American Infantry Battalions (1914-1917)

Battalion: An Organizational Study of the United States Infantry

The estate of the late John Sayen has graciously given the Tactical Notebook permission to serialize his study of the organizational evolution of American infantry battalions. The author’s preface and the previous section of this book may be found via the following links:

Meanwhile, the Army staff continued to refine the structure of its infantry regiments. Although the core of a regiment’s strength remained in its 12 rifle companies, the Army staff began to organize regimental headquarters personnel, augmented by men detached from the rifle companies into provisional regimental headquarters, machinegun and supply companies. These companies, which first began to appear in 1912, were provisional because Congress had neither recognized their existence nor appropriated any money for them. Thus the Army could only create them by using men and equipment that really belonged to other units. In February 1914, the Army published its first official Tables of Organization (see below) and these described the new companies in detail.

To a large extent, however, the new companies represented recognition of existing practices. The regimental headquarters company consisted of the regimental band, the regimental and battalion adjutants and sergeants major, and a section of about 20 messengers and orderlies taken from the rifle companies. Eight orderlies worked with the regimental commander directly. Several worked at brigade headquarters (which had no enlisted men of its own). The battalion adjutants and sergeants major, plus a few more messengers and orderlies would work with their respective battalions. Thus each battalion headquarters detachment (there were no battalion headquarters companies) came from the regimental headquarters company. Two color sergeants (who carried the regimental colors on parade) were in charge of regimental discipline.[1]

The regiment’s five quartermaster and commissary officers (including three battalion supply officers) and its quartermaster and commissary sergeants commanded the supply company and (as an additional duty) its machinegun company. Both the supply and machinegun companies had to be composed almost entirely of men detached from the rifle companies and thus tended to reduce the regiment’s fighting strength (see Appendix 1.3). The supply company supported the quartermaster and commissary officers in their traditional roles. It would obtain supplies from Quartermaster Corps supply trains (or by local purchase when practical) and forward them to the rifle companies. For transportation, the supply company would improvise regimental combat and field trains using vehicles and horses obtained from the Quartermaster Corps and drivers from the rifle companies. Regiments serving overseas (in the Philippines, Hawaii, or the Canal Zone) would get drivers as well as vehicles and teams from the Quartermaster Corps and would not have to weaken their rifle companies. A maximum strength regiment in the United States would operate 21 four-mule Quartermaster supply wagons, each carrying a 2,465-pound payload. This payload could increase by as much as 300 pounds if necessary. The nine wagons that carried ammunition were known as “combat” wagons and, together with any vehicles carrying medical supplies (and the machinegun company’s combat wagon, if it had one), constituted the regiment’s “combat train.” The combat train carried everything that the regiment was likely to need in combat. The remaining 12 wagons (four carrying baggage and camp equipage and the other eight carrying rations) constituted the “field train.” The field train carried everything the regiment needed when not in actual combat. A minimum strength regiment normally had only three combat wagons (they had to supply their own drivers). This was enough for “in garrison” requirements. If more were needed (and could be justified) the Quartermaster Corps would supply them, together with the necessary drivers.[2]

Despite the presence of an albeit provisional machinegun company, a regiment’s firepower still depended largely on its rifles. The regimental combat train carried 120 rounds per rifle and 20 rounds per revolver or 21 rounds per automatic pistol. This was addition to the 100 rounds each rifle armed soldier carried on his belt and the 20 or 21 rounds carried by each revolver or pistol armed officer or man. The machinegun company’s ammunition wagon (if it had one) carried 26,400 rounds for the company’s four machineguns. The four pack mules with each machinegun squad carried a total of 4,800 rounds if the squad was armed with the Benet-Mercie machinegun or 6,250 rounds if it used the VSM gun. If battle were imminent, the regimental commander would normally order the combat train to issue all of its ammunition to the troops. Each rifleman would thus get a total of 220 rounds. The machinegun company’s wagon would dump all its ammunition on the gun squads’ positions. This ammunition would have to last until the combat wagons could hurry to the rear and return with another load from the division combat train.[3]

The field train operated somewhat differently. Its job was to lighten the soldier’s load by carrying items that were either not very portable or not continuously needed. It had to make baggage appear when it was required for making camp and then make it disappear when the troops broke camp and were on the march again. The field train also included the field kitchens. Ration wagons supported the latter by bringing them food from the division field train but the preparation and issue of meals by the kitchens themselves posed special challenges. Increases in the effective range of artillery and small arms fire were making the supply of three meals a day to troops in contact with the enemy ever more hazardous. Although emergency rations based on biscuit, dried beef, and other preserved food existed for situations in which the normal food supply system failed, they had not proven satisfactory.[4]

Since 1865, the US Army medical corps furnished each of the Army’s regiments with a medical detachment. This detachment was organized according to a scheme first introduced by Army Medical Corps Major Jonathan Letterman. Letterman was a Civil War veteran who, like many of his peers, had been appalled at the plight of wounded men subjected to the tender mercies of the then existing military medical system. Many soldiers died where they fell because no provision had been made for evacuating them from the battlefield. Wounded men at Gettysburg, for example, typically had to lie out in the open for three days before being picked up. Those who survived this ordeal would likely face the even worse trial of being operated on, without anesthetics, by an overworked regimental surgeon who, with a few largely untrained assistants, functioned under the most primitive, even barbaric conditions. Alternatively, a wounded man might be sent to one of the hospitals that existed in the larger cities or major military camps. These were much better equipped and staffed but a seriously injured soldier stood only a slim chance of surviving a journey to one of them since he would receive little if any medical attention along the way. Under either method, even if a man did not actually die, he was unlikely to ever again be fit for front line military service.[5]

