We are an artillery company, in contradistinction to cavalry or infantry. Our cannoneers are trained to operate a cannon of the period, and training is an on-going proposition. We drill and operate according to the essential standards of the artillery drill section of Gilham’s Manual for Volunteers & Militia by William Gilham, a publication that is available for purchase through The Washington Artillery, although we provide an adapted, abbreviated Artillery Drill Manual as part of each member’s packet of introductory materials. We work hard to perform our drills crisply and correctly, and to execute our positions as correctly and precisely as possible. Some drill procedures have been added or amended in order to ensure that our service on the piece is as safe as possible, making 5th Company’s drill the safest in re-enacting as well as being the sharpest.

Only about six percent of the soldiers in the War Between the States enlisted in the artillery branch of the Army, yet the artillery played a pivotal role in virtually every major engagement of the War. From the massed Union batteries at Stones River and Malvern Hill to the bold attacks of the Confederate 5th Company - Washington Artillery at Shiloh to the courageous field work of the horse artillery at Fredericksburg to the heavy artillery's defense of coastal Mobile in the closing days of the War, cannons were always a major factor in a battle’s outcome, and often the decisive one.

Because of the service and performance of artillery batteries like The Washington Artillery during the War Between the States, artillery companies have come to be recognized as an elite corps, the best-drilled units, and we strive to maintain that reputation. A well-drilled artillery battery is a delight to watch as the men on each cannon perform in concert with one another, their movements clean and complementary to each other, precise and sharp, ending with the cannon issuing forth an explosion of smoke and thunder that produces a ground-shaking rumble and a haze of fog across the battlefield.

Our company drills according to the manual, and the manual includes modern modifications made for safety's sake.

Each man’s position on the cannon was given a number in the early days of artillery units. It became common in the camps during the War Between the States for the men to refer to one another according to the number of their usual position, so ingrained did the use of those numbers in the seemingly endless, repetitive drills become.

Many men complained of the boredom of the drills, performing the same functions repeatedly, almost mindlessly.  That was a good thing, much as they could not appreciate that fact when they drilled. 

The repetition of the drill coupled with your paying close attention to the man standing on the opposite side of the cannon from you had - and has - a serious purpose. You will come to appreciate that when you are standing at your post with cannons firing to the left and right of you, cannons firing all across the field from you. In the din of battle, verbal commands may be garbled or even impossible to hear or understand. Visual signals from superior officers and each other - the drill - may be all that you have to initiate action, so that even without orders the cannoneers will still be able to function as a cohesive, coordinated fighting unit. Knowing that your counterpart on the cannon generally mirrors your own actions is a tremendous aid in helping to keep you focused on your position, and helping you anticipate their points of progress as you service the piece.

Divisions or brigades of re-enactors often conduct a School of the Piece for their artillerymen during the course of each re-enacting season at which their artillerymen are trained, or re-trained, to keep them sharp.

Not so with The Washington Artillery.

We consider every event we attend to be a School of the Piece for our artillerymen. For safety and for the benefit of the crews - each of which may well be different in composition of personnel from event to event - we drill and train at every event. Our cannoneers are sharper and operate far more safely than most others as a direct result of our commitment to their continued training. Further, we strive to train our cannoneers at each of the post positions to ensure that they understand how each Number is to function, and to provide replacements already trained for every position in the event that it becomes necessary to replace any man. In this way, our impression is more accurate than most.

One notable difference between 5th Company - Washington Artillery and many other re-enacting artillery companies lies in the number of charges we will commonly fire on a given day at an event. Unless limited for some reason by the event host, we will fire somewhere in the vicinity of forty blank charges of black powder per cannon over a two-day period. That translates to as many as two to three times as many charges as many other companies will fire, meaning that our cannoneers get more exposure and experience in a weekend than many cannon crews get in two to three weekend events. Experience only adds to the professionalism and crispness of our impression, as well as making us a much more safe company because we are more experienced.

