"Mounted Battalion Officers or Not?" Topic

I'm in the process of working up Sharp Practice for use in a game that will be taking advantage of the ‘Groups' and ‘Formations' rules, to allow each Battalion to have individual companies represented as a part of a large scale Brigade v Brigade game.

As such there will be a need to show some individual officers.

The various regulations state that all Field Grade officers (Majors and above) should be mounted.

However, I suspect that this practice fell off somewhat as the war progressed and also was dependent on terrain (no horse for Chamberlain at Little Round Top, I fancy) and to some extent the bravery/foolhardiness of the individuals in question.

For game mechanics if nothing else the Brigade commander figure will be mounted but how about Colonels and Majors?

I know it will mean a generalistion but what would you do?

For ordinary movement from place to place (non combat zone) mounting these guys(regimental majors and above) is normal, but , with few exceptions, they would dismount for likely or actual engagement! You could use a double casting (mounted/dismounted versions) of course, but since wargames are usually about fighting and not marching it would seem to be a needless expense for you.

The brigade command and staff are another matter altogether of course!

Yep. A mounted field officer in an infantry fight was a Minie magnet. Smart ones dismounted.

Regimental officers were almost exclusively on foot, especially as Shagnasty notes after the first year of the war – brigade command could be mounted because they had to move from place to place, but the regimental officers knew exactly where they had to be – as Shagnasty notes, who wants to be the one mounted man among 500 troops on foot?

I would offer that it has more to do with the terrain than the danger factor.

I know this much: Just being on horseback gives you an immense amount of extended visibility. You wouldn't think that those few feet would, but they do. It helps the officer see what's ahead, what's coming, and gives him extra speed to get to where he is needed.

Same with the LtCol and the Major, who post on opposite sides of the line. The Surgeon also is mounted, so as to help him get to where he will be most needed, but that's a whole 'nother post.

I nearly always have the battalion commander mounted, and, as suggested above, have dismounted minis available when needs be.

This is from memory and so could be completely wrong, but didn't one of the brigade commanders at Pickett's charge have to request special dispensation to ride into battle because he had received a wound and so was unable to walk.

SJ: the dispensation was from a Division order recognizing the danger of being mounted upon that field. I believe either a Pfanz or a Park Historian has identified several officers who were mounted,for purposes as Docdennis and TKindred suggest.

As an exaple, Colonel Hunton, of the Eighth Virginia Infantry, Garnett's brigade, rode his horse during the charge – he and his horse were both shot, I believe fatally in the case of the horse

IIRC two of the Regimental commanders in Picket's Division rode into action, as did Garrnet and Pender while leading their Brigades.

Pettigrew and Trimble, being Divisional commanders were of course mounted and both of them, along with Garrnet and Pender were hit.

Armisted of course walked.

I'd love to know how many other Regimental and Brigade commanders elected to ride.

Personally, I would have ridden – if there had been an M1A2 available at the time!

I would think that most ACW infantrymen would be very average to poor marksmen, but there must have been a certain number in every regt. that were very good with their weapons. This would be very dangerous for a single or couple of mounted officers at decent range. Of course terrain and smoke could mitigate this somewhat. Still I would prefer not to be the only mounted guy among a couple of hundred or more most of the time (not counting running away of course)!

Since many ACW infantrymen habitually fired too high, being several feet higher than the rest of the regiment would not have been a healthy thing!

I would imagine that most field officers HAD a horse (there was an allowance in their pay to cover the cost). There were a great many advantages to being mounted. As to whether they STAYED mounted in combat, I think that would depend greatly on the circumstances.