The Army of the US Historical Sketches of Staff and Line with Portraits of Generals-in-Chief

First Regiment of Artillery

By Major William L. Haskin


Introduction

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The first Congress of the United States under the Constitution (March, 1789) found already in existence a "Frontier Corps" of infantry 700 strong, and a battalion of four companies of artillery.

According to Heitman's "Historical Register of the U. S. Army," one of these companies (Doughty's) was retained in service from the Revolutionary army: one (Douglass') was raised under Resolve of Congress of date June 3, 1784; and two were organized under Resolve of Congress of date October 20, 1786, when the four companies were organized into a battalion under Major John Doughty.

This battalion was represented at the battle on the Miami, October 19 and 22, 1790.

When the "Legion of the United States" was organized in December, 1792, one of these companies was attached to each of its sub-legions, and a major-commandant of artillery (Henry Burbeck) was on the staff of General Anthony Wayne, commanding the Legion. This legionary organization ceased in 1796.

In 1794 a "Corps of Artillerists and Engineers" was organized, which included the four companies of artillery then in service and had sixteen companies in four battalions, with a lieutenant-colonel commandant and four majors. In 1798 an additional regiment of "Artillerists and Engineers" was authorized with 12 companies, increased in 1799 to 16 companies.

In 1802 there was a reduction of the army. The Engineers were separated from the Artillery and the latter formed into one regiment of 20 companies with a colonel (Henry Burbeck), lieutenant-colonel, and four majors.

This was the first First Artillery.

In 1808 a regiment of ten companies called the "Light Artillery" was formed;—but it was light artillery only in name, almost all of its service being performed as infantry.

In 1812 two regiments of artillery were added to the army, each having to companies, but barely two years later the three artillery regiments were merged into a "Corps of Artillery," with six lieutenant-colonels, six majors, and 48 companies in twelve battalions. The Light Artillery regiment was not affected by this change.

During the War of 1812 the Artillery of the army was represented in the following engagements:—

Battle of Maguago, Mich., Aug. 9, 1812 (1st Art).


* See "The History of the First Regiment of Artillery," by Brevet Major Wm. L. Haskin. Fort Preble, Me., 1879. pp. 668.
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  • Attack on Queenstown Heights, U. Can., Oct. 13, 1812 (L. A. and 2d Art).
  • Capture of York (now Toronto), U. C., April 27, 1813 (L. A. and 3d Art).
  • Fort Meigs, Ohio, May 5, 1813 (L. A).
  • Fort George, U. C., May 27, 1813 (L. A., 2d Art. and 3d Art).
  • Action at Stony Creek, U. C., June 6, 1813 (L. A. and 2d Art).
  • Battle of Chrystler's Fields, U. C., Nov. 11, 1813 (L. A., 2d Art. and 3d Art).
  • Defense of Fort Oswego, N. Y. May 5 and 6, 1814 (L. A. and 3d Art).
  • Battle of Chippeway, U. C., July 5, 1814 (Corps of Art).
  • Battle of Niagara Falls, U. C., July 25, 1814 (Corps of Art).
  • Battle of Plattsburg, N. Y., Sept. 11, 1814 (L. A. and Corps of Art).
  • Defense of Fort McHenry, Md., Sept. 13, 1814 (Corps of Art).
  • Defense of Fort Erie, U. C., Aug. 15, 1814 (Corps of Art).
  • Battle of New Orleans, La., Dec. 23 and 28, 1814, and Jan. 8, 1815 (Corps of Art).

At the close of the War of 1812 the army was reduced and the Corps of Artillery retained only 32 companies, in eight battalions; but the Light Artillery again escaped reduction.

In 1821 the army was again reduced, and an entire change of organization was effected by consolidating the Light Artillery, the Ordnance, and the Corps of Artillery into four regiments of artillery, having nine companies and ten captains each, the additional captain performing ordnance duty. One company in each regiment was to be a light battery, but until 1836 it was so only in name.

With the following modifications these are the organizations now in existence known as the First, Second, Third and Fourth regiments of Artillery.

At first each regiment had a colonel, lieutenant-colonel and one major. A major was added to each by the Act of February 11, 1847, and still another major to each by the Act of July 28, 1866.

In 1832 the Ordnance was separated from the Artillery, the ordnance captains joining the new corps, but artillery lieutenants doing the subordinate work of the ordnance under four-year details. This continued until the Act of July 5, 1838, completed the severance.

