Reliving The Life Of A Civil Soldier | |
Corps, Divisions, Brigades...?
7:45 PM, Mar. 30, 2009
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Understanding how an army in the 1860's was organized is a bit of a challenge (its still a challenge even in today's army!). The smallest of the infantry units is a company which contained about 100 men each. Each company was assigned a letter of the alphabet from A to M not including 'J' because it was too similar to an 'I'. Twelve companies made up a regiment and 3 to 4 regiments made up a brigade. The next biggest unit was the division which was made up of 3 brigades. Three divisions formed a corps (pronounced 'core') and depending on the size of an army there were from 3 to about 6 corps' in an army.Now by almost the middle of the war officers had a hard time figuring out what men were under their command. So General Phillip Kearny came up with a solution. He took a red blanket he had in his tent and cut little round pieces out of it and ordered that all the soldiers under his command to wear them on their hat. It later became popular among other officers and General Hooker made them official by ordering all soldiers to wear them. The badges were different shapes to represent a different corps and were either red, white, or blue to represent the first, second, or third divisions. 1st Division 5th Corps: 
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