events, exhibitions and offers. Simply enter your email address below to start receiving our monthly email newsletter. To find out more about how we collect, store and use your personal information, read our Privacy Policy. National Army Museum 10am - 5.
Toggle navigation. Organisation British Army organisation Do you know your brigades from your battalions, and your sections from your squadrons? View this object. That's quite a mouthful.
So what exactly do all these different terms mean? Section A section usually consists of 7 to 12 men, and is part of a platoon. Platoon A platoon is a part of an infantry company and is further divided into three or four sections.
A troop of cavalry cantering along a track, North West Frontier of India, c Troop Part of a squadron of cavalry or a battery of artillery, a troop is equivalent to an infantry platoon.
Company A company is part of a battalion and usually consists of between and men. Winthrop, one of the bravest and most brilliant captains of the 12th Infantry, who had been made colonel of the 5th New York and then a brigadier-general of volunteers, had command of the Brigade.
The regiment remained in the field until the first of November, when it was ordered North; First it was sent to Buffalo, N. For a few days the headquarters and the first battalion were located at Fort Wadsworth, from thence they were transferred to Elmira, N. The headquarters of the regiment were transferred back to Fort Trumbull on the 11th of Jan. McKibbin, until it was transferred to Hart's Island, Feb.
This battalion was placed under the command of Major E. Hudson, ordered to the field in March and arrived at City Point April 4th, and was assigned to duty as one of the Provost Guard of the Army of the Potomac. On the 9th it appears that they proceeded out to Burkesville Junction; from thence joined the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. They marched with that army to Richmond, Va.
Confederacy, the 14th Infantry was given the right of the line by the express order of Major-General Meade, who said to Major Hudson, then commanding it: "The 14th Infantry has always been in front in battle and deserves the honor.
The review in Richmond, before General Halleck, marked the termination of the war service of the regiment in the Rebellion. Ten officers, and enlisted men were killed in battle and died of disease or from accidents incident to the Service, making a total of in the War; a heavier loss than was sustained by any regiment in the Service of similar enlisted strength. Compared with all the infantry regiments mustered into the Government service it stands number 47 in aggregate loss; in this number six colored regiments are included, which sustained but a small loss in battle, but a frightful loss by disease.
The loss of the 14th from this cause was very small. There is no mathematical measure of merit. In civilized warfare you cannot kill without taking your chances of being killed, otherwise, war would be butchery not bravery. It is some consolation, however, to know that you have inflicted as great or a greater loss than you have sustained. But in fact both of these tests are fallacious. The men who maintain their discipline when others are shaken, who show fortitude in misfortune when others are discouraged, and bravery and enthusiasm in danger when others are appalled, are the men who deserve honor and renown.
Before passing to the frontier history of the regiment, it seems proper to refer briefly to the records of a few officers who although they belonged to the regiment did not actually serve with it. A few days after the battle of the Weldon Railroad, General Stone came to regimental headquarters in the field. General Hays had been taken prisoner and the brigade was under the command of a volunteer colonel.
General Stone reported as a colonel, having resigned his volunteer commission, but his rank would have given him the command of the brigade.
As soon as this was ascertained he was ordered back to Army headquarters on some nominal duty. Few men were more likeable than our first colonel, and few men had warmer friends. Yet from the first he was doomed to misfortune. After the unfortunate battle of Ball's Bluff, the friends of Colonel and Senator Baker blamed General Stone for mismanagement and to this the more serious charge of disloyalty was added and pressed by Senator Sumner and Governor Andrew of Massachusetts.
This allegation seems to have no other foundation than an uncertain story, that General Stone while commanding the line of the Potomac above Poolesville, Maryland, let some negro servants of a rebel family in Leesburg, pass in and out of the lines by his authority. When this statement was referred to him, he indignantly refused to make an explanation to a charge that was really anonymous although urged by a senator and a governor.
He was not sustained by General Mc-. Clellan, was put in arrest and sent to Fort Lafayette and afterwards to Fort Hamilton. As is known to all he never could get a trial, or an investigation.
With singular inconsistency General McClellan recommended him for a corps commander. Subsequently when he was made chief of staff in the Department of the Gulf, General Banks made himself responsible for his loyalty. After the Red River expedition General Stone was again made a scapegoat. He was succeeded as colonel by Gen.
Gabriel R. Paul, who never reported, as he had lost his sight by a terrible wound received at Gettysburg. General Sykes, the senior major of the regiment, never reported as such, but commanded it as division and corps commander in many battles.