This last named Act added Company K, and the Act of March 3, 1847, added Companies L and M to each regiment.

The Artillery has been united with the Engineers, the Ordnance, and the Light Artillery. It has had a battalion, regimental, and corps organization; during the Civil War it was even without organization—into any higher unit than the single battery. It would seem that the entire round of experiments had been tried. The present organization into regiments has lasted far longer than any other and appears to have sustained the test of prolonged trial, in peace at least, fairly well. It bids fair to continue indefinitely, for it is impossible to obtain any degree of unanimity among artillery officers as to what should take its place.

THE FIRST REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY

was organized under the Act of March 2, 1821, by the assignment to it of officers already commissioned in the Ordnance Department, Light Artillery

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regiment, or Corps of Artillery. Its ranks were filled by the transferred whole companies from the Light Artillery, or the Corps of Artillery.

Company A came from the L. A. and was first organized as a company in 1812.

Company B also dated from 1812 and had been Company D, Second Battalion, C. of A.

Companies C and D, dating from 1815, came from the L. A.

Company E had been Company N, Second Battalion, C. of A., organized in 1812.

Company F had been Company B, Fourth Battalion, C. of A., and dated from 1812.

Companies G and H came from the L. A.; G dating from 1812 and H from 1808.

Company I had been Company A, Second Battalion, C. of A., and was first organized as a company in 1798.

Of the 47 officers of the regiment, 13—including Colonel Porter—came from the L. A.; 23—including Major Walbach—from the C. of A.; 8—including Lieutenant-Colonel Bomford—from the Ordnance; and three—Captains Wm. J. Worth and Henry Whiting, and Lieutenant W. S. Harney—from the Infantry. Harney remained in the regiment less than two years, but Worth belonged to it until he entered the Ordnance in 1832, and Whiting until he became a quartermaster in 1835.

Companies A, B, E, F, G and H had taken an active part in the War of 1812, and brought with them into the regiment a record of gallant service already performed.

There is little of interest in the history of a regiment in time of peace, and the long period of fifteen years which elapsed before the breaking out of the Florida War was almost uneventful.

The regiment was at first stationed at the posts in New York Harbor and on the New England coast, but after a service there of six years it was sent to the more southerly posts between Annapolis, Md., and Charleston, S. C., where it remained, though with many interchanges of station by the several companies, until January, 1836, when eight companies reached Florida, followed in October of the same year by the ninth.

The Florida War brought little glory to any who took part in it, the difficulty being, not to fight the enemy, but to find him. "A barren warfare, marches without battles, scoutings by day, alarms by night; continual little annoyances, so trifling as to be beneath narration, yet in their frequency and troublesomeness as bad on the spirits as a defeat and reducing the duty list as much as a battle. The climate was an enemy more successful than the Seminoles, and its victims counted not by single files, but by platoons if not battalions."

For two years the regiment performed its share of this work, taking part in eleven more or less important engagements with the Indians.

The following named officers were present with the regiment during its service in Florida and by their gallantry in action and fidelity to duty—in this case a thankless duty bringing no other reward than the consciousness of duty well done—reflected credit upon the regiment:—Colonel Eustis,

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Majors Wm. Gates and B. K. Pierce; Captains R. M. Kirby, Giles Porter; David Van Ness, Justin Dimick, Lemuel Gates and D. D. Tompkins; and Lieutenants Geo. Nauman, Francis Taylor, J. R. Irwin, J. H. Prentiss, Geo. Watson, E. A. Capron, D. E. Hale, John F. Lee, Alfred Herbert, Wm. H. Betts, P. V. Hagner, M. J. Burke, J. S. Hatheway and Wm. H. Fowler.

In 1838 the regiment was sent to the northern frontier of the U. S. in New York and Vermont, and shortly after reaching its new stations a company was added to each of the regiments of artillery. The additional company of the First was mounted and became Battery K. Although Company A had been the designated light battery since 1821 it had never had a horse attached to it, but had performed the same duties, and in the same way, as the other companies had.

In 1840 the regiment was moved to the boundary line between Maine and New Brunswick. At this time war with Great Britain was threatened, the chief cause for the dispute being the location of the boundary line between tile United States and British territory, but it was fortunately averted. The regiment remained on this line, however, until just before the outbreak of the Mexican War, when four companies went to Texas and six to Florida.

