After this formation of brigades had made considerable headway, and the troops were becoming better disciplined and tolerably skilled in brigade movements, McClellan began the organization of Divisions, each comprising three brigades. Before the middle of October, 1861, eleven of these divisions had been organized, each including, besides the brigades of infantry specified, from one to four light batteries, and from a company to two regiments of cavalry which had been specially assigned to it.
The next step in the direction of organization was the formation of Army Corps; but in this matter McClellan moved slowly, not deeming it best to form them until his division commanders had, by experience in the field, shown which of them, if any, had the ability to handle so large a body of troops as a corps. This certainly seemed good judgment. The Confederate authorities appear to have been governed by this principle, for they did not adopt the system of army corps until after the battle of Antietam, in September, 1862. But month’s had elapsed since Bull Run. Eighteen hundred and sixty-two had dawned. “All quiet along the Potomac” had come to be used as a by-word and reproach. That powerful moving force, Public Sentiment, was again crystallizing along its old lines, and making itself felt, and “Why don’t the army move?” was the oft-repeated question which gave to the propounder no satisfactory answer, because to him, with the public pulse again at fever-beat, no answer could be satisfactory. Meanwhile all these forces propelled their energies and persuasions in one and the same direction, the White House; and President Lincoln, goaded to desperation by their persistence and insistence, issued a War Order March 8, 1862, requiring McClellan to organize his command into five Army Corps. So far, well enough; but the order went further, and specified who the corps commanders should be, thus depriving him of doing that for which he had waited, and giving him officers in those positions not, in his opinion, the best, in all respects, that could have been selected.
But my story is not of the commanders, nor of McClellan, but of the corps, and what I have said will show how they were composed. Let us review for a moment: first, the regiments, each of which, when full, contained one thousand and forty-six men; four of these composed a brigade; three brigades were taken to form a division, and three divisions constituted a corps. This system was not always rigidly adhered to. Sometimes a corps had a fourth division, but such a case would be a deviation, and not the regular plan. So, too, a division might have an extra brigade. For example, a brigade might be detached from one part of the service and sent to join an army in another part. Such a brigade would not be allowed to remain independent in that case, but would be at once assigned to some division, usually a division whose brigades were small in numbers.
I have said that McClellan made up his brigades of four regiments. I think the usual number of regiments for a brigade is three. That gives a system of threes throughout. But in this matter also, after the first organization, the plan was modified. As a brigade became depleted by sickness, capture, and the bullet, new regiments were added, until, as the work of addition and depletion went on, I have known a brigade to have within it the skeletons of ten regiments, and even then its strength not half that of the original body. My camp was located at one time near a regiment which had only thirty-eight men present for duty.
There were twenty-five army corps in the service, at different times, exclusive of cavalry, engineer, and signal corps, and Hancock’s veteran corps. The same causes which operated to reduce brigades and divisions naturally decimated corps, so that some of them were consolidated; as, for example, the First and Third Corps were merged in the Second, Fifth, and Sixth, in the spring of 1864. At about the same time the Eleventh and Twelfth were united to form the Twentieth. But enough of corps for the present. What I have stated will make more intelligible what I shall say about
CORPS BADGES.
What are corps badges? The answer to this question is somewhat lengthy, but I think it will be considered interesting. The idea of corps badges undoubtedly had its origin with General Philip Kearny, but just how or exactly when is somewhat legendary and uncertain. Not having become a member of Kearny’s old corps until about a year after the idea was promulgated, I have no tradition of my own in regard to it, but I have heard men who served under him tell widely differing stories of the origin of the “Kearny Patch,” yet all agreeing as to the author of the idea, and also in its application being made first to officers. General E. D. Townsend, late Adjutant-General of the United States Army, in his “Anecdotes of the Civil War,” has adopted an explanation which, I have no doubt, is substantially correct. He says:—
“One day, when his brigade was on the march, General Philip Kearny, who was a strict disciplinarian, saw some officers standing under a tree by the roadside; supposing them to be stragglers from his command, he administered to them a rebuke, emphasized by a few expletives. The officers listened in silence, respectfully standing in the ‘position of a soldier’ until he had finished, when one of them, raising his hand to his cap, quietly suggested that the general had possibly made a mistake, as they none of them belonged to his command. With his usual courtesy, Kearny exclaimed, “Pardon me; I will take steps to know how to recognize my own men hereafter.” Immediately on reaching camp, he issued orders that all officers and men of his brigade should wear conspicuously on the front of their caps a round piece of red cloth to designate them. This became generally known as the ‘Kearny Patch.’”
I think General Townsend is incorrect in saying that Kearny issued orders immediately on reaching camp for all “officers and men” to wear the patch; first, because the testimony of officers of the old Third Corps to-day is that the order was first directed to officers only, and this would be in harmony with the explanation which I have quoted; and, second, after the death of Kearny and while his old division was lying at Fort Lyon, Va., Sept. 4, 1862, General D. B. Birney, then in command of it, issued a general order announcing his death, which closed with the following paragraph:—