He was a model infantry officer. Colonel John H. King, who succeeded General Reynolds as lieutenant-colonel, never reported. Major Levi Bootes never served with the 14th Infantry in the field, but he had served up to the date of his promotion as senior captain, commanding the 6th Infantry. In some way it became known before the order was issued that the 14th Infantry would be designated for a tour of duty on the Pacific Coast.
After the disbanding of the volunteer forces many wild characters found their way into the ranks of all the Regular regiments. Some of these men had done good service in the field, but they adopted a theory that as the War was over, discipline would be relaxed and that they should be permitted to have what they were pleased to call "a high old time. Both assembled at Hart's Island, where they made their preparations for a trip to California via Panama.
From the 2d Battalion alone, men deserted in two weeks. They were all reported as bounty jumpers, assigned just before the close of the War. This officer only reported for duty a few days before, having been on staff duty as colonel, A. In passing over the Isthmus, the new men gave proof of their quality, for they proposed to take Aspinwall and Panama, and it was only by the courageous and forcible efforts of the officers, non-com.
Lovell, who had been promoted to the colonelcy of the regiment upon the retirement of General Paul on February 16, , reported for duty at Hart's Island, N. He was the first full colonel to assume command of the regiment since its reorganization. The organization of the Third Battalion was begun and vigorously. At the same time the First Battalion was filled up, and on October 16th the field, staff and band of the regiment and four companies of the 1st Battalion, E, F, G and H, under Colonel Lovell, left New York and landed in San Francisco, November 12th, taking station temporarily at the Presidio.
A, B, C and D followed two weeks later. Here there was an outburst of turbulent hilarity which manifested itself chiefly in cutting off the pigtails of the Pagans. The battalion was hurried away to Arizona, where the exuberance of the young warriors could find less objectionable play in cutting off the scalp-locks of Apaches. The headquarters of the battalion under Major Chapin was fixed at Goodwin, with companies detached to Crittenden, Lowell, Grant and Bowie.
Colonel Lovell soon followed with his regimental staff, Downey and Bainbridge, establishing headquarters at Fort Vancouver, December 8th. In January of , the 1st Battalion, under Major Hudson, was ordered to Drum Barracks and from thence to Fort Yuma, California, at which post the headquarters of the battalion was established February 6th, Co. D sent to Date Creek. On the 17th Captain O'Connell succeeded to the command.
Subsequently Co. The headquarters of the regiment remained at Vancouver Barracks until June, , when it was ordered to San Francisco and thence to Arizona, where it was established September 6, The band was left at Fort Yuma. In January, , the headquarters of the regiment was transferred to Camp Lowell, Tucson, Arizona, where January 23, , the provision of the act of Congress of July 28, , altering the battalion organization into a regimental one was carried out and the 1st Battalion of the regiment with two companies subsequently added, became the 14th Infantry.
The 2d Battalion, which had remained in Oregon and Washington, became the 23d Infantry, and the 3d Battalion, which was serving in Arizona, became the 32d Infantry. On the 16th of April the headquarters of the regiment were established at Fort Yuma, in which military Tophet it remained until May, To these were added Captains Hamilton and Davis for the two additional companies.
Captains D. Marshall went to the 23d and Major Chapin to the 32d. During this tour of duty nearly every monthly return contains a record of Indian scouts; some months nearly every company would be out.
In September, , the distance marched by these scouting parties aggregated miles, equivalent to double the distance elsewhere. Two companies marched miles in August. The skirmishes rarely rose to the dignity of a battle, but they taxed the courage and skill of the participants to the utmost.
One of the commonest entries is that of "mail carriers killed by Indians. In the reorganization of the Army in , the 45th Infantry, one of the Veteran Reserve regiments, was consolidated with the 14th Infantry. In compliance with S. The other enlisted men were discharged or transferred to other regiments remaining in the Department of Arizona. The consolidation was carried out, the result appearing in the monthly return for July.
The field officers assigned to it were Col. Lovell, Lieut. Woodward and Maj. In April, , the regiment was transferred to Fort Randall, Dakota, on account of a threatened Indian war. In August it was transferred to the Department of the Platte, with headquarters at Fort Sedgwick, the regiment and post being under Lieut. In the following March the headquarters was transferred to Fort Laramie, Wyo. Smith reported and assumed command.
Colonel Lovell had been retired December 15, General Gordon Granger, a colonel unassigned, was assigned to the regiment, vice Lovell, but on the 20th of December General Smith, who had been assigned to the 15th Infantry, was transferred to the 14th, General Granger at the same time being assigned to the 15th Infantry. Colonel Lovell died very soon after his retirement. He was loved and respected by the regiment.