In the campaign of 1846-47 on Taylor's line in Texas and northern Mexico, Companies B, C, D, E and Battery K, took an active part, the regiment being represented by one or more of its companies in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey and Buena Vista.

The campaign of 1847 in central Mexico under General Scott brought the greater part of the regiment under fire, and Companies B, D, F, G, H and Batteries I and K, some or all of them, took part in the siege of Vera Cruz and the battles or skirmishes of Cerro Gordo, La Hoya, Oka Lake, Contreras, Churubusco, Chapultepec and City of Mexico. Company I was made a light battery after the battle of Cerro Gordo.

There was then no retired list, and the field officers of the regiment were so infirm or so far advanced in years as to be wholly unable to undergo the fatigues of active service. From this it resulted that, after Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo had been fought, the senior captain present—Brevet Major Justin Dimick—commanded the battalion.

The campaign was one of the most brilliant recorded in history. More recent military operations on a very much larger scale have dimmed the memory of its successes, but the military student will always admire the extreme audacity which prompted it, and the manner in which the troops—the whole army—coöperated to make it a success.

The First Artillery received the commendation of its brigade and division commanders for each and every action in which it was present, and its losses—21 per cent. of its whole strength in killed and wounded—attest its military zeal and fidelity to duty. The battle of Churubusco was especially fatal, for it cost the regiment the lives of Capt. E. A. Capron, Capt. M. J. Burke, Lieut. J. F. Irons, and Lieut. Satterlee Hoffman. Lieutenants Martin and Boynton were among the wounded, and the total loss in officers and men was 45 out of a total of less than 300.

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The following named officers of the First were present during the Mexican War, in one or both campaigns:

Majors Levi Whiting and Thos. Childs.

Captains Justin Dimick, L. B. Webster, Geo. Nauman, Francis Taylor, J. H. Winder, J. B. Magruder, E. A. Capron, M. J. Burke and J. S. Hatheway.

Lieutenants J. L. Donaldson, W. W. Mackall, B. H. Hill, Wm. H. French, Jos. Hooker, Henry C. Wayne, Irvin McDowell, J. A. Haskin, H. D. Grafton, J. B. Ricketts, S. K. Dawson, J. G. Martin, J. F. Irons, J. M. Brannan, Isaac Bowen, Seth Williams, Abner Doubleday, J. P. Johnstone, Henry Coppee, E. C. Boynton, T. J. Jackson, Truman Seymour, Satterlee Hoffman, J. B. Gibson and A. P. Hill.

Many of these names will be very familiar to all who have read the history of a later and greater war, as well as to the students of this foreign war in which these men were such prominent actors. At this date (November, 1894), Professor Henry Coppée, of Lehigh University, is the sole survivor of all of "Ours " who took part in the War, and he was among those who entered the City of Mexico with Scott's victorious army.

Upon the evacuation of Mexico in 1848 the First Artillery was stationed upon the Atlantic coast from New York to Fort Washington, Md., with the exception of Companies L and M, which were sent to Oregon. In the following year, however, four companies went into the interior of Florida, and in 1850 four additional companies went to the Gulf States and Battery I to California. Companies L and M were in Oregon but four years when they were transferred to the Atlantic coast, reorganized, and sent to Florida.

Service in that State was found to consist, as usual, of fruitless marches and countermarches, scouts in this direction and in that, and in years of service scarcely an event worthy of record. Filibusters in Louisiana and Texas in 1851 made some slight break in the monotony of garrison life for several of the companies, and in 1856 Indians were fought, once in Florida and several times in Texas. In 1859 the outlaw band of Cortinas attacked and then blockaded Brownsville, Texas, but was in turn attacked, beaten, and broken up by a force including three companies of the First Artillery.

With the closing months of 1860 the regiment completed its tenth year of continuous service in the Southern States. During this long period no foot company of the regiment (except the Oregon companies) had been stationed farther north than Fort Monroe, and the regiment had never had less than four companies in the Gulf States, while the usual number was eight. The detail for the Artillery School took two companies northward, and the companies in Florida were occasionally sent to Charleston to recuperate, but the regiment—generally—had been a stranger to the northern climate for ten long years.

