A Question of time?

[GrumpyDave]

My brain's shut off....

Who was responsible for keeping time for a battalion?

For each company within the batallion?

Seems to me it's the Sar. Major. Anyway. If the entire battalion went by his time, why would anyone else NEED a watch? ( I didn' t say have a watch) If one guy's telling the bugler(s) when to sound camp calls from the Corps, Division, Brigade and so on levels, one watch in a division would be all that's really needed, right? I'm not referring to calls of movement on a battlefield. Camp calls. When to get up, Dress parade, Mounting of the Guard(s), Sick etc. Who kept the time so he could tell the chief bugler when to blow what?:p

Now...since there were folks responsible for keeping time, according to the army regs...did the army issue those folks watches? Any existing examples? I'm not interested in opinions, just the facts man...

[c.irelan]

Re: A Question of time?

To my knowledge neither army issued a time pice to anyone. But you are half correct the Sgt Major is the time keeper for the battalion but his time is set to that of the Colonel.

Chris Irelan

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: A Question of time?

I would have said that the most logical person in which to place that responsibility is the adjutant. If we look at Kautz's CoS for officers, we see that he's the "official organ" (I'm sure there's a more common name) of the colonel, conveys his orders and makes sure they're obeyed, keeps the roster of officers and makes the details, forms & marches the guard, makes and parades all details, etc. Moreover, he supervises the music.

That said, the sergeant-major is the primary assistant to the adjutant and, in para. 545 of the CoS for NCOs & Soldiers, Kautz states: "He generally keeps the time at headquarters and sees that the musician detailed for the purpose at headquarters sounds the calls at the proper time."

So the sergeant major actually does it, but the adjutant would have overall responsibility.

More to your point, the calls set the time for the whole rest of the regiment, so long as the companies serve together, and there shouldn't be a need for anyone else to have a watch. If any are detached, however, then by analogy the first sergeant ought to be able to tell the time.

There are other occasions in which people are assumed to have access to some sort of time piece. On guard mount, for example, someone has to know when to send out the relief. Also on the march, someone should decide when to take a break, and when to get moving again. In J. W. DeForest's article "Forced Marches", he describes passes written out at the beginning of the day that allow men to fall out for ten minutes. When the soldier needs one, he goes to his officer who writes down the man's name and the time. He's supposed to get back in ten minutes. This process assumes that both the officer issuing them and the provost have watches that approximately agree.

The army does not issue any watches, which would imply that officers are expected to supply them for themselves like any other piece of necessary equipment.

The practice of enlisted men owning watches would seem to have more to do with the pay and bounty of the northern volunteer than any military need. In some cases, soldiers learned the downside the hard way. Here's something I just saw the other day in Augustus Meyer's memoir about the fighting during the Seven Days (Ten Years in the Ranks, U.S. Army):

While this firing was going on, I think each man tried to make himself as thin as possible. I know that I did. Each time I heard the scream of a shell coming our way, I hugged the ground so close that I broke the crystal and hands of an open-faced watch which I carried in my pocket, and I felt a great sense of relief when I heard the explosion of the shell behind me.

He doesn't mention carrying a watch again.

[john duffer]

Re: A Question of time?

If memory serves the Sergeant Major is the official time keeper, I believe I got this from Kautz rather than US Regulations.