He was sincere, courteous and just, a good soldier and a good friend. The new colonel was a very different man. From all accounts of him he knew little and cared less for the traditions of the Service. He was a rough and ready fighter, who had done good service as a volunteer general. He would have led his. In February, , Lieutenant L. Robinson was killed in an Indian fight near Laramie Peak, while guarding a supply train.
In the following August the regiment went to Utah, with headquarters at Fort Douglas. Lee was arrested and held there as a prisoner, pending his trial as the leader of the band of Danites or destroying angels who perpetrated the Mountain Meadow massacre.
After his conviction he had his choice under the laws of Utah, as to whether he should be hung, beheaded, or shot. He chose the latter method of execution. To carry out the rules of poetic as well as moral justice he was taken to the scene of the massacre and shot to death by musketry in March, A detachment under Lieutenant Patterson was sent down to preserve order.
An attempt was made to convert Lee from the error of his ways, while he was confined at Cameron, but he maintained the scriptural doctrine to the last, "that the enemies of God should be exterminated root and branch," and finally met his fate with the equanimity of a martyr.
At Fetterman they met detachments from the 4th and 9th Infantry. The infantry column was placed under the command of Major Alexander Chambers, 4th Infantry, and hastening to join General Crook on the Little Goose Creek, enabled him to assume the offensive.
Their only battle was at Slim Buttes, September 9th, where twenty-seven Indians were killed. This column marched in three months miles. It was on the march from the Little Missouri to the Black Hills that the whole column was nearly reduced to starvation. Another company on escort duty marched miles in one month. This column marched miles. In four companies, E, 1, H and K, under Trotter, Carpenter, McConihe and Taylor, and Major Bryant commanding, were hurried down to the scene of the Thornburgh massacre, but arrived too late to get into the battle.
But they did have all the hardships and privations of a hard Indian campaign. In all the Indian campaigns of the regiment, their endurance, patience, vigilance and bravery were tested to the utmost. They suffered from. The Apaches and the Sioux were formidable enemies, but they dreaded them less than sand storms and snow storms, scarcity of food and bad water.
Many men broke down under these trials, who easily endured all the hardships of the Rebellion. Besides the battles mentioned in the narrative, detachments of the regiment were engaged in the following skirmishes:. February 23, , Captain Walker and Lieut. Tobey with a detachment of fifteen soldiers of the 14th Infantry and twelve Oregon Volunteers, attacked and defeated a band of Snake Indians on Jordan Creek, Oregon, killing 18 and wounding 2 Indians.
One man of the 14th was killed and 1 wounded. On October 10, , Captain Krause with a detachment of twenty-five men of the regiment attacked a Rancherio, twenty-five miles from Camp Lincoln, defeating the Indians, killing and wounding a number and capturing a lot of arms.
Converse and two men of Company C were wounded. Indians repulsed. April 27, , Lieutenant Western, with a detachment of ten men from Camp Logan, attacked a band of forty-five hostile Indians on Silvies River, fording the river neck deep.
The Indians were defeated, 6 killed and a number drowned in trying to escape. Thirty-two horses and large amounts of supplies were taken. Complimented in orders G. The engagement lasted twenty minutes. Private Logan, Company B, was wounded. One Indian was killed and two wounded. February 27, , in an attack made by Apaches on a train near Camp Grant, Arizona, two men were severely wounded, but the attack was repulsed.
May 6, , in an attack on a train near Grief Hill, one private of the regiment was killed, but the Indians were so impressed by the operations of breech-loaders, then used on them for the first time, that they regularly stampeded.
In May, , Colonel Smith was retired and was succeeded by Lewis Cass Hunt, who was colonel of the regiment until his death, September 6, In this department the regiment has had only the ordinary routine duty to perform, except the suppression of the anti-Chinese riots in Seattle in November and February Lieutenant-Colonel Woodward was promoted to the colonelcy of the 15th Infantry on January 10, Henry Douglas was promoted in his place on that date; he was promoted colonel of the 10th Infantry, July 1, , and was succeeded by Lieut.
Major M. Blunt was promoted October 4, , lieutenant-colonel of 25th Infantry and was succeeded as major by Major Montgomery Bryant, who held the position until June , When he was succeeded by Major W. Drum, who in his turn was promoted December 8, , and was succeeded by Major Charles A. Wikoff, the present major of the regiment. The regiment has as it stands to-day, twenty officers with war records, not counting those who have since served in Indian wars, nearly all of whom have been wounded in battle.
Many of our "comrades and companions" have returned to civil life and are working honorably and successfully in civil pursuits. But the grave has closed over most of our men of '
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