In January, 1861, Companies A and C were at Fort Monroe; B at Key West Barracks; D at Baton Rouge Barracks, La.; E and H at Fort Sumter, S. C.; F. L and Battery K at Eagle Pass (Fort Duncan), Texas; G at Barrancas Barracks, Fla.; Battery I at Leavenworth, Kansas, and M at Brownsville, Texas.

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The excitement throughout the South at this time in regard to the secession of the States bid fair to lead to violent seizure of Government property, and made it necessary for individual commanders to judge for themselves in many cases as to the proper course to pursue for the protection of the public property under their charge or the preservation of their commands.

n the exercise of this judgment Major Robert Anderson had just transferred his command—Companies E and H—from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter; Company B, in January, occupied Fort Taylor; and Company G, also in January, moved from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. Company D, at Baton Rouge Barracks, La., 500 miles from any possibility of support was forced to leave for the North in January; and the garrison of Eagle Pass—Companies F and L and Battery K—just escaped being included in Twigg's surrender by marching to Brownsville, where, with Company M, it embarked for loyal territory in March.

On the 1st of April, 1861 but five posts within the limits of the seceded States were still occupied by United States troops. These were Fort Monroe, Va.; Fort Sumter, S. C.; Fort Taylor, Key West, Fla.; Fort Jefferson, Tortugas, Fla.; and Fort Pickens, Pensacola Harbor, Fla. Of these the four last named were garrisoned wholly or in great part by the First Artillery, and Company C was among the troops composing the garrison of Fort Monroe.

The story of Sumter has been told again and again. It fell to the lot of the First Artillery to fire the first shot in defense of the flag, and that shot had a result such as the wisest Southerner could not have foretold. Few Northerners even could foresee that it announced the beginning of the end of human slavery in North America.

At an early period of the war it became evident that the companies of the regular artillery were all or nearly all to serve as light batteries. No explicit orders to that effect appear to have been issued, but company after company was mounted until the twelve companies of the regiment had all been equipped either as mounted or as horse artillery. The practice of uniting the batteries by twos to man single batteries began early in the war and continued till the end.

Until May, 1864, Batteries E, G, H, I and K, served with the Army of the Potomac; B, C, D and M, on the southern Atlantic coast; and A, F and L, in Florida and Louisiana; but in the latter part of 1864 all were in Virginia.

It is not possible within the limits to which this sketch must be confined to give any adequate account of the 98 battles, sieges, combats, actions, skirmishes or affairs, in which the regiment was represented during the Civil War. Batteries were present in all the chief engagements in Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, and the coast of South Carolina. They were at Antietam, Appomatox, Bull Run, Cedar Creek, Chancellorsville, Cold Harbor, Drury's Bluff, Fair Oaks, Fisher's Hill, Fort Bisland, Fort Pickens, Fort Sumter, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Glendale, Irish Bend, Mansura, Olustu, Petersburg, Pleasant Hill, Port Hudson, Trevillian Station, Winchester and Williamsburg.

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Two batteries, one of the First and one of the Fifth, were in the very vortex and crisis of the battle of Bull Run; a battery of the First was in action nearly all day not far from "Deadman's Lane" at Antietam; in the line of thirty pieces which finally checked the victorious Confederates on our right at Chancellorsville were six belonging to the First; the "Crest of the Rebellion" at Gettysburg found two batteries of the First in the line against which it broke; when the last obstacle to the free navigation of the Mississippi was overcome at Port Hudson, three batteries of the First Artillery could claim their fair share of credit for the achievement; and when Early was sent "whirling through Winchester" two batteries of the First were there to assist him along.

On the 12th of April, 1861, a First Artillery garrison opened the war, and on the 9th of April, 1865, a battery of the regiment fired the last cannon-shot at the principal army of the Confederacy and almost the last shot of the war. The flag of the United States which was first lowered to the Confederate forces in Charleston Harbor, was, almost exactly four years later, raised in the capital of that Confederacy by an officer of the First Artillery.

