"Battery crew Vis a vis number of guns." Topic

I gather that union batteries generally had 6 guns and Confederate generally had 4.

But how many men does that entail.

At Shiloh I assume most guns are 6pdr as that was very common in the west particularly that early in the war. Sherman's 3 batteries in his division has about 100+ men each. That sounds to low for a full 6 gun battery. I think a British 6 gun battery during the napoleonic wars was about 170 men. A French 8 gun battery over 200.

I would think about 25 men per gun, but that's just a guess.

Regarding guns, there were still quite a few Union 4 gun batteries in the Western Theatre at this time. Also, although there were still plenty of 6lb SB and 12lb howitzers, there was also…everything else. Except 12lb Napoleons. Honestly one of the things I like about the Theatre during this period is the variety in ordnance.

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100 men per battery is about right. Full strength is 8 men to work each gun with additional men to handle horses, etc.

The official Confederate regs called for a 4 gun battery to have a captain, 2 first lieutenants, 2 second lieutenants, a sergeant-major, a quartermaster sergeant, 4 sergeants, 8 corporals, 2 bugles, 1 guidon, 2 artificer and 64 to 125 privates – so 100 men per battery works out pretty well

As noted, the actual gun crews were 8

Thanks guys.

Gunfreak, according to my copy of _An American Artillerists
Companion_ (original published in 1848, mine is a reprint
published in 1995) enfant perdus is correct with (for the
Union) 8 men to a crew for a field piece (6 pounder SB).

There were to each gun 4 additional men to handle the gun's
horses and other equipment, so a piece was crewed by a
total of 12 men, 8 of whom worked the gun.

Of course there were many men not engaged in working the
guns, so total personnel strength of the battery would be
more than 12 x number of guns, but I doubt many of us would
represent them on the table.