Some in our hobby feel that re-enacting companies should adopt only the names of companies that actually saw action in the geographic area in which that group of re-enactors travels. Others even insist that no re-enacting company should be allowed to re-enact at a site where their namesake company did not actually fight. The difficulty, simply put, is this: to do so would require either a large number of company names attached to any re-enacting group, or their range of travel and participation would be either terribly limited or quite prohibitive (for example, 5th Company - Washington Artillery saw duty in Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia, traveling 3,285 miles by foot and 2,939 miles by rail). Moreover, given the unique appearance of many companies’ uniforms (including our own), the investment in accurately-styled clothing could be absolutely outrageous, and few events would see more than a handful of re-enactors ultimately. Therefore, we are The Washington Artillery - 5th Company or the 6th Massachusetts Light Artillery wherever we go.

Roughly half the time we portray a Federal company.    As a consequence, we are eligible - and invited - to attend more events than re-enacting companies that do not galvanize (the practice of wearing either Confederate or Federal uniform is called "galvanizing").  It is sometimes hard to get enough "bad guys", as not everyone in the South wants to wear the uniform of the North (just as Northern re-enactors sometimes have a hard time raising enough Confederate "bad guys"); but it’s a poor battle when there is only one side represented.

In times past, The Washington Artillery found itself relegated almost exclusively to the role of Federal artillery over the course of a season because we will galvanize, although other artillery companies have refused to do so. One year, event organizers at almost every event capitalized on our willingness to galvanize, resulting in our being Federal almost every time we came together. We will not allow that to happen ever again. While we are proud to represent either side, we refuse to lose our identity as The Washington Artillery.

- Major Stiles, Adjutant, Cabell's Battalion

The artillery is an extraordinary organization, both to watch and in which to be an active participant. Although it strikes those outside of re-enacting initially as interesting because it appears so odd or out of the normal range of experience to them, it is especially interesting to those of us within re-enacting circles because it is so spectacular in size and scope. Most folks, and women in particular, seem to find the cavalry to be the most fascinating part of the military of that era, and arguably the most dashingly romantic of the branches of service in appearance - until they see the artillery in action.

And it was the same way with our forebears during the War Between the States. Artillerymen were recognized as specialists from the start and were given higher pay than the infantry. In Hardtack and Coffee, John D. Billings of the 10th Massachusetts Light Battery described how even the most jaded, battle-hardened, experienced infantrymen would turn out to watch the drill of a battery of field artillery. With a dozen six-horse teams operating at close quarters and frantic speed, and with fifty cannoneers driving hard behind them to unlimber the guns and take their posts, an artillery Company’s drill was such a spectacle that not even the most splendid of cavalry reviews could share its commotion and excitement; a mounted artillery company today is just as enthralling to watch as it was during the War. Once the guns were unlimbered and the cannoneers at their posts, their firing drill commenced, adding the fury of roaring cannons to the excitement of the horses racing and men chasing.

For artillery re-enactors to perform their tasks well and intelligently, a fundamental understanding of the artillery branch of the service is necessary. As self-evident as that seems, it is appalling to see how many re-enactors servicing cannons have absolutely no idea of what it is they are doing, much less knowing anything of the history of artillery in this country, or even of the history of artillery in the period we re-enact.

The unit of organization for the field artillery was the Company, more commonly known after the War Between the States as the Battery. A typical Federal Company had either six or four guns in the beginning of the War, although some batteries might have as many as eight pieces. By War’s end, both sides had fairly well standardized as the Confederates generally had standardized from the War’s start - four guns comprised a Company.

However, it should also be noted that there were still many exceptions to the rule on both sides. In re-enacting, as soon as you have landed on what seems to be an absolute, further research will almost invariably find a host of exceptions to whatever rule you are espousing.

Early on in the War, two to three artillery Companies were assigned to each infantry Brigade. Consistent with Sherman's assertion that "A battery of field artillery is worth a thousand muskets", the Captain of a Company had duties and responsibilities more consistent with those of a Colonel over an infantry Regiment than those of a Captain of infantry over a Company. The artillery Captain would often report directly to a Brigadier General, most especially during the early stages of the War.