The number of officers, then or formerly of the regiment, who were made general officers during the Civil War is so considerable as to merit notice. On the Union side these were:

Daniel Tyler, Geo. D. Ramsay, Jacob Ammen, Montgomery C. Meigs, Israel Vogdes, Wm. H. French, Joseph Hooker, Irvin McDowell, Joseph A. Haskin, James B. Ricketts, John M. Brannan, Seth Williams, Abner Doubleday, Truman Seymour, James B. Fry, Jefferson C. Davis, Absalom Baird, Adam J. Slemmer, Alvan C. Gillem, Henry W. Slocum, John M. Schofield, John W. Turner, Robert Anderson, Erasmus D. Keyes, Richard H. Jackson, Edmund Kirby, Judson Kilpatrick, Lewis G. Arnold.

On the Confederate side they were:

J. B. Magruder, H. C. Wayne, J. G. Martin, Samuel Jones, T. J. Jackson (Stonewall), A. P. Hill, Daniel Leadbetter, J. E. Slaughter, A. R. Lawton, F. A. Shoup, I. R. Trimble, W. W. Mackall.

The theory upon which our army is said to be maintained,—for the purpose of providing trained officers for higher rank in the militia or volunteers,—would seem to have been justified in the case of this particular regiment, since it was able to furnish 40 general officers when called upon for that purpose.

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Between December, 186l, and the 1st of January, 1865, sixty-eight officers are named upon the regimental return, and 38 of these were, for a part of their service at least, on detached duty. This number includes those serving with increased rank in the volunteers. When the number absent on account of wounds or from sickness is taken into account it becomes more easy to comprehend why it was, that during the Civil War it was very seldom the case that one-half of the officers belonging to the regiment were actually serving with it.

Up to the date of the battle of Gettysburg the average number present was twenty; but from that time till the close of the war the average was only thirteen, and there were at no time so many as twenty officers with their batteries. From the battle of Bull Run to the surrender at Appomatox the average number present was only 16.57, yet the regimental returns for that period show a total of 19 killed and wounded, and—what is a little remarkable—no deaths from disease.

The average strength of the regiment in enlisted men for this period was 770. Of these 54 were killed, 216 wounded, 71 missing, and 91 died of disease; making the total loss 432. In Fox's "Regimental Losses of the American Civil War" a list of the light batteries (regular and volunteer) which suffered the heaviest losses is given on page 463. Sixty-two batteries are named and among them are Battery M, at Olustee; I, at Bull Run and again at Gettysburg; H, at Chancellorsville; and A, at Port Hudson.

During the Civil War the headquarters of the regiment never took the field. For several months in 1861 there was actually no regimental commander. The sergeant-major probably received and filed the company monthly returns, but no regimental orders were issued nor any other business transacted such as properly pertains to the office of a regimental commander. Colonel Erving was retired in October, 1861, and was succeeded by Colonel Justin Dimick with station at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. In November he named Lieutenant Dimick as the regimental adjutant but in the July following the adjutant applied for field service and from that time until the close of the war there was no officer actually serving as adjutant of the regiment. There had been no regimental quartermaster since June, 1860, and none was appointed till June, 1876. Colonel Dimick nominally commanded the regiment until the close of the year 1863, when Captain Wm. Silvey, the senior officer in the regiment not holding higher rank in the volunteer service, was directed to relieve him. He acted as regimental commander, with station at Concord, N. H., until January, 1866.

Almost at the very beginning of the Civil War, therefore, the regimental organization simply went to pieces. All the field officers held higher volunteer rank or were superannuated, and there was no regimental staff. The sole duty left to the nominal regimental commander was to consolidate the monthly returns of the individual batteries. Captains appointed and mustered their own non-commissioned officers without any reference to him, and he exercised no control of any kind over his companies. Yet the artillery, without exception, did exceedingly well during the war and contributed largely toward the final result.

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The natural inference is, that the regimental organization is wholly superfluous when artillery is called upon to fulfil the principal end and object of its existence, though very good and even necessary during peace times, to provide for the systematic conduct of affairs and to furnish promotion to the officers of the arm. Whether organized in regiments or as a corps, the actual result, so far as regimental or corps control is concerned, would undoubtedly have been the same, with the resulting inference that, for actual service, no organization higher than the single battery is necessary.

It is simply impossible that this can be true.

The practice which obtained from the very outbreak of the war of using the single battery as the highest organization of light artillery was vicious in theory and in practice. The highest authority we have upon artillery has stated this fact, and our practice in the later years of the war,—the result of experience in the field,—proved that the battalion of batteries, under a responsible head and with still higher grades of authority to control battalions, would give results wholly impossible of attainment with divided commands.

