pioneers

[98thpvi]

I have looked in my books and asked some of my unit members and nobody seems to know. So if anyone could help me out with this question. I am trying to portray a pioneer in the army of the patomac. I know in the western thearter they had a pioneer corp. I also believe that every company had two men designated as pioneers. So did every regiment have pioneers and if so did they have them through the entire war. Also did they wear the crossed hatchets or not. Thank you.

Chris

Christopher harwick
98th pvi Co.A

[flattop32355]

Re: pioneers

Take a shot at the search function with "pioneers". There's a few things there that might help.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: pioneers

Bernie makes a great point. The issue of pioneers was discussed on this forum at some length in the past six months. I'm not sure, however, if the info survived some of the forum crashes/server transfers. Hopefully it did because it had some great info on this commonly-asked question, and some first-person accounts regarding Eastern Federal pioneers.

[NoahBriggs]

Re: pioneers

There was a recent issue of Civil War Historian which addressed your precise questions.

[unionprivate]

Re: pioneers

Read Kautz customs of service for the NCO. Describes duties of pioneers and engineers. You can pick the book up for about $15 or read it for free online. Do a search and you will be directed to the website. Cheers.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Re: pioneers

From my chapter on fieldworks in a book-in-publication-that-cannot-be-named-on-this-forum (note: the annotations do not carry through when cutting and pasting and are therefore not included in this post). Please note that the following covers a lot more than just pioneers, but is provided to show where pioneers "fit" in the larger scheme of who was building what in the Civil War army.

****************

Various sets of men were responsible for laying out and constructing fieldworks:

• Corps of Engineers: This, together with the Corps of Topographical Engineers (a separate department of the army) was the elite branch in the United States Army in the Civil War. Officers of the Corps were typically at or near the top of their West Point class. The Engineer’s duties are summarized below. Members of the Corps usually served as staff officers.
• Engineering Staff Officers: Each commanding general (brigade, division, corps, field army) in the Union army was allowed one engineering staff officer. Optimally, this was one of the Corps of Engineers but, because the fighting branches of the service expanded faster than the Corps during the Civil War, the majority of engineering staff officers were “acting Engineers” and were, of necessity, often self-taught using period manuals, and perhaps possessing an engineering background in civilian life. In 1865 August Kautz wrote, “The Engineer’s duties…require a greater and more varied knowledge of military science than those of any other officer of the Army.” Some staff engineers had one or two enlisted men detailed for surveying and mapping.
• Field and Line Officers: When built under fire, the initial line of fieldworks was often selected by regimental field and line officers, and construction was directly supervised by them. It was not uncommon for Engineer officers to later adjust portions of the line to better positions. Non-engineer officers also sited works at isolated, small posts; for example, a company commander wrote of his position near Manassas, Virginia in December 1863, “We found a quantity of timber that had been taken there to build a block-house, and this I at once used in the construction of breastworks.”
• Rank and File: The majority of fieldworks constructed by the Army of the Potomac (and other Civil War field armies) were built by rank-and-file enlisted men, wielding a variety of issued and improvised hand tools.
• Pioneers: A small number of men in each company might be designated as pioneers for a larger unit, such as their brigade or division. Pioneers were typically ad-hoc, temporary details assigned to fatigue duties such as fieldworks construction and roadway work; pioneers were not “permanent” units. Men were selected for such details because they were good ax-men, or possessed other construction-related skills.
• Engineering Regiments: The Army of the Potomac maintained a few “engineer” or construction regiments, including the 15th New York and 50th New York Volunteers, for tasks such as building pontoon bridges and other specialized work. While these regiments sometimes built fieldworks—especially revetment construction—they were too few in number to do a significant amount of earthwork.
• Non-military Labor: On occasion the Union army used non-military labor, such as “contraband” African-Americans. When employed, these were largely for rear-area tasks, not for constructing fieldworks in the face of the enemy, although contrabands sometimes assisted Union army pioneers.

In the field, Engineer officers were the military science “brain” on a commanding general’s staff. Kautz summarized the non-administrative aspects of a staff Engineer’s duties:

“The selection of lines of defence [sic]; [supervising] the construction of fortifications; reconnaissance of fortified places, and [preparation of] plans for attack; [planning] works for the defence of fortified places; reconnoisances [sic] and surveys in the field, and the preparation of maps and charts; [supervising] the construction of bridges and passage of rivers; the laying out of lines and construction of materials for siege operations, etc., constitute the proper part of an Engineer officer’s duty, varying from knowledge of the simplest rifle-pit to the erection of a permanent bastion fort.”

Successful Engineer officers possessed a sense termed military coup d’oeil, which was the talent for understanding at a glance the weak and strong points of a position.

*****************

[boozie]

Re: pioneers

Here is a nice link about the western Pioneer Brigade.

https://www.thecivilwargroup.com/pioneer.html

[roundshot]

Re: pioneers

That's good stuff, Scott. Thanks for the link.

[Rob Walker]

Re: pioneers

There is a book that may answer some of your questions. I read it last year and it is a bit short but informative none-the-less. The title is " Manual For The Instruction of Civil War Pioneer Troops, Consisting of Organization. & Equipment of Infantry Pioneers" by James Lancel McElhinney. I purchased it last year from Dell's Leather Works but I can't remember how much it was. It is about 50 pages long. The ISBN number (incase anyone needs it) is 0-9670957-1-9 from the Bent, St. Vrain& Company Publishing www.BentStVrain.org.

[Mark Susnis]

Re: pioneers

Speaking of pioneers...Check out this image from the LOC. Look at what is on the sleeve of the soldier in the lower left corner...

TITLE: [Fort Burnham, Va. Encampment and earthworks]
CALL NUMBER: LC-B811- 2498[P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-DIG-cwpb-01824 (digital file from original neg. of left half)
LC-DIG-cwpb-01825 (digital file from original neg. of right half)
LC-B8171-2498 (b&w film neg.)
No known restrictions on publication.
SUMMARY: Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, the Army of the James, June 1864-April 1865.
MEDIUM: 1 negative (2 plates) : glass, stereograph, wet collodion.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: [Between 1860 and 1865]

Regards,
Mark Susnis

[roundshot]

Re: pioneers

Great photo-I've seen many times but never noticed the pioneer. He is reclining on a pair of shovels. The guy on the far right has an 18th Corps badge on the left breast of his blouse. Thanks for posting.