Letterman’s response to this situation was to call for enough stretcher-bearers from each regiment to get the wounded off the battlefield early and into the hands of trained medical orderlies. These would furnish essential treatment only and would then send a casualty to the rear through successive stations in a systematic evacuation chain. Each station in the chain would be capable of giving more extensive treatment than the previous one. The end of the chain would be the base hospital but only the most gravely wounded needed to go that far. Men with less serious injuries could get rapid and adequate treatment at the lower stations well before shock, gangrene, or other complications set in. They would not only survive but could even return to full duty. Letterman’s ideas, though sometimes implemented locally, ran into a great deal of conservative opposition and were not officially adopted until nearly the end of the century. In the 1914 infantry regiment, Letterman’s system began at the company level. A rifle company would have an enlisted medical aidman attached to it. This man would render first aid to the wounded and arrange for their evacuation, if necessary, by stretcher teams traditionally provided by the regimental band. These would move casualties to a battalion aid station staffed by a surgeon and his enlisted assistants. From here, wounded men would move by stretcher or ambulance to a regimental aid station. The more serious cases could then proceed to higher echelons. The system could not function completely in peacetime since a peace strength medical detachment could only man the regimental and one of the battalion aid stations and provide aidmen for perhaps half the companies. Later versions of this medical detachment would be considerably strengthened.[6]

Under the Uptonian doctrine the the US Army was still following in 1914, a rifle company would organize itself for parade or battle by lining up all its privates and corporals in two ranks according to height (tall men on the right). Eight-man squads would then be counted off, each squad having four men from each rank. Corporals would be distributed so that there was at least one per squad. A maximum strength company would have a lot of extra privates so senior privates first class (PFC) might command some squads. No squad should have more than eight or less than six men. Squads that fell below six men would either be broken up or rebuilt by transfers from other squads. If extra men remained but not enough to form another squad, they would be distributed behind the company’s rear rank to serve as “file closers.” If a company had suffered significant casualties it would reorganize itself by dissolving enough squads to fill the remainder to six or eight men apiece. Once the squads were organized they would be assigned to platoons. Each platoon would get two to four squads, a “guide,” and a platoon leader. The company would form not less than two or more than four platoons; hence its maximum strength was 16 squads (four platoons of four squads each). Squads were numbered from the right, one through 16 (or less). The most senior platoon was on the right and was always commanded by the senior lieutenant. The junior lieutenant commanded the platoon on the left, which was regarded as the company’s second senior platoon. The center or center right platoon always went to the first sergeant. If there were a center left platoon, it would fall under a sergeant. If the company were short a lieutenant then sergeants would lead the center left and right platoons while the first sergeant commanded the left. Sergeants also served as platoon guides, who functioned in much the same way as platoon sergeants do now. If there were extra sergeants, some platoons would get a second guide. In combat the platoons and their squads would stay close enough to the company commander to receive voice commands or visual signals. The company fought with its platoons and squads forming a single line, not a double line as in the Civil War. A column formation would be used for movement. Tactics emphasized the gaining of fire superiority before any frontal attacks were launched.[7]

The February 1914 Tables of Organization also, for the first time, described the organizations of brigades and divisions although Congress had not previously authorized anything larger than a regiment except in wartime. Now, however, the United States Army and the “Organized Militia” or National Guard would (on paper) constitute between them some 16 infantry divisions, a cavalry division, two separate cavalry brigades, a Hawaiian Brigade, three coast artillery districts, various field army and army troops, plus some smaller overseas garrisons. As in the Spanish American War, an infantry brigade would have three regiments. An infantry division would get three brigades plus a regiment each of cavalry and field artillery, and a battalion of engineers. The Organized Militia would man 12 of the infantry divisions, selected army troops, an infantry regiment in Hawaii, and about 40% of the coast artillery. The first four divisions would be manned by the Regular Army but of these only the Second was even theoretically complete. The First and Third Divisions had only two thirds of their infantry, and the Third had no artillery. The unfortunate Fourth Division had no units assigned to it at all. Nine Regular infantry regiments were overseas. Three of them were in Hawaii (forming the Hawaiian Brigade) and the rest were in the Philippines, the Canal Zone, and China. The 12 Organized Militia divisions were complete (more or less) in infantry but were still very short in field artillery and engineers. For all its shortcomings, however, this was by far the largest, best-trained, best-equipped, and most powerful peacetime army that the United States had ever fielded. Since there was never any real invasion threat at home (beyond the occasional border raid from Mexico) the Army could expect to do all its fighting overseas.[8]

Editor’s Note: The format of the many appendices to this work fit poorly with Substack. For that reason, I have placed them on a PDF file that can be found at Military Learning Library, a website that I maintain.

---

[1]General Staff of the US Army, “Tables of Organization” (Washington DC 25 February 1914)

[2]Ibid.

[3]General Staff of the US Army, “Tables of Organization” (Washington DC 25 February 1914)

[4]LTC William G. Livesay, “Supply in the New Regiment” Infantry Journal Vol. XLVI No 6 Nov-Dec 1939

[5] LTC John R. Darrah, USAMC, “The Medical Company, Infantry Regiment” The Infantry School Quarterly Volume XXXI (Fort Benning Georgia, The USA Infantry School, 1947 pp. 81-82.

[6]Ibid. See also General Staff of the US Army, “Tables of Organization” (Washington DC 25 February 1914).

[7]O. O. Ellis and E. B. Garey, The Plattsburg Manual  (New York, the Century Company 1918) pp. 86-152. The authors were instructors to the Plattsburg Citizens Military Training Camp at Plattsburg NY. They instructed at other camps in 1917. The book reflects prewar organization and doctrine, its publication having been delayed by American entry into the First World War.

[8]General Staff of the US Army, “Tables of Organization” (Washington DC 25 February 1914)