Had the colonel of a regiment of artillery taken the field as the chief of artillery for a corps, with his field officers in their proper places as chiefs of battalions, to serve with divisions or directly under the corps commander as occasion might demand, can any one doubt for a minute the increased efficiency of that regiment as a fighting machine?

In actual practice the field officers of the regular artillery were all given volunteer rank to command infantry, and no field officers for volunteer batteries (the exceptions were very few in number) were commissioned; and when it was found by experience that artillery gained power in a geometrical ratio by concentration, captains were taken from their batteries to act as the field officers which must be had, but never, to the very end, was the point conceded that light artillery, fully as much any other arm, must have its field officers actually with it in the field.

The necessity for experienced officers to command volunteers was undeniable, and the gain to the whole service by depriving the artillery of its legitimate leaders was greater, perhaps, than the loss to the artillery itself; but there is something radically wrong in the system which brings about such a crippling of one arm.

The senior officers remaining should have been given at least temporary rank in the higher grades of their own arm to commend artillery, and had this been done, we have the assertion of the artillery officer best qualified by experience to express an opinion, that the efficiency of our arm great as it was, would thereby have been increased from one-third to one-half.

Whether the organization of the arm should be regimental or corps is a subject upon which there will always be wide divergencies of opinion; but the assertion that artillery should be so organized that when it goes into active service it shall have its complete hierarchy of command present with it, will find not one artillerist in opposition.

This can be secured under either form of organization.

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With the close of the Civil War the companies of the regiment, excepting the two which were light batteries before the war, were promptly dismounted and stationed upon the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to New York Harbor. The light batteries went to Texas. The field officers rejoined and the regimental staff was again established, so that the regular routine of garrison life was soon in operation as smoothly as though it had never been interrupted.

The artillery had had a double line of first lieutenants ever since 1821, but about this time the President was authorized to give it, in his discretion, a double line of second lieutenants as well. He availed himself of this right to some extent, the number of second lieutenants in the regiment increasing from 12 in 1866, to 22 in 1870. This was the greatest number on any annual register, and from this time it diminished until the register for 1874 showed but 7 in all. Since 1876, however, there have been two second lieutenants for a light battery and one for each foot battery. The second lieutenants appointed in the years from 1867 to 1870 are those who are now, —more than 23 years later,—patiently awaiting their captaincies, and even now with no immediate prospect of attaining them.

The regular monotony of garrison life in the years following the war was relieved from time to time by occurrences of more or less importance involving the movement of companies.

The Fenians required the presence of almost the whole of the regiment upon the northern boundary of New York in 1866 and again in 1870. Light Battery K was brought out to overawe a mob in New Orleans in 1866. A large part of the regiment was called out on four different occasions, in 1869, 1870, and 1871, to protect internal revenue officers in their pursuit of illicit whisky in the slums of Brooklyn;—and large details were made, with ever increasing frequency, for funeral escort duty for the veterans of the war.

In November of 1871 the regiment left its northern stations for those on the Atlantic and Gulf coast from Charleston, S. C., to Pensacola Harbor, Fla. Here it served three years, suffering each summer from yellow fever, but in 1875 the welcome order of relief came and by the 1st of January, 1876—the Centennial year—the regiment was stationed along the New England coast from Fort Adams, R. I., to Fort Preble, Me.

This was the year of the disputed Presidential election and in November every battery of the regiment left its station for duty in some one of the disturbed districts. One of them went from Maine to Florida, and all went into the Southern States. The mere presence of the troops was all that was required. They were never called upon to act, but it was several months before the batteries were finally allowed to return to their posts.

The labor riots of 1877 also took the whole regiment out, this time into Pennsylvania; but there was never occasion for firing a shot. The appearance of the troops sufficed to overawe the rioters.

Late in the year 1881 the regiment left New England for the Pacific coast where the batteries occupied Fort Canby and the posts in San Francisco Harbor for more than eight uneventful years.

In May, 1890, it was brought back to the Atlantic coast and stationed at

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its present (November, 1894) posts, with nine batteries and one light battery in New York Harbor, one battery at Fort Monroe, and one at Fort Sheridan, Ill. (first at Fort Riley, Kas.)

Since the last change of stations there has been but one event in its history of any importance, when at Wounded Knee, an opportunity was given Light Battery E to render gallant service which it took advantage of to the fullest extent.


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