The four-year course of the War would see many changes in attitudes toward the artillery. It would also see many changes which would finally define for that era the organizational assignment that would maximize the use of artillery Companies.

Although there was a great deal of tinkering with the organization of the artillery, the propensity over the course of the War was to concentrate firepower at a Division level. That resulted in a multiple number of Companies of artillery (most commonly referred to as a Battalion within the Confederate Army, and a Brigade within the Federal Army) falling under the command of a field officer. When there was also a separate artillery reserve, it would be commanded by a general officer who had supervision over the artillery forces of the entire army, or so the theory went. The empirical evidence could not always support that idea, however. The conflict between Generals Hancock and Hunt over the deployment of the Second Corps Artillery at the Battle of Gettysburg is just one of many examples of how ill-defined and murkily understood the chain of command could be at times.

An artillery Company was commanded by a Captain, and each section (comprised of two cannons) was commanded by a Lieutenant. Sections frequently would function as independent units in small-scale operations. Each gun was under the command of a sergeant, with two corporals serving beneath him, one corporal being the Gunner and the other as Chief of the Caisson. Only seven cannoneers were necessary to serve a piece, but each cannon required a total of twenty-five to thirty men to keep it in proper operating condition and in the field.

As a practical matter in re-enacting, most artillery Companies do very well to draw as many as seven men per gun, including their Gunner.

There were numerous incidents during the War in which the cannon crews were so badly decimated by the opposing forces that the cannons were manned by a reduced crew, as was the case with a Washington Artillery crew at the battle of Antietam.  Commenting on reduced crews of artillery by way of commenting on his own, as well as his staff's, activities during the battle of Antietam, General Longstreet observed that:

"We were under the crest of a hill occupying a position that ought to have been held by from four to six brigades.  The only troops there were Cooke’s regiment of North Carolina infantry, and they were without a cartridge.  As I rode along the line with my staff, I saw two pieces of the Washington Artillery (Miller’s battery), but there were not enough men to man them.   The gunners had been either killed or wounded.  This was a fearful situation for the Confederate center.  I put my staff-officers to the guns while I held their horses.  It was easy to see that if the Federals broke through our line there, the Confederate army would be cut in two and probably destroyed, for we were already badly whipped and were only holding our ground by sheer force of desperation.  Cooke sent me word that his ammunition was out. I replied that he must hold his position as long as he had a man left.  He responded that he would show his colors as long as there was a man alive to hold them up.  We loaded up our little guns with canister and sent a rattle of hail into the Federals as they came up over the crest of the hill.

"That little battery shot harder and faster, with a sort of human energy, as though it realized that it was to hold the thousands of Federals at bay or the battle was lost.  So warm was the reception we gave them that they dodged back behind the crest of the hill.  We sought to make them believe we had many batteries before them.  As the Federals would come up they would see the colors of the North Carolina regiment waving placidly and then would receive a shower of canister.   We made it lively while it lasted.  In the meantime General Chilton, General Lee’s chief of staff, made his way to me and asked, ‘Where are the troops you are holding your line with?’  I pointed to my two pieces and to Cooke’s regiment, and replied, ‘There they are; but that regiment hasn’t a cartridge.’

"Chilton’s eyes popped as though they would come out of his head; he struck spurs to his horse and away he went to General Lee.  I suppose he made some remarkable report, although I did not see General Lee again until night.   After a little shot came across the Federal front, plowing the ground in a parallel line.  Another and another, each nearer and nearer their line.  This enfilade fire, so distressing to soldiers, was from a battery on D.H. Hill’s line, and it soon beat back the attacking column.

"Meanwhile, R.H. Anderson and Hood came to our support and gave us more confidence.  It was a little while only until another assault was made against D.H. Hill, and extending far over toward our left, where McLaws and Walker were supporting Jackson.  In this desperate effort, the lines seemed to swing back and forth for many minutes; but at last they settled down to their respective positions, the Confederates holding with a desperation which seemed to say, ‘